Theatre direction and production Books

Book SynopsisThe Reception of Aeschylus' Plays through Shifting Models and Frontiers addresses the need for an integrated approach to the study and staging of Aeschylus’ plays. It offers an invigorating discussion about the transmission and reception of his plays and explores the interrelated tasks of editing, translating, adapting and remaking them for the page and the stage. The volume seeks to reshape current debates about the place of his tragedies in the curriculum and the repertory in a scholarly manner that is accessible and innovative. Each chapter makes a significant and original contribution to its selected topic, but the collective strength of the volume rests on its simultaneous appeal to readers in theatre studies, classical studies, performance studies, comparative studies, translation studies, adaptation studies, and, naturally, reception studies.Trade Review''This is the first study to address the reception of Aeschylus holistically, and although the plays of the Oresteia trilogy are understandably explored in most detail, it is good to see all the extant plays discussed as well as a number of fragments. (...) Overall, this is an exceptionally coherent and well-conceived collection, edited by an expert hand. The chapters speak both to the central concerns of the volume and to each other, with authors clearly engaged with and cross-referencing each other’s work. This book will be indispensable for anyone interested in the reception history of Aeschylus, and has much of value to say, more generally, about the politics of translation and adaptation in the remaking of Greek tragedy.'' Isabel Torrance, The Classical Review 68.1.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Acts of Resistance in Late-Modernist Theatre, Richard Murphet presents a close analysis of the theatre practice of two ground-breaking artists – Richard Foreman and Jenny Kemp – active over the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century. In addition, he tracks the development of a form of ‘epileptic’ writing over the course of his own career as writer/director. Murphet argues that these three auteurs have developed subversive alternatives to the previously dominant forms of dramatic realism in order to re-think the relationship between theatre and reality. They write and direct their own work, and their artistic experimentation is manifest in the tension created between their content and their form. Murphet investigates how the works are made, rather than focusing upon an interpretation of their meaning. Through an examination of these artists, we gain a deeper understanding of a late modernist paradigm shift in theatre practice.Table of ContentsAcknowledgemnts List of Illustrations  Introduction  1 The Three Artists: Background and Selection  2 Rationale for Selection  3 The Making of Art  4 Modernism and Theatre  5 Romantic-modernist Precursor  6 Late Modernism in Theatre  7 Form, Politics and Theatre Theory  8 Chapter Outlines 1 Richard Foreman  1 Theatre as a Philosophical Endeavour  2 Foreman’s Early Influences  3 Phenomena and Ontology Onstage  4 Molecular Creation: Insistence and Gertrude Stein  5 Language, Metaphor and Action in Mid-career Plays  6 Confusion, Enticement and the Spectator  7 Foreman as Director: The Relationship of Word to Action  8 Foreman in the Rehearsal Room  9 Theatre of a Quantum Age  10 Performers in Foreman’s Theatre: Manic Dancers of the Pattern 2 Jenny Kemp  1 Early Influences  2 The Verbal and the Visual  3 Interweaving Theatrical Modes in The Black Sequin Dress  4 Language Registers in Call of the Wild  5 Organisational Strategies in The Black Sequin Dress  6 The Multi-dimensional Woman in The Black Sequin Dress  7 Kemp as Visualiser: Storyboards and Paul Delvaux  8 Kemp as Director: Working with Duration  9 Complementary Autonomy: Artistic Collaboration  10 Actors: New Forms of Representation 3 Richard Murphet  1 Cultural Influences on Subjectivity  2 Seeking an Epileptic Language: Quick Death  3 Scenic Writing: Slow Love  4 The Language of Disintegration: Dolores in the Department Store  5 Construction of Entanglement: The Inhabited Woman  6 Writing Invasion: The Inhabited Man  Conclusion  1 Updating Subjectivity  2 The Writer/Director  3 Two Focal Depths: The Something and the Nothing  4 Resistance within the Practice  Bibliography  Index

Read more less