<p> Adam Rapp's <i>Red Light Winter</i>, produced by the University Players at California State University, Long Beach is a play that explores the difference between memory, nostalgia, and reality. The creation of an effective scenic design involves zeroing in on the central meaning of the piece and formulating through metaphoric and poetic associations a stage design that effectively communicates these associations and meanings to the audience. <i>Red Light Winter</i> is ultimately about how people struggle to reconcile their memories, the reality of the present, and strong feelings of nostalgia and how these three things can become intertwined, sometimes to disastrous effect. This visual and poetic association allows for the creation of a room space on stage that forces the audience to look metaphorically through the walls of the room into a confined and claustrophobic memory space. The creation of this room by definition also creates a space outside this room. Just as the audience is peering through the walls of the room and into the memories of the characters, all three characters at some point must see beyond their own memories and catch a glimpse of the harsh reality - the "outside" - of their lives.</p>

<p> Abstract not available.</p>

<p> Monody in musical dramatic presentations emanates from an early Baroque opera genesis and exists in multiple forms in the musical theater of today. By examining the Baroque characteristics of monody within the opera genre, a direct comparison between Monteverdi's opera <i>Orfeo</i> (1607) and Sch&ouml;nberg's musical <i>Les Miserables</i> (1985) can be established. This correlation becomes pronounced upon the exploration of four specific examples: through the implementation of recitative and aria, the interdependent use of duet and chorus with the solo voice, the innovative incorporation of atypical tonalities within the melodic line, and the inventive application of instrumentation to enhance vocal expression in each work. Just as Monteverdi designed his recitative to express the emotion of the libretto, so Sch&ouml;nberg composes dynamic, emotional songs to enhance the epic story of <i>Les Miserables.</i> Though composed centuries apart, both works employ similar melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and orchestral constructs, confirming a similar genesis.</p>

This thesis is a historical account of left-wing theatre in Japan from its early beginnings in the 1910s to the collapse of the organised proletarian drama movement in 1934. It is set within the context of the general history of shingeki from the earliest attempts to reform existing traditional theatre soon after the Meiji restoration. The choice of this subject was encouraged by several factors. The Japanese classical theatre has much of interest to the foreign scholar and several substantial studies of its various forms have boon published. Shingeki, on the other hand, has as yet not been studied seriously by any Eastern scholar and it was at least portly a curiosity concerning the problems that would have confronted a modern drama in Japan that prompted this study of left-wing drama. The subject was limited to left-wing drama for several reasons. Firstly some limitation was required. The history of shingeki can now be said to extend over approximately one hundred years and such have been its vicissitudes and the volume of work contributed to it by its practitioners that only a very choral history would be possible in the limited scope of a thesis. Within the one hundred years of shingeki five separate periods can be discerned: the Meiji period, when the idea of a new drama for the new state was discussed and developed; the late Heiji and early Taisho periods, when the first experiments at a practical realization of new drama took place; the 1920s and early 1930s, when shingeki became an exciting new cultural form in the eyes of young intellectuals and when it became left-wing, as they did; the later 1930s, when a more sober approach to drama was taken by socialists and a more self-confident attitude was observable in those theatre people who were not left-wing; and the post-war period, with its complex mixture of self-examination and experiment. The 1920s and early 1930s - the left- wing period - were chosen because this can be confidently described as the formative period of modern Japanese drama. The struggle with the past was mainly over and the legacy left to future shingeki artists by these years was greater than that of any other period. [continued in text ...]