Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books

Book SynopsisFor this updated critical edition of King Lear, Lois Potter has written a completely new introduction, taking account of recent productions and reinterpretations of the play, with particular emphasis on its afterlife in global performance and adaptation. The edition retains the Textual Analysis of the previous editor, Jay L. Halio, shortened and with a new preface by Brian Gibbons. Professor Halio, accepting that we have two versions of equal authority, the one derived from Shakespeare''s rough drafts, the other from a manuscript used in the playhouses during the seventeenth century, chooses the Folio as the text for this edition. He explains the differences between the two versions and alerts the reader to the rival claims of the quarto by means of a sampling of parallel passages in the Introduction and by an appendix which contains annotated passages unique to the quarto.Trade Review'Only Lois Potter is capable of writing an introduction like this: she combines her vast experience of performance history with her unparalleled ability to read plays dramaturgically. As a result the introduction is as penetratingly astute on theme and structure as it is stimulating and eye-opening about theatre. No mere performance history, the introduction uses moments from production choices across the centuries to illustrate precise critical points, from the play's tragic crises to its general tone, from individual character to political atmosphere. Using her encyclopaedic knowledge of drama in performance, Lois Potter provides a brilliant hands-on guide to the play and an effortless introduction to theatre history.' Professor Laurie Maguire, University of Oxford'Lois Potter combines her unparalleled knowledge of Shakespeare in theatrical performance and her scrupulously scholarly attention to detail in the NCS King Lear. Her new introduction provides up-to-the-minute accounts of the play in performance while also offering a clear historical perspective. Potter describes the way productions of King Lear have changed over the course of the centuries and especially how current efforts to create more diverse theatrical casts have valuably added further dimension to the key issues of the play. Invaluably too, she provides an account of recent developments both critical, imaginative, and political, including eco-criticism and feminist criticism, re-writings of Shakespeare, as well as Lear in the global context. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the play.' Dympna C. Callaghan, University Professor and William L. Safire Professor in Modern Letters, Syracuse University'The updated New Cambridge critical edition of The Tragedy of King Lear provides a sensitive analysis of the afterlife of the play in a brand-new Introduction written by Lois Potter. There is … plenty in this Introduction to inspire new work on Lear … Potter's Introduction brings the edition and the play into the twenty-first century, and Gibbons' preface to Halio's 'Textual Analysis' helps to translate an edition ideal for graduate students and scholars of the play into an edition that will also appeal to readers approaching textual criticism for the first time.' Emma Depledge, Shakespeare SurveyTable of ContentsIntroduction; Textual Analysis; Preface by Brian Gibbons; Textual Analysis, Part 1; A Note on the Text; List of Characters; The Play; Textual Analysis, Part 2; Appendix: Passages Unique to the First Quarto; Reading List.

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Book SynopsisWhat would Pindar and Aeschylus have talked about had they met at some point during their overlapping poetic careers? How do we map the space shared by these two fifth-century choral poets? In the first book-length comparative study of Pindar and Aeschylus in over six decades, Anna S. Uhlig pushes back against the prevailing tendency to privilege interpretive frames that highlight the differences in their works. Instead, she adopts a more inclusive category of choral performance, one in which both poets are shown to be grappling to understand how the vivid here and now of their compositions are in fact a reenactment of voices and bodies from elsewhere. Pairing close readings of the ancient texts with insights from modern performance studies, Uhlig offers a novel perspective on the ''song culture'' of early fifth-century BC Greece.Trade Review'… should prove worthwhile and fascinating for specialists in both early fifth-century literature and classical performance studies.' David Studdard, Classics for All'… a distinctive and ambitious book …' David Fearn, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction: Pindar and Aeschylus in dialogue; 1. Voices of others: embedded speech in Pindar and Aeschylus; 2. Anachronistic harmonies: Agamemnon parodos, Pythian 4; 3. Vocal tools: Pythian 12, Olympian 13, Seven Against Thebes; 4. Somatic semblances: Choephoroi, Olympian 8, Pythian 2; 5. Locating the revenant: Pythian 8, Persians.

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Book SynopsisPART I: PERFORMANCE EFFECTS Introduction: Materializing the Immaterial Theorizing Theatrical Privilege: Rethinking Weimann's Concepts of Locus and Platea PART II: THEATRICAL WAYS OF KNOWING Staging Sight: Visual Paradigms and Perceptual Strategies in Love's Labor's Lost Imaginary Forces: Allegory, Mimesis, and Audience Interpretation in The Spanish Tragedy PART III: EXPERIENCING EMBODIED SPECTACLE Dancing and Other Delights: Spectacle and Participation in Doctor Faustus and Macbeth Artful Sport: Violence, Dismemberment, and Games in Titus Andronicus , Cymbeline , and Doctor FaustusTrade Review"Shakespeare and the Materiality of Performance powerfully redirects our attention as scholars of early modern drama to the fact that the plays we discuss were performed before audiences carrying specific cultural assumptions about what it meant to engage in watching and listening to theatrical spectacle. This book is of value to scholars interested in performance theory more broadly but will also be useful to historicist scholars seeking to understand the nuances of bodies, actors, and representational drama converging in particular moments upon the early modern stage . . . Lin's analyses are sharp, provocative, and helpful for scholars seeking to approximate early modern ideological and social conditions of interpretative strategies in theater." - Journal of the Northern Renaissance "Lin's close-readings of the play are often penetrating . . . [Lin] does not overstate the claims she makes; she is cautious with numbers in particular. She is precise with her examples." - Shakespeare Jarhbuch "Lin's reading of early modern performance traditions and spectatorship serves as a valuable working model for scholars of drama seeking to marry rigorous historical investigations with critical theory. For those interested in reception theory, material studies, and early modern stage practices, Shakespeare and the Materiality of Performance can be read productively alongside other studies in historical phenomenology as well as early modern audience and reception studies." - Theatre Survey ". . . Lin establishes that our theatrical experiences are radically different and how we enter into, perceive, and understand the dramatic stage has little in common with our ancestors . . . In assessing this 'theatrical language', Lin turns to the notion of materiality itself, something which she rightly points out has become a significant focus of Shakespearean studies . . . She emphasizes the role of the theatre and 'entertainment' in the construction of early modern lives, a role - and a visual vocabulary - that we need to learn in order to fully appreciate the differences, rather than the similarities of our play-words" Shakespeare Survey "In comparing [Cymbline's] representations of mutilation and dismemberment onstage with other accounts, such as the execution of criminals, accounts of martyrdom, and violent murders, Lin establishes the importance of the body, and how it (and its parts) may have been viewed by the audience." Year's Work in English Studies "...This is an important book for scholars of early modern drama in performance. It could also enrich the work of practitioners, and its examination of the psychology of audiences could benefit cognitive studies as well. Lin's work is engaging and at times even exciting: there is a sense that she is revealing hidden mysteries of the past, that the reader is entering the early modem playhouse as it once was. I wish that more scholars would engage in such meticulously informed speculation about practices that we can never fully recover through other means. Lin also provides convincing explanations for a number of puzzling spots in the plays. She is especially good at pointing out the blinders that modem scholars and practitioners wear because of their own cultural and theatrical assumptions." Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England "Although Lin examines an impressive range of documents to construct historically situated interpretive paradigms, most astute are her analyses of episodes that critics have either ignored or explained through 'elaborate conjectures', such as the witches' dance in Macbeth and the irreverent stage play of bodily mutilation in Titus Andronicus (p. 157). Lin's work intervenes in the study of early modern drama and culture and shifts the conversation toward a focus on those who populated the offstage world of the play. These interpreters might well have considered Hamlet as the show with the exciting 'swordfight in the final act' and understood Doctor Faustus as a play that 'sports with severed limbs' (p. 164), and so, perhaps, should we." Theatre Research InternationalTable of ContentsPART I: PERFORMANCE EFFECTS Introduction: Materializing the Immaterial Theorizing Theatrical Privilege: Rethinking Weimann's Concepts of Locus and Platea PART II: THEATRICAL WAYS OF KNOWING Staging Sight: Visual Paradigms and Perceptual Strategies in Love's Labor's Lost Imaginary Forces: Allegory, Mimesis, and Audience Interpretation in The Spanish Tragedy PART III: EXPERIENCING EMBODIED SPECTACLE Dancing and Other Delights: Spectacle and Participation in Doctor Faustus and Macbeth Artful Sport: Violence, Dismemberment, and Games in Titus Andronicus , Cymbeline , and Doctor Faustus

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Trade ReviewBesides interrogating the very idea of madness, Blue/Orange explores the connection between ethnicity and perceptions of mental health . . . With a real deftness of touch, the play probes notions of authority. It illuminates the way psychiatry can be strategic - and anatomises the politics of medical care. * Evening Standard *Operating as a play of ideas, it unleashes raw emotion on all sides, exposing layers of male egotism and neurosis * Daily Telegraph *Exuberant . . . Penhall has the gift of making serious points in a comic manner and of conveying moral indignation without preaching . . . Stinging satire * Guardian *Funny and irreverent . . . Penhall's writing is vibrant throughout * Independent on Sunday *

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Trade ReviewIt’s an elegy to an invisible class ... This is character-driven theatre at its purest ... It’s a play about what unremitting poverty does to the soul, where poverty is not starvation, but life without dignity. * Spectator on "Beyond Caring" *Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point. * Time Out *Totally compelling ... This understated 90 minutes is quietly devastating ... As time moves, slowly, the whole thing gradually becomes more and more heightened, emotionally and theatrically. The beauty of the piece ... is that it eschews sob stories in favour of genuine tragedy. Just as these people keep themselves pretty much to themselves until the final, desperate moments, so the play always slyly shows and never tells. There are no big speeches. There is much awkward silence. People reveal themselves in small gestures ... There are gusts of sadness; moments of pure desolation. But mostly there is work, with people struggling to survive: to the end of the shift, the end of the day, to the end of life itself. * Guardian on "Beyond Caring" *This desolate, quietly intense devised drama gets under your skin and into your bones ... it's a ringing condemnation of an economic practice that puts profit before people and turns the basic business of earning a living into a barely sustainable, soul-destroying hell. Unforgettable. * The Times on "Beyond Caring" *Alexander Zeldin's devised drama gives an unforgettable taste of life at the bottom of the employment pile ... it has a rare quality of gripping authenticity. * Daily Telegraph on "Beyond Caring" *Zeldin boldly sticks to unostentatious naturalism and draws the audience into this world ... this raw, unsentimental piece has immense cumulative power and quietly conveys just what it means to live with such a crippling lack of security. * Financial Times on "Beyond Caring" *Beyond Caring is beyond praise * International New York Times *

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Trade ReviewCowhig speaks bitterness and makes us sit up and listen. -- Lyn Gardner * Guardian on Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's "The World of Extreme Happiness" *Fearless, zippily-paced, and satirical . . . Cowhig forces us down the long hard look path. * Independent on Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's "The World of Extreme Happiness" *Fiercely intelligent . . . powerful stuff * Guardian on Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's "Lidless" *An excellent new play . . . a very strong script . . . The story grips and the characters are well drawn, demonstrating the complexities of human nature and the ability people have to put morals to one side. * Daily Telegraph on Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's "Lidless" *Vital new writing from a talented new voice * Independent on Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's "Lidless" *

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Book Synopsis'I have no name for the thing which is in my head. It is not envy. It is more than envy. It does not scare me. I must look close enough to look at what it is.'A ploughman and his wife live a simple existence in a pre-industrial time until they, along with the hated local miller, are drawn into a struggle of knowledge, power and attraction.David Harrower's haunting play established him as one of the UK's leading contemporary playwrights. This new edition is published to coincide with the new production of this tense modern classic at the Donmar Warehouse in August 2017, directed by Yaël Farber.Trade ReviewAn outstanding . . . play, David Harrower's Knives in Hens is set in a God-fearing, pre-industrial world and deals, passionately and intelligently with a woman's discovery of a language that corresponds with her feelings . . . A remarkable debut. * Guardian *David Harrower's remarkable debut as a professional dramatist creates a haunting, poetic and entirely individual world of its own. I have never seen a play quite like it. . . You leave the theatre in no doubt that you have watched one of the year's most heartening and accomplished debuts. Harrower already seems like a writer built to last. * Daily Telegraph *If one definition of a classic is that it constantly yields new meanings, then David Harrower's play deserves the title...**** -- The GuardianIt is an atmospheric, powerful piece. -- Sarah Crompton, What's On StageI was awed by its linguistic verve...So watertight is the writing, though, that its profundity and mystery remain intact. -- The Telegraph...the language is taut and visceral and the dramatic impetus slow but inexorable. -- Neil Norman, Express.com...stark, strange modern classic...Harrower's language is curt and harsh: the cast hack the story out with it, carving the air with terse, hard, poetic interactions. -- Time Out

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Book SynopsisTheatre has a funny way of getting to the heart of who we are now and particularly in the case of Connections who we are going to be.Drawing together the work of nine leading playwrights, National Theatre Connections 2018 features work by some of the most exciting contemporary playwrights. Gathered together in one volume, the plays offer young performers an engaging selection of material to perform, read or study.From friends building bridges and siblings breaking down walls; girls making their voice heard and boys searching for home; and not forgetting a band of unlikely action heroes taking control of the weather.The anthology contains nine play scripts along with imaginative production notes and exercises, as well as a short introduction to the writing process for the tenth Connections play [ BLANK ] by Alice Birch.National Theatre Connections is an annual festival which brings new plays for young people to schools and youth theatres across the UK and Ireland. CommisTable of ContentsThe Blue Electric Wind by Brad Birch The Changing Room by Chris Bush The Free9 by In-Sook Chappell Ceasefire Babies by Fiona Doyle These Bridges by Phoebe Eclair Powell When They Go Low by Natalie Mitchell Want by Barney Norris The Sweetness of a Sting by Chinonyerem Odimba Dungeness by Chris Thompson

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Book SynopsisB. J. Sokol is a Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.Trade ReviewAn enthralling peek at the lives and cultures of the named (or near-named) artists in Shakespeare…For those who took for granted a bleak English Renaissance art scene, his world of three-man songs, injurious bagpipes, imprese, paragone, and whited statuary is likely to be a revelation. * Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One. Painters and Sculptors in Shakespeare’s Poems Chapter Two. Painters and Sculptors in Shakespearian Plays Chapter Three. Poets in Shakespeare’s Plays Chapter Four. Poets in Shakespeare’s Poems Chapter Five. Shakespeare’s Musicians: Mimetic Chapter Six. Shakespeare’s Mythical Musicians Afterword Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPaul Menzer is Dean of Visual and Performing Arts at Mary Baldwin University, where he is a professor and the director of the Shakespeare and Performance graduate program. He is the editor of Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage (2006) and author of The Hamlets: Cues, Q's, and Remembered Texts (2008), Anecdotal Shakespeare: a New Performance History (2015), Shakespeare in the Theatre: The American Shakespeare Center (2017), as well as editions of Romeo and Juliet (2017) and Doctor Faustus (2018).Trade ReviewWritten with verve, this biography is as breezy as it is illuminating. * Laurie Maguire, Fellow, Magdalen College, and Professor Emeritus, University of Oxford, UK *As wry and witty as it is thorough and thoughtful, Menzer’s eminently readable study is the most fun you will ever have with a biography of Shakespeare. * Andrew Hartley, Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA *Table of ContentsSeries Preface Preface: The Complete Life of William Shakespeare Chapter 1. Shakespeare’s Dead Chapter 2. Earth Unto Earth Chapter 3. Shakespeare at School Chapter 4. Anne Hathaway, aka Chapter 5. The Lost Years Chapter 6. Stratford in the Rear View Chapter 7. Enter London Chapter 8. Shakespeare, playwright Chapter 9. Shakespeare, poet Chapter 10. Shakespeare’s Company Chapter 11. William Shakespeare, gent. Chapter 12. Shakespeare at Court Chapter 13. Shakespeare’s Globe? Chapter 14. Shakespeare’s Properties Chapter 15. The King’s Man Chapter 16. The Plague Years Chapter 17. Shakespeare’s Daughters Chapter 18. The Returning Point Chapter 19. Shakespeare’s Head Epilogue: Yellow Leaves Notes Index

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Book SynopsisFarah Karim-Cooper is Head of Higher Education & Research at Shakespeare's Globe and Visiting Research Fellow, King's College London, UK.Table of ContentsList of illustrations List of contributors Series preface Introduction, Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare's Globe, UK) Part 1: Genre, style and sources 1. Senecan belatedness and Titus Andronicus, Curtis Perry (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA) 2. Titus Andronicus: Elizabethan Classicism and the Styles of New Tragedy, Goran Stanivukovic (Saint Mary's University, Canada) 3. Soliloquies in Titus Andronicus: An Empirical Approach, James Hirsh (Georgia State University, USA) Part 2: Critical approaches: Race, culture and politics 4. “I have done thy mother”: Racial and sexual geographies in Titus Andronicus, John Kunat (Sonoma State University, USA) 5. Remixing the family: Blackness and domesticity in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, David Sterling Brown (Binghampton Universty, SUNY, USA) 6. 'If I might have my will': Aaaron's affect and race in Titus Andronicus, Carol Mejia LaPerle (Wright State University, USA) Part 3: Critical approaches: Bodies, emotions and metaphor 7. Metaphorically Speaking: Titus Andronicus and the Limits of Utterance, Jennifer Edwards (Shakespeare's Globe, UK) 8. Granular Reading: Texture, Language and Surface Marks in Titus Andronicus, Whitney Sperrazza (University of Kansas, USA) Part 4: Performance and adaptation 9. 'Did you see that?!': Titus Andronicus and Theatrical Transgression, Ralph Alan Cohen (Mary Baldwin University, USA) 10. In/di/gestion: Seneca-->Shakespeare-->South Park, Lizz Angello (University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, USA) 11. 'My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth': Framing, Feasting and Speaking Sexual Violence in Titus Andronicus, 2006-2017, Emma Whipday (University of Newcastle, UK) Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThis new introduction to Euripides'' fascinating interpretation of the story of Electra and her brother Orestes emphasizes its theatricality, showing how captivating the play remains to this day. Electra poses many challenges for those drawn to Greek tragedy students, scholars, actors, directors, stage designers, readers and audiences. Rush Rehm addresses the most important questions about the play: its shift in tone between tragedy and humour; why Euripides arranged the plot as he did; issues of class and gender; the credibility of the gods and heroes, and the power of the myths that keep their stories alive. A series of concise and engaging chapters explore the functions of the characters and chorus, and how their roles change over the course of the play; the language and imagery that affects the audience''s response to the events on stage; the themes at work in the tragedy, and how Euripides forges them into a coherent theatrical experience; the later reception of the plaTrade ReviewRush Rehm does a fine job of making Euripides’ complicated and unsettling play more appreciable and enjoyable, ... This volume will prove accessible as a study-guide for students who know little of Greek theatre, but also contains plenty of meaty information for their teachers to savour. I recommend this volume not just for students studying the text in translation, but for anyone considering a performance or rehearsed reading of Euripides’ play. * Journal of Classics Teaching *A thorough and thought-provoking overview ... It excels at providing readers with the grounding necessary to appreciate the play and work with it further. * The Classical Review *Admirable ... impeccably edited and produced. * Greece & Rome Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Theatrical and Performance Background 2. What Happens and How: The Unfolding of Euripides' Electra 3. Euripides and Myth: Reflecting and Re-Fashioning Tradition 4. Language 5. Characters and Actors 6. Props and Costumes, Bodies and Corpses 7. Gender and Sex, Children and Childbirth 8. Highs and Lows: Class Issues in Electra 9. Gods and Mortals 10. Afterlife Conclusion Glossary Guide to Further Reading Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisArden Early Modern Drama Guides offer students and academics practical and accessible introductions to the critical and performance contexts of key Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Essays from leading international scholars give invaluable insight into the text by presenting a range of critical perspectives, making the books ideal companions for study and research. Key features include: Essays on the plays' critical and performance history A keynote essay on current research and thinking about the play A selection of new essays by leading scholars A survey of resources to direct students' further reading about the play in print and onlineThe blockbuster Tamburlaine plays (1587) instantly established Marlowe's reputation for experimenting with subversive, outrageous and immoral material. The plays follow the meteoric rise of a Scythian shepherd-turned-warlord, whose conquests of eastern emperors soon sees him established as the most poTrade ReviewThe true genius of this collection is in its Janusian perspective ... Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader serves as a concise but impressive review of Tamburlaine’s history in past decades, a time capsule recording the current state of the field, and an optimistic forecast of what we may see in decades to come. * Marlowe Society of America *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Series Introduction Notes on Contributors Introduction David McInnis, University of Melbourne, Australia 1 Tamburlaine, 1587-2000: A Reception History M. L. Stapleton, Purdue University, USA 2 ‘The Critical Landscape, 2000-Present’ Sarah Wall-Randell, Wellesley College, USA 3 ‘High astounding terms’: Tamburlaine and Tamburlaine on stage Peter Kirwan, University of Nottingham, UK 4 New Directions: Mending Tamburlaine Claire M. L. Bourne, Pennsylvania State University, USA 5 New Directions: Tamburlaine the Weather Man Tom Rutter, University of Sheffield, UK 6 New Directions: Towards a Racialized TamburlaineSydnee Wagner, The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA 7 New Directions: Retooling Timür Matthew Dimmock, University of Sussex, UK 8 Three Tents for Tamburlaine: Resources and Approaches for Teaching the Play Liam E. Semler, University of Sydney, Australia Works Cited and Selected Further Reading Index

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