To explore modern European theatre by looking at plays, playwrights and key theatre practitioners of the last 150 years. We will be looking at playtexts, videos of plays and hopefully a shared theatre trip. We will explore the rise of naturalism in Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov: Irish theatre in Synge and Beckett; Brecht and epic theatre; Pirandello and Dario Fo; Lorca; the theatre of the absurd; Peter Brook; Harold Pinter; the rise of 'physical theatre'. This is to be an extended version of the course I have run in previous years and I see it taking two years to complete it. Instead of looking at fragments of plays as before, we will be exploring complete performances of plays where possible.