A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance PDF Download

Author: Richard Schoch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110878867X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 160

View

Book Description
This short history of Shakespeare in global performance-from the re-opening of London theatres upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to our present multicultural day-provides a comprehensive overview of Shakespeare's theatrical afterlife and introduces categories of analysis and understanding to make that afterlife intellectually meaningful. Written for both the advanced student and the practicing scholar, this work enables readers to situate themselves historically in the broad field of Shakespeare performance studies and equips them with analytical tools and conceptual frameworks for making their own contributions to the field.

Author: David Bevington
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226044793
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
This study examines how Shakespeare's plays have been transformed for the stage by the demands of theatrical spaces and staging conventions.

Author: Leonard Barkan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781531507312
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
A gripping, funny, joyful account of how the books you read shape your own life in surprising and profound ways. Bookworms know what scholars of literature are trained to forget: that when they devour a work of literary fiction, whatever else they may be doing, they are reading about themselves. Read Shakespeare, and you become Cleopatra, Hamlet, or Bottom. Or at the very least, you experience the plays as if you are in a small room alone with them, and they are speaking to your life, your sensibility. Drawing on fifty years as a Shakespearean, Leonard Barkan has produced a captivating book that asks us to reconsider what it means to read. Barkan violates the rule of distance he was taught and has always taught his students. He asks: Where does this brilliantly contrived fiction actually touch me? Where is Shakespeare in effect telling the story of my life? King Lear, for Barkan, raises unanswerable questions about what exactly a father does after planting the seed. Mothers from Gertrude to Lady Macbeth are reconsidered in the light of the author's experience as a son of a former flapper. The sonnets and comedies are seen through the eyes of a gay man who nevertheless weeps with joy when all the heterosexual couples are united at the end. A Midsummer Night's Dream is interpreted through the author's joyous experience of performing the role of Bottom and finding his aesthetic faith in the pantheon of antiquity. And the exquisitely poetical history play Richard II intersects with, of all things, Ru Paul's Drag Race. Full of engrossing stories, from family secrets to the world of the theater, and written with humor and genuine excitement about literary experiences worthy of our attention and our love, Reading Shakespeare Reading Me makes Shakespeare's plays come alive in new ways.

Author: James P. Lusardi
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838633946
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 260

View

Book Description
This work attempts to bring together the divided commitments of academics and theater people. Its method is threefold: scrutinizing the text for signals that may guide production, identifying and analyzing those moments that represent textual and performance cruces, and looking at ways in which performance interprets text by focusing on King Lear.

Author: Emma Smith
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1524748552
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263

View

Book Description
An electrifying new study that investigates the challenges of the Bard’s inconsistencies and flaws, and focuses on revealing—not resolving—the ambiguities of the plays and their changing topicality A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn’t tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant. In This Is Shakespeare, Emma Smith—an intellectually, theatrically, and ethically exciting writer—takes us into a world of politicking and copycatting, as we watch Shakespeare emulating the blockbusters of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd (the Spielberg and Tarantino of their day), flirting with and skirting around the cutthroat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval, and technological change. Smith writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity, and sex. Instead of offering the answers, the Shakespeare she reveals poses awkward questions, always inviting the reader to ponder ambiguities.

Author: Nicholas Royle
Publisher: How to Read
ISBN: 9781783780297
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
For theatre-goers and curious readers alike, an approachable, richly detailed, and illuminating study of the most celebrated English writer ever to have lived

Author: Farah Karim Cooper
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408157055
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 317

View

Book Description
How did Elizabethan and Jacobean acting companies create their visual and aural effects? What materials were available to them and how did they influence staging and writing? What impact did the sensations of theatre have on early modern audiences? How did the construction of the playhouses contribute to technological innovations in the theatre? What effect might these innovations have had on the writing of plays? Shakespeare's Theatres and The Effects of Performance is a landmark collection of essays by leading international scholars addressing these and other questions to create a unique and comprehensive overview of the practicalities and realities of the theatre in the early modern period.

Author: David Bevington
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 188

View

Book Description
Designed for readers who want to know how to go about reading Shakespeare's works for pleasure, this work offers readings of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Henry IV Part I', 'Hamlet', 'King Lear' and 'The Tempest'. It also talks in theatrical terms about producing the plays on stage or screen.

Author: Translated by Hugh Macdonald
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 178589840X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

View

Book Description
Shakespeare in Modern English breaks the taboo about Shakespeare’s texts, which have long been regarded as sacred and untouchable while being widely and freely translated into foreign languages. It is designed to make Shakespeare more easily understood in the theatre without dumbing down or simplifying the content. Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, ‘Coriolanus’ and ‘The Tempest’ are presented in Macdonald’s book in modern English. They show that these great plays lose nothing by being acted or read in the language we all use today. Shakespeare’s language is poetic, elaborately rich and memorable, but much of it is very difficult to comprehend in the theatre when we have no notes to explain allusions, obsolete vocabulary and whimsical humour. Foreign translations of Shakespeare are normally into their modern language. So why not ours too? The purpose in rendering Shakespeare into modern English is to enhance the enjoyment and understanding of audiences in the theatre. The translations are not designed for children or dummies, but for those who want to understand Shakespeare better, especially in the theatre. Shakespeare in Modern English will appeal to those who want to understand the rich and poetical language of Shakespeare in a more comprehensible way. It is also a useful tool for older students studying Shakespeare.

Author: Jay L. Halio
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719026997
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 120

View

Book Description
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people buy tickets to see Shakespeare's plays performed. No other playwright commands the kind of interest that Shakespeare does.