This course examines plays written in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth. You will study a minimum of eight plays selected from works written in English by Wilde; Synge; O'Casey; Yeats; Shaw; and O'Neill; as well as from works in translation by Ibsen; Strindberg; Chekhov; and Pirandello. There will be an emphasis on cultural and social issues relating to gender; class; and nationality; as well as attention to dramatic traditions (such as realism; naturalism; symbolism and expressionism) and staging.