Informed by film theory and a broad historical approach, Fatal Desire examines the theatrical representation of women in England, from the Restoration to the early eighteenth century—a period when ...for the first time female actors could perform in public. Jean I. Marsden maintains that the feminization of serious drama during this period is tied to the cultural function of theater. Women served as symbols of both domestic and imperial propriety, and so Marsden links the representation of women on the stage to the social context in which the plays appeared and to the moral and often political lessons they offered the audience. The witty heroines of comedies were usually absorbed into the social fabric by marrying similarly lighthearted gentlemen, but the heroines of tragedy suffered for their sins, real or perceived. That suffering served the dual purpose of titillating and educating the theater audience. Marsden discusses such plays as William Wycherley's Plain Dealer (1676), John Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife (1697), Thomas Otway's Orphan (1680), Thomas Southerne's Fatal Marriage (1694), and William Congreve's Mourning Bride (1697). The author also addresses tragedies written by three female playwrights, Mary Pix, Catharine Trotter, and Delarivier Manley, and sketches developments in tragedy during the period.
Pathos in Late-Medieval Religious Drama and Art explores the connections between the language of European late-medieval drama and co-temporary themes and motifs in visual communication, focussing on ...the triggering of emotional reactions in the viewers as a persuasive device.
Hopkins argues the succession to the throne was a burning topic not only in the final years of Elizabeth but well into the 1630s, and drama, with its disguised identities and oblique relationship to ...reality, was a safe way to air it. Hopkins analyzes some of the ways in which plays-from Marlowe's and Shakespeare's to Webster's and Ford's-reflect, negotiate and dream the issue of the succession.
In considering the practice and theory of translating Classical Greek plays into English from a theatrical perspective, Found in Translation, first published in 2006, also addresses the wider issues ...of transferring any piece of theatre from a source into a target language. The history of translating classical tragedy and comedy, here fully investigated, demonstrates how through the ages translators have, wittingly or unwittingly, appropriated Greek plays and made them reflect socio-political concerns of their own era. Chapters are devoted to topics including verse and prose, mask and non-verbal language, stage directions and subtext and translating the comic. Among the plays discussed as 'case studies' are Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides' Medea and Alcestis. The book concludes with a consideration of the boundaries between 'translation' and 'adaptation', followed by an appendix of every translation of Greek tragedy and comedy into English from the 1550s to the present day.
Through a series of interdisciplinary studies this book argues that the Athenians themselves invented the notion of 'classical' tragedy just a few generations after the city's defeat in the ...Peloponnesian War. In the third quarter of the fourth century BC, and specifically during the 'Lycurgan Era' (338–322 BC), a number of measures were taken in Athens to affirm to the Greek world that the achievement of tragedy was owed to the unique character of the city. By means of rhetoric, architecture, inscriptions, statues, archives and even legislation, the 'classical' tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) and their plays came to be presented as both the products and vital embodiments of an idealised Athenian past. This study marks the first account of Athens' invention of its own theatrical heritage and sheds new light upon the interaction between the city's literary and political history.
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.
Authenticity is one of the major values of our time. It is visible everywhere, from clothing to food to self-help books. While it is such a prevalent phenomenon, it is also very evasive. This study ...analyses the ‘culture of authenticity’ as it relates to theatre and establishes a theoretical framework for analysis. Daniel Schulz argues that authenticity is sought out and marked by the individual and springs from a culture that is perceived as inherently fake and lacking depth. The study examines three types of performances that exemplify this structure of feeling: intimate theatre seen in Forced Entertainment productions such as Quizoola! (1996, 2015), as well as one-on-one performances, such as Oentroerend Goed’s Internal (2009); immersive theatres as illustrated by Punchdrunk’s shows The Masque of the Red Death (2007) and The Drowned Man (2013) which provide a visceral, sensate understanding for audiences; finally, the study scrutinises the popular category of documentary theatre through various examples such as Robin Soan’s Talking to Terrorists (2005), David Hare’s Stuff Happens (2004), Edmund Burke’s Black Watch (2007) and Dennis Kelly’s pseudo-documentary play Taking Care of Baby (2007). It is specifically the value of the document that lends such performances their truth-value and consequently their authenticity. The study analyses how the success of these disparate categories of performance can be explained through a common concern with notions of truth and authenticity. It argues that this hunger for authentic, unmediated experience is characteristic of a structure of feeling that has superseded postmodernism and that actively seeks to resignify artistic and cultural practices of the everyday.
Making Shakespeare is a lively introduction to the major issues of the stage and print history, whilst also raising questions about what a Shakespeare play actually is. Tiffany Stern reveals how ...London, the theatre, the actors and the way in which the plays were written and printed all affect the 'Shakespeare' that we now read. Concentrating on the instability and fluidity of Shakespeare's texts, her book discusses what happened to a manuscript between its first composition, its performance on stage and its printing, and identifies traces of the production system in the plays we read. She argues that the versions of Shakespeare that have come down to us have inevitably been formed by the contexts from which they emerged; being shaped by, for example, the way actors received and responded to their lines, the props and music used in the theatre, or the continual revision of plays by the playhouses and printers. Allowing a fuller understanding of the texts we read and perform, Making Shakespeare is the perfect introduction to issues of stage and page. A refreshingly clear, accessible read, this book will allow even those with no expert knowledge to begin to contextualize Shakespeare's plays for themselves, in ways both old and new.
