This book defines and exemplifies a major genre of modern dramatic writing, termed historiographic metatheatre, in which self-reflexive engagements with the traditions and forms of dramatic art ...illuminate historical themes and aid in the representation of historical events and, in doing so, formulates a genre. Historiographic metatheatre has been, and remains, a seminal mode of political engagement and ideological critique in the contemporary dramatic canon. Locating its key texts within the traditions of historical drama, self-reflexivity in European theatre, debates in the politics and aesthetics of postmodernism, and currents in contemporary historiography, this book provides a new critical idiom for discussing the major works of the genre and others that utilize its techniques. Feldman studies landmarks in the theatre history of postwar Britain by Weiss, Stoppard, Brenton, Wertenbaker and others, focusing on European revolutionary politics, the historiography of the World Wars and the effects of British colonialism. The playwrights under consideration all use the device of the play-within-the-play to explore constructions of nationhood and of Britishness, in particular. Those plays performed within the framing works are produced in places of exile where, Feldman argues, the marginalized negotiate the terms of national identity through performance.
A masterful, highly engaging analysis of how Shakespeare's plays intersected with the politics and culture of Elizabethan EnglandWith an ageing, childless monarch, lingering divisions due to the ...Reformation, and the threat of foreign enemies, Shakespeare's England was fraught with unparalleled anxiety and complicated problems. In this monumental work, Peter Lake reveals, more than any previous critic, the extent to which Shakespeare's plays speak to the depth and sophistication of Elizabethan political culture and the Elizabethan imagination. Lake reveals the complex ways in which Shakespeare's major plays engaged with the events of his day, particularly regarding the uncertain royal succession, theological and doctrinal debates, and virtue andvirtùin politics. Through his plays, Lake demonstrates, Shakespeare was boldly in conversation with his audience about a range of contemporary issues. This remarkable literary and historical analysis pulls the curtain back on what Shakespeare was really telling his audience and what his plays tell us today about the times in which they were written.
This book examines the theater of narration, an Italian performance
genre and aesthetic that revisits historical events of national
importance from local perspectives, drawing on the rich
...relationship between personal experiences and historical accounts.
Incorporating original research from the private archives of
leading narrators-artists who write and perform their work-Juliet
Guzzetta argues that the practice teaches audiences how ordinary
people aren't simply witnesses to history but participants in its
creation. The theater of narration emerged in Italy during the
labor and student protests, domestic terrorism, and social progress
of the 1970s. Developing Dario Fo and Franca Rame's style of
political theater, influenced by Jerzy Grotowski and Bertolt
Brecht, and following in the freewheeling actor-author traditions
of the commedia dell'arte, narrators created a new form of popular
theater that grew in prominence in the 1990s and continues to gain
recognition. Guzzetta traces the history of the theater of
narration, contextualizing its origins-both political and
intellectual-and centers the contributions of Teatro Settimo, a
performance group overlooked in previous studies. She also examines
the genre's experiments in television and media. The first
full-length book in English on the subject, The Theater of
Narration leverages close readings and a wealth of primary
sources to examine the techniques used by narrators to remake
history-a process that reveals the ways in which history itself is
a theater of narration.
The study analyzes Magda Szabó’s historical drama “Shout, City!” looking for an answer to how the memory of Debrecen appears in the play. In the first two chapters, the paratexts of the play (title, ...prologue) are examined, followed by an analysis of the characteristics of the memory in the drama. The drama recalls different memorial topoi associated with Debrecen, reflecting that these are constructed by literary tradition. Magda Szabó’s text not only simply evokes the memorial narratives of Debrecen, but also questions their validity due to the dramatic events and the rhetorical complexity of the dramatic language. One chapter of the study discusses in detail the dramatic memory and dramaturgical role of Calvinian predestination. The analysis concludes that “Shout, City!” evokes Calvinist thoughts and their memorial narratives through a complex dialogue, shaped by dramatic events, dialogues and debates between characters. e nal chapter examines the end of the drama, based on Aleida Assmann’s study, focusing primarily on the issue of sacrice. As a result, the signicance of Magda Szabó’s historical drama is not given by drama poetic innovation, but by the intention to rethink the stories that construct the cultural memory of Debrecen.
Chequered Flags to Chequered Futures is one of Mark Wheeller's verbatim plays. It tells the true story of Chris Gilfoy, the Rookies World Champion Banger Racer in 2000.
England's land borders with Scotland and Wales, together with the narrow channels separating the British mainland from Ireland and the Continent, were the focus of acute, if intermittent, unease ...during the early modern period. This book analyses works by not only Shakespeare but also his contemporaries to argue that many of the plays of Shakespeare's central period, from the second tetralogy to Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello, engage with the idea of England's borders.
When Cleopatra expresses a desire to die 'after the high Roman fashion', acting in accordance with 'what's brave, what's noble', Shakespeare is suggesting that there are certain values that are ...characteristically Roman. The use of the terms 'Rome' and 'Roman' in Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra or Jonson's Sejanus often carry the implication that most people fail to live up to this ideal of conduct, that very few Romans are worthy of the name. In this book Chernaik demonstrates how, in these plays, Roman values are held up to critical scrutiny. The plays of Shakespeare, Jonson, Massinger and Chapman often present a much darker image of Rome, as exemplifying barbarism rather than civility. Through a comparative analysis of the Roman plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and including detailed discussion of the classical historians Livy, Tacitus and Plutarch, this study examines the uses of Roman history - 'the myth of Rome' - in Shakespeare's age.
Pulitzer-prizewinning playwright August Wilson, author ofFences,Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, andThe Piano Lesson, among other dramatic works, is one of the most well respected American playwrights on ...the contemporary stage. The founder of the Black Horizon Theater Company, his self-defined dramatic project is to review twentieth-century African American history by creating a play for each decade.
Theater scholar and critic Harry J. Elam examines Wilson's published plays within the context of contemporary African American literature and in relation to concepts of memory and history, culture and resistance, race and representation. Elam finds that each of Wilson's plays recaptures narratives lost, ignored, or avoided to create a new experience of the past that questions the historical categories of race and the meanings of blackness.
Harry J. Elam, Jr. is Professor of Drama at Stanford University and author of Taking It to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka (The University of Michigan Press).
Drama is an important source for knowing history in our time, as many historical series and films are produced. This study aims to explore the impact of dramatic treatment on historical texts in ...achieving understanding and memorizing scientific information presented to an audience. This study examines the manner in which elements of dramatic treatment such as dramatic structure, characters, accuracy of information, content, and location affect the effectiveness of historical TV drama, and further demonstrates the capacity of dramatic treatment in achieving this understanding. This study used a quantitative method by collecting quantifiable data, and used the questionnaire as a data collection tool. The population sampled consisted of West Bank Palestinians, who watched one of the most successful historical TV drama series, entitled Omar. Subsequently, data were subjected to statistical analysis by SPSS. This study concludes that the difficulties in understanding and memorizing scientific information are mitigated by learning information presented in the form of drama, which can enhance the audience’s comprehension and retention of information. Additional factors such as location and content contribute to the quality of understanding of historical drama presented through television, wherein if a drama producer seeks to effectively deliver historical information he or she must secure interest in content, which affects understanding by up to 34%, followed by location and décor, which affects it by up to 23%.
