Theatre studies Books
Manchester University Press Stage Rights!: The Actresses’ Franchise League,
Book SynopsisStage rights! explores the work and legacy of the first feminist political theatre group of the twentieth century, the Actresses' Franchise League. Formed in 1908 to support the suffrage movement through theatre, the League and its membership opened up new roles for women on stage and off, challenged stereotypes of suffragists and actresses, created new work inspired by the movement and was an integral part of the performative propaganda of the campaign. Introducing new archival material to both suffrage and theatre histories, this book is the first to focus in detail on the Actresses' Franchise League, its membership and its work. The volume is formulated as a historiographically innovative critical biography of the organisation over the fifty years of its activities, and invites a total reassessment of the League within the accepted narratives of the development of political theatre in the UK.Table of ContentsIntroduction: re-evaluating the AFL1. Exhibition2. Sisterhood3. Visibility4. Militancy5. Hope6. LegacyBibliographyIndex
£21.00
Manchester University Press Montaigne and Shakespeare: The Emergence of
Book SynopsisThis book is not merely a study of Shakespeare’s debt to Montaigne. It traces the evolution of self-consciousness in literary, philosophical and religious writings from antiquity to the Renaissance and demonstrates that its early modern forms first appeared in the Essays and in Shakespearean drama. It shows, however, that, contrary to some postmodern assumptions, the early calling in question of the self did not lead to a negation of identity. Montaigne acknowledged the fairly stable nature of his personality and Shakespeare, as Dryden noted, maintained 'the constant conformity of each character to itself from its very first setting out in the Play quite to the End'. A similar evolution is traced in the progress from an objective to a subjective apprehension of time from Greek philosophy to early modern authors. A final chapter shows that the influence of scepticism on Montaigne and Shakespeare was counterbalanced by their reliance on permanent humanistic values.Trade Review‘Although this is a new book, it hails from another era. Ellrodt’s reading is prodigious, but he presents his arguments within an understanding of literary history that may seem narrowly conceived from the perspective of present-day early modernists. Shakespeareans and Montaignistes will nonetheless do well to read this study — and to test their intuitions against the considered judgments of a lifelong student of Western thought and literature.’William M. Hamlin, Washington State University, Renaissance Quarterly Vol LXIX, No. 3 -- .Table of Contents1. New forms of self-consciousness in Montaigne2. The progress of subjectivity from Antiquity to Montaigne3. Shakespeare and the new aspects of subjectivity4. Complexity and coherence of the Shakespearean characters5. Subjective Time in Montaigne and Shakespeare6. Scepticism and stable humanistic valuesEpilogue: The wisdom of Montaigne and ShakespeareBibliographyIndex
£16.99
Manchester University Press Directing Scenes and Senses: The Thinking of
Book SynopsisAs European theatre directors become a familiar presence on international stages and a new generation of theatre makers absorbs their impulses, this study develops fresh perspectives on Regie, the Continental European tradition of staging playtexts. Leaving behind unhelpful clichés that pit, above all, the director against the playwright, Peter M. Boenisch stages playful encounters between Continental theatre and Continental philosophy. The contemporary Regie work of Thomas Ostermeier, Frank Castorf, Ivo van Hove, Guy Cassiers, tg STAN, and others, here meets the works of Friedrich Schiller and Leopold Jessner, Hegelian speculative dialectics, and the critical philosophy of Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Žižek in order to explore the thinking of Regie – how to think Regie, and how Regie thinks.Table of ContentsPreface. The dissensus of Regie: Re-thinking “directors’ theatre”I. Mise en scène to mise en sens: Towards an aesthetic politics of Regie 1. Regie beyond representation: Directing the ‘sensible’ 2. The restless spirit of Regie: Hegel, theatrality, and the magic of speculative thinking 3. Theatre as dialectic institution: Friedrich Schiller and the liberty of play 4. The essence of the text and its actualisation: Leopold Jessner, the playwright’s radical servant II. The theatral appearing of ideas: Regie in contemporary European theatre 5. The tremor of speculative negation: On Regie, truth, and ex-position 6. Seeing what is coming: On Regie, playing, and appearing 7. The intermedial parallax: On Regie, media, and spectating 8. Theatre in the age of semiocapitalism: On Regie, realism, and political critique Afterthought: The future of Regie? Bibliography Index
£17.99
Manchester University Press Death in Modern Theatre: Stages of Mortality
Book SynopsisDeath in modern theatre offers a unique account of modern Western theatre, focusing on the ways in which dramatists and theatre-makers have explored historically informed ideas about death and dying in their work. It investigates the opportunities theatre affords to reflect on the end of life in a compelling and socially meaningful fashion.In a series of interrelated, mostly chronological, micronarratives beginning in the late nineteenth century and ending in the early twenty-first century, this book considers how and why death and dying are represented at certain historical moments using dramaturgy and aesthetics that challenge audiences’ conceptions, sensibilities, and sense-making faculties. It includes a mix of well-known and lesser-known plays from an international range of dramatists and theatre-makers, and offers original interpretations through close reading and performance analysis.Trade Review‘I would nominate this as the best monograph on drama and theatre studies I have read in at least five years. In its careful navigations of how notes of hope and fear may alternate in both theatre and life, Curtin’s study encourages fundamental personal and social reflections in terms that are graceful and vivifying. Its alluring journey sounds resonances and provokes reconsiderations of how we might best play out our brief scenes with others: with serious attentive care of properly long-term priorities, with artful wit, and with style.’Modern drama‘Death in modern theatre is a compelling and insightful study that will be useful to students and scholars of theatre studies and death studies as well as a general readership. Written in an accessible style, the study persuasively and pragmatically sets out a case for theatre’s capacity to ‘help us to better understand what it means to be mortal, what it means to be human’ (241).’Mortality'Death in Modern Theatre is a fascinating cultural history of death from the perspective of the performing arts and an engagingly written and duly meditative (though, remarkably, never morose) study. It will inspire any scholar or student concerned with the deathliness of modern theatre. 'New Theatre Quarterly'The book ... is a compelling study of dramas, some familiar and others less so, reflecting attitudes on death during the period they were written. Moreover, the text surprises with humor and an occasional light touch, which brings the reader willingly into the subject matter. ... [As] a professor of theatre, I would assign this text to introduce playwrights rarely included in conventional dramatic survey collections. Curtin’s writing brings these historic productions back to life and explores how nimble the theatrical discipline is, aptly illustrated by how its attitudes on death and dying have changed with changing times.'Omega -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: stages of mortality1 Beyond the veil: sensing death in symbolist theatre 2 Fantastical representations of death in First World War drama3 The absurd drama of modern death denial4 Theatres of catastrophe after Auschwitz and Hiroshima 5 The drama of dying in the early twenty-first centuryConclusion: unendingReferencesIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Vivien Leigh: Actress and Icon
Book SynopsisThis edited volume provides new readings of the life and career of iconic actress Vivien Leigh (1913–67). Written by experts in theatre and film studies and curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum, it uses newly accessible family archives to explore the intensely complex relationship between Leigh’s approach to the craft of acting for stage and screen and how she shaped, developed and projected her public persona as one of the most talked about and photographed actresses of her era. Featuring key contributors from the UK, France and the US, the chapters range from analyses of Leigh's work on stage and screen to her collaborations with designers and photographers, an analysis of her fan base, her interior designs and the ‘public ownership’ of Leigh’s celebrity status during her lifetime and beyond.Trade Review‘In an important work of feminist cultural histography, the essays displace earlier approaches to Leigh that see her work as secondary to her personal life and her husband Laurence Olivier’s supposedly superior talent. Insightful chapters explore the relationship between Leigh’s public and private personas, her preparatory work, performances and collaborations with French directors.’Maria Delgado, Times Higher Education ‘What are you reading?’ February 2018'The eclectic range of writers each brings their own expertise, thus making a unique contribution to advancing academic discourses on Leigh, as well as in several other important areas of study.'The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'…this volume offers an excellent model for re-thinking how we might push past ways of looking at actresses that privilege uncomplicated ideas about women, performance, and celebrity. Leigh did not write an autobiography.'Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature -- .Table of ContentsPart I: Re-reading Vivien Leigh1 Vivien Leigh, actress and icon: introduction – Kate Dorney and Maggie B. Gale2 Public faces/private lives: performing Vivien Leigh – Kate Dorney3 Making Vivien Leigh mad – Maggie B. GalePart II: The actress at work4 An actress prepares – John Stokes 5 Film performance and Vivien Leigh: from starlet to Scarlett, and Blanche Dubois to Mrs Stone – Lucy Bolton6 Vivien Leigh and her French collaborations: a rethinking of her art – Arnaud Duprat de MonteroPart III: Constructed identities7 From the fans – Kendra Bean8 Dressing the part: costume and character – Keith Lodwick9 Leigh through the lens: photographic collaborators – Susanna Brown10 ‘A living set’: at home with Vivien Leigh – Hollie PriceIndex
£20.00
Manchester University Press Witness Onstage: Documentary Theatre in
Book SynopsisAs the Kremlin’s crackdown on freedom of expression continues to tighten, Russian playwrights and directors are using documentary theatre to create space for the public discussion of injustice in the civic sphere and its connections to the country’s twentieth-century past. Witness Onstage traces the history of documentary theatre’s rapid growth in twenty-first century Russia and situates the form within the socio-political setting of the Putin years. It argues that through the practice of performing documents, Russian theatre artists are creating a new type of cultural and historical archive that challenges the dominance of state-sponsored media and invites individuals to participate in a collective renegotiation of cultural narratives.Trade Review'This book analyzes twenty-first century Russian theater in conjunction with Teatr.doc and related stage productions. Molly Flynn offers a close-up perspective as a translator, performer, and producer, and in her own creative work demonstrates the different roles performed on stage by documents.'The Russian Review -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. History on Trial 2. Called to the Stand 3. Evidentiary Hearing 4. Material Witness 5. Burden of Proof 6. A Special Verdict ConclusionIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Thomas ‘Jupiter’ Harris: Spinning Dark Intrigue
Book SynopsisThis is the first biography of Thomas Harris. Until now, little has been known about his life. He was most visible as the man who controlled Covent Garden theatre for nearly five decades, one of only two venues in London allowed by law to perform spoken drama. But this career was only one of many: he became the confidant of George III, a philanthropist, sexual suspect, and a brothel owner in the underworld of Covent Garden. While deeply involved in Pitt the Younger’s government, Harris worked as a ‘spin doctor’ to control the release of government news. As novelists created elaborate storylines with fictional intriguers lurking in the shadows, Harris was the real thing. In this lively recreation of life in Georgian London — social, political, sexual, theatrical — his career intersects many of the hidden worlds of the eighteenth century. This narrative of detection brings together a hoard of newly discovered manuscripts to construct his many lives.Trade Review‘Unlike Garrick, Harris has remained largely in the shadows — seemingly by choice. Warren Oakley drags him out into the light in his notable biography [...] Yet, "Jupiter" Harris was perhaps more than just a theatre manager: Oakley has taken considerable pains to unearth the details of his deep involvement, while running Covent Garden with considerable success, in the British Secret Service […] Oakley convincingly shows up a deficiency in the conventional eighteenth-century theatre narrative: the overlooked Harris, when mentioned at all, has usually been cast as a bit part or the villain of the piece.’ Times Literary Supplement, January 2019'Oakley’s study is based on extraordinarily dedicated research […] Throughout, Oakley’s detailed work produces valuable insights into the complex operation that Harris struggled and ultimately failed to keep afloat. The analysis of the incomplete financial records by which we see Harris’s juggling of countless debts and liabilities – and his willingness to commit fraud – is particularly impressive […] the underlying research is exceptional, and overall this study offers an intriguing depiction of one of the more obscure yet most powerful figures within the eighteenth-century theatre business.’Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies'Thomas "Jupiter" Harris provides a meticulous investigation of Thomas Harris and everyone involved in the life of Covent Garden in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The carefully researched theatre history reads like a novel abounding in political intrigue, social unrest, violence, and crime, but it also documents the life of a manager whose passion was his theatre. It is not only a book for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theatre scholars, it is also a captivating book for British history enthusiasts.'Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research -- .Table of Contents1. Introducing Thomas Harris 2. The king of clubs3. ‘Plausible’ Jack and the Royalty adventurers4. When sorrows come, they come not single spies5. Selling a lifeIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Victorian Touring Actresses: Crossing Boundaries
Book SynopsisVictorian touring actresses brings new attention to women’s experience of working in nineteenth-century theatre by focusing on a diverse group of largely forgotten ‘mid-tier’ performers, rather than the usual celebrity figures. It examines how actresses responded to changing political, economic and social circumstances and how the women were themselves agents of change. Their histories reveal dynamic patterns of activity within the theatrical industry and expose its relationship to wider Victorian culture. With an innovative organisation mimicking the stages of an actress’s life and career, the volume draws on new archival research and plentiful illustrations to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the women as they toured both within the UK and further afield in North America and Australasia. It will appeal to students and researchers in theatre and performance history, Victorian studies, gender studies and transatlantic studies.Trade Review‘… an exceptionally detailed account of the triumphs and tragedies of selected English actresses who toured during the second half of the 19th century… The author carefully documents their entire careers, as measured by performances, playdates, and venues, plus reviews and various sources of biographical information.’Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Debuts and learning the craft2 Establishing a name3 Working life in the UK4 Touring North America5 Long-distance colonial touring6 Management7 Off stage: family and personal life8 Closing scenes: the ageing actressShort biographies References
£76.50
Manchester University Press Staging the Old Faith: Queen Henrietta Maria and
Book SynopsisStaging the Old Faith is the first book length study to examine Caroline theatre as a space where the concerns of the English Roman Catholic community are staged.Rebecca Bailey juxtaposes a detailed analysis of Queen Henrietta Maria’s ground-breaking performances which showcased to an elite audience her role as defender of English Catholics, against an exploration of how this community responded to such a startling vision, in particular through the politically charged texts of James Shirley and William Davenant.This engagement on the stage with the anxieties and hopes of the English Catholic community (properly contextualised within the wider and increasingly fragmented religious landscape in the years leading to civil war) opens up Caroline commercial theatre as a site which energetically discussed the explosive religio-political topics of the cultural moment.Trade Review‘In this energetically argued and imaginatively illustrated book Rebecca Bailey examines the interplay of religion, politics and theatre in the England of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Her study explores in unprecedented depth and with rich archival contextualisation the ‘fears and hopes’ of the English recusant community following the arrival of the French Catholic queen consort.’Sophie Tomlinson, Literature & History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (October 2010)‘In six tightly argued chapters Bailey sets out the case for Henrietta Maria’s effectiveness, directly and indirectly, in pursuing her religious goals. While paying some attention to the Caroline masques, the main thrust of the argument is centred on plays […]no future discussion of Caroline drama, particularly that of Shirley and of the 1630s, should ignore this finely written and innovative study.’Kenneth Richards, University of Manchester, Theatre Research International, Vol. 35, No. 2 (July 2010)‘Rebecca Bailey’s reading of Henrietta Maria’s Catholic influence on Caroline public and court drama complements rather than contradicts earlier work on patronage, faction, and the intricate political negotiations refracted in the drama of the 1630s initiated by Martin Butler. At the same time, it extends the studies by Erica Veevers, Sophie Tomlinson, and Karen Britland of the Queen’s role in the Caroline court and the translation of its feminocentric culture into play and masque. One of the strengths of this work is Bailey’s detailed and nuanced exploration, through corres - pondence and reading matter, of the identities of the English Catholic community in the decades leading to the civil wars. As such, not only does Staging the Old Faith expand the range of meaning of Caroline drama, it offers the historian fresh in - sights into the religious dynamics of court culture.’Janet Clare, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3 (August 2011) -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction - Counter-Reformation politics and the Caroline stage1. The public discourse of religion in Stuart England2. James Shirley: the early texts, 1625-293. 'A case for conscience': Issues of allegiance and identity, 1630-334. William Davenant: the chimera of religious reunion, 1634-375. 'A broken time': The tempering of an international Catholicism, 1637-40Conclusion
£18.04
Manchester University Press Kitty Marion: Actor and Activist
Book SynopsisWith the outbreak of World War I, German-born Kitty Marion, suspected of being a German spy and placed under surveillance, sailed from Liverpool for New York. She left a dramatic and colourful life behind: a hectic and fascinating 20-year career as a performer crisscrossing Britain first as a singer, dancer and actress on the musical comedy and pantomime stage, and then in music hall as a ‘refined comedienne’. She campaigned against the sexual abuses rife in the theatre of the day which led her eventually into the suffragette movement where she became a ‘notorious’ militant, responsible for numerous acts of arson. She was imprisoned, went on hunger-strike, and was force-fed more than 300-times. In America, she became a celebrated ‘foot-soldier’ in Margaret Sanger’s birth control movement. Her autobiography, written in the 1930s is published here for the first time.Table of ContentsList of illustrationsAcknowledgementsThe EditorsList of abbreviationsIntroduction The Autobiography1. Germany 2. England 3. Militant Suffrage 4. War 5. ‘Hail Columbia’ 6. Birth Control 7. Peace EpilogueAppendix I: Home Office Papers: Prison ReportsAppendix II: Prison LettersAppendix III: Home Office: Citizenship ReportsSelect BibliographyIndex
£81.00
Manchester University Press Precarious Spectatorship: Theatre and Image in an
Book SynopsisPrecarious spectatorship is about the relationship between emergencies and the spectator. In the early twenty-first century, ‘emergencies’ are commonplace in the newsgathering and political institutions of western industrial democracies. From terrorism to global warming, the refugee crisis to general elections, the spectator is bombarded with narratives that seek to suspend the criteria of everyday life in order to address perpetual ‘exceptional’ threats. The book argues that repeated exposure to these narratives through the apparatuses of contemporary technology creates a ‘precarious spectatorship’, where the spectator’s ability to rationalise herself or her relationship with the object of her spectatorship is compromised. This precarity has become a destructive but too-often overlooked aspect of contemporary spectatorship.Table of ContentsIntroduction: emergencies and spectatorship1 Enemy/image2 Two tales of my dying neighbours3 ‘in the grip of the monster’4 Theatre, exposure and the exteriorEpilogueAppendix: a brief history of emergenciesIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press After '89: Polish Theatre and the Political
Book SynopsisAfter '89 takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland. After 1989, the theatre has retained its historical role as the crucial space for debating and interrogating cultural and political identities. Providing access to scholarship and criticism not readily accessible to an English-speaking readership, this study surveys the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of democracy and the proliferation of theatre makers that have flaunted cultural commonplaces and begged new questions of Polish culture. Lease argues that the most significant change in performance practice after 1989 has been from opposition to the state to a more pluralistic practice that engages with marginalised identities purposefully left out of the rhetoric of freedom and independence.Trade Review‘Lease shows with great effectiveness how diverse and inventive Polish theater is today. Theater scholars in general should find much to like about Lease’s work, and for them it will be an excellent introduction to contemporary Polish theater. For scholars in Polish studies who are unfamiliar with the theater, it will also provide a helpful narrative foundation. For those already familiar with contemporary Polish theater, the book will still offer creative interpretations of some of the more radical works.’Daniel W. Pratt, Ohio State University, The Polish Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (2018) -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: really existing democracy 1. The move to neoliberalism2. No more heroes3. Beyond a teatr kobiecy4. Gay emancipation and queer counterpublics5. Rethinking Polish/Jewish relations6. Equivalencies of exclusionConclusionBibliographyIndex
£21.00
Manchester University Press Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. Staging Life and
Book SynopsisBetween 2014 and 2016, Quarantine produced the first iteration of Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring., an epic quartet comprising three live performances and one film. The full quartet premiered at the Old Granada Television Studios in Manchester in March/April 2016.This illustrated volume is both a case study of the work, and an investigation into the various themes surrounding it. At the heart of the work is the human life cycle and our relationship with time: the processes of living and dying, the experience of looking backwards and forwards, of being in the present, and of reflection on the stags of life. This volume collects together a range of artists, producers and thinkers who have significant things to say about these important themes.Table of ContentsPreface Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea 1 An interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea, part oneCristina Delgado-GarcíaSummer. 2 An interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea, part twoCristina Delgado-García 3 A programme note from Summer. Cristina Delgado-García 4 Awkwardly placed: repeating scenographies Simon Banham 5 Living things: material entanglements in Quarantine’s Summer. Joslin McKinney 6 Underscoring Summer.Michael BaldwinAutumn.7 An interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea, part three Cristina Delgado-García 8 Looking back with regret Carolyn Price 9 as at 5th Jan 2016, 2.30pm Sonia Hughes 10 Entitled drinking in a changing world Biray Kolluoglu and Zafer Yenal 11 Turning into darkness Martin Elfert Winter.12 An interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea, part four Cristina Delgado-García 13 Illness, suffering, death: a philosophical conversation between Michael Brady and Havi Carel Michael Brady and Havi Carel 14 Winter. A Reflection Rachel Davies 15 Sharing in Winter.: film, participatory practice and the art of dying Michele Aaron 16 Processing Winter. Sarah Hunter and Lisa Mattocks Spring.17 An interview with Simon Banham, Richard Gregory and Renny O’Shea, part five Cristina Delgado-García 18 Wu Jin: recipes for jam and survival Rania Ho 19 Worry and hope among future parents Travis Rieder 20 From hope to care: some reflections on hope in a post hope world Mary Zournazi 21 Gloria Leentje Van de Cruys List of contributors
£18.75
Manchester University Press As You Like it
Book SynopsisThis book examines the modern performance history of one of Shakespeare's best-loved and most enduring comedies, and one that has given opportunities for generations of theatre-makers and theatre-goers to explore the pleasures of pastoral, gender masquerade and sexual ambiguity. Powered by Shakespeare's greatest female comic role, the play invites us into a deeply English woodland that has also been richly imagined as a space of dreams. The study retrieves the untold stories of stage productions in Britain, France and Germany, which include Royal Shakespeare Company productions starring Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins and Juliet Stevenson, the ground-breaking all-male productions at the National Theatre in 1967 and by Cheek by Jowl in 1992, and the versions directed by Jacques Copeau in Paris in 1934, and by Peter Stein in Berlin in 1977. It also addresses the four major screen versions of the play, ranging from Paul Czinner's 1936 film to Kenneth Branagh's seventy years later.Table of ContentsIntroduction: this strange, eventful history 1 Play, parts and players 2 Hunting for Arden in Warwickshire 3 Materials of performance: denim and silk 4 Between France and Germany 5 At all points like a man 6 Woeful pageants 7 As we like it Appendix: Major actors and staff for productions discussed in this volume Index
£21.00
Manchester University Press The Gestures of Participatory Art
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2019 ASCA Book Award Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation and refusal, the book examines a range of artistic practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a way of theorising participatory art, situating it between the visual and the performing arts, as both individual and collective, both internal attitude and social habitude.Trade Review‘This provocative book prompts new ways of thinking about the political dynamic between participation and performance. Taking the political metaphor of the gesture, Bala elegantly weaves together an argument that challenges old certainties that participatory art is a sure route to emancipation and equality. Grounded in clear and insightful case studies, she offers a new angle on familiar concepts, inviting us to think afresh about the complexity of practice in public spaces and communities. Reading this book is exhilarating, and its emphasis on placing participatory performance in today’s social, economic, political and cultural climate means that its analysis is urgent and pressing. Bala’s compelling argument will inform debates for years to come.’Helen Nicholson, Royal Holloway, University of London‘In an in-depth and fascinating analysis grounded on actual examples, this book proposes a new conception of participatory practices in visual art, theatre and the performing arts, going beyond formal definitions and direct meanings. Bala problematizes the relation of art to society, offering alternative ways of comprehending participatory practices through small and unexpected gestures. The book is an invitation to every reader to participate.’ Rabih Mroué, Theatre Director, Visual Artist, Writer, Berlin/Beirut ‘Bala’s book is exciting as it is timely because it provokes a reconsideration of the idea of participation in performance, theatre and visual art. It reminds us that participation functions at many registers and is not always emancipatory. It compels us to think about the politics of art-making via a new conception of gesture. Based on detailed case studies, Bala's elegant writing and fine analysis will engage readers for a long time to come.’Dr. Anuradha Kapur, Visiting Professor Ambedkar University Delhi, former Director of the National School of Drama, theatre-maker and teacher -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 The gestures of institutional critique2 On the inconvenient means and ends of participation 3 Unsolicited gestures of participation 4 Vicarious gestures of participation 5 Delicate gestures of participation Conclusion: between image, act and language Index
£21.00
Manchester University Press Extending Ecocriticism: Crisis, Collaboration and
Book SynopsisThis volume of essays explores the scope for a further extension of ecocriticism across the environmental humanities. Contributors, who include both established academics and early career researchers in the humanities, were given free rein to interpret the brief. The collection is unusual in that it considers collaboration between individuals both in the same discipline and across creative disciplines. Subjects include familiar environments close to home and those such as Iceland and Antarctica, where narratives of climate, geology and ecology provide a stark backdrop to creative output. A further innovation is the inclusion of essays on public art, natural heritage interpretation and the visualisation and aesthetic impact of wind farms. The book will be of interest to writers, artists, students and researchers in the environmental humanities and those with a general interest in the cultural response to the environment.Table of Contents1 Ecocriticism extends its boundaries – Peter Barry and William Welstead2 ‘I am not afraid to die’: contemporary environmental crisis fiction and the post-theory era – Louise Squire3 Halfway-to-whole things: ecologies of writing and collaboration – Philip Gross4 ‘Drawing closer’: an ecocritical consideration of collaborative, cross-disciplinary practices of walking, writing, drawing and exhibiting – Harriet Tarlo and Judith Tucker5 ARTlines: three walking artists in Iceland – Patti Lean6 Nature matters: notes on Ackroyd and Harvey, ecocriticism and praxis – Eve Ropek7 The word among stones – Peter Barry8 Two familiar paths well-travelled – John Darwell 9 Aesthetics as ecology, or the question of the form of eco-art – Clive Cazeaux10 Signs and sentiment in British wildlife art – William Welstead11 Symphonic pastorals redux – Aaron S. Allen12 Treaty obligations: science and art in Antarctica – Mike Pearson13 On-site natural heritage interpretation: an ecocritical reading – William Welstead14 A seamless image: the role of photomontage in the meaning-making of wind farm development – Jean WelsteadIndex
£21.00
Manchester University Press Thomas Nashe and Literary Performance
Book SynopsisThomas Nashe is typically regarded as an urban author and a University wit, but his writings are inflected and shaped by regional travel, non-literary', non-elite works, and oral culture. The essays in this collection address Nashe's use of the past, his engagement with the Elizabethan present, and his textual legacy. -- .
£81.00
Manchester University Press The Merchant of Venice
Book SynopsisBoika Sokolova and Kirilka Stavreva’s second edition of the stage history of The Merchant of Venice interweaves into the chronology of James Bulman’s first edition richly contextualised chapters on Max Reinhardt, Peter Zadek, and the first production of the play in Mandatory Palestine, directed by Leopold Jessner. While the focus of the book is on post-1990s productions across Europe and the USA, and on film, the Segue provides a broad survey of the interpretative shifts in the play’s performance from the 1930s to the second decade of the twenty-first century. Individual chapters explore productions by Peter Zadek, Trevor Nunn, Robert Sturua, Edward Hall, Rupert Goold, Daniel Sullivan, and Karin Coonrod. An extensive film section including silent film offers close analysis of Don Selwyn’s Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti and Michael Radford’s adaptation. Accessible and engaging, the book will interest students, academics, and general readers.Table of ContentsPART II An Elizabethan Merchant: performance and contextII Henry Irving and the great traditionIII Wayward genius in the high temple of bardolotry: Theodore KomisarjevskyIV Aesthetes in a rugger club: Jonathan Miller and Laurence OlivierV The BBC Merchant: diminishing returnsVI Cultural stereotyping and audience response: Bill Alexander and Antony SherVII Shylock and the pressures of historyPART IISegue The Merchant of Venice: pressures of war, ideology, and the crises of late capitalismI Magical spectacles and nightmarish times: Max Reinhardt’s productions of The Merchant of VeniceII Peter Zadek’s challenges to the post-war German legacy of The Merchant of VeniceIII A post-Holocaust balancing act: The Merchant of Venice directed by Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre, London (1999)IV Desperate outsiders in a money-drunk world: The Merchant of Venice directed by Daniel Sullivan (2010) and Rupert Goold (2011)V Crises of the new millennium: The Merchant of Venice directed by Robert Sturua (2000) and Edward Hall (2009)VI The Merchant of Venice on filmVII The search for justice: The Merchant of Venice in Mandatory Palestine (1936) and the Venetian Ghetto (2016)Appendix A Some significant twentieth- and twenty-first century productions of The Merchant of Venice Appendix B Major actors and creative staff for productions discussedBibliographyIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Collections Xviii: Two Plays from ‘the Decameron’
Book SynopsisOf all the tales to be found in Boccaccio’s Decameron, the tragic story of King Tancred’s efforts to frustrate the love of his daughter Gismond for Guiscardo, was probably the best known and most popular in Renaissance England. This Collections volume brings together the earliest texts of the first and last pre-1642 plays to deal with the lovers’ story: the Inner Temple tragedy, Gismond of Salern (1568), and a much-revised play probably by amateur Warwickshire dramatist John Newdigate (1620s). It presents the first modern transcription of the Hargrave MS of Gismond of Salern and the first ever printed edition of Newdigate’s untitled play, here named Glausamond and Fidelia. Together, the plays offer fresh proof of the important influence of Boccaccio, and Italian literature on English Renaissance drama. They are also fascinating examples of the period’s amateur drama, of interest to all scholars and students of early modern English theatre.Table of ContentsGismond of Salern (MS Hargrave 205), edited by Adam Barker, Ella Hawkins, Margaret Sharratt, Rachel Stewart, Jan Tasker, Alexander Thom, Jennifer Waghorn, Sara Marie Westh, and Martin Wiggins Glausamond and Fidelia (MS CR136 B766), edited by Kirsten Inglis
£40.50
Manchester University Press The Devils Charter
Book SynopsisThis Malone Society edition of Barnabe Barnes's The Devil's Charter presents a photo-facsimile of the 1607 quarto, with an Introduction to its printing history, its date and authorship (including the attribution of some scenes to Robert Armin), its performance, and later history. New material on Barnes's debt to Shakespeare is presented. -- .
£42.75
Manchester University Press Beckett's Afterlives: Adaptation, Remediation,
Book SynopsisDespite the steady rise in adaptations of Samuel Beckett’s work across the world following the author’s death in 1989, Beckett’s afterlives is the first book-length study dedicated to this creative phenomenon. The collection employs interrelated concepts of adaptation, remediation and appropriation to reflect on Beckett’s own evolving approach to crossing genre boundaries and to analyse the ways in which contemporary artists across different media and diverse cultural contexts – including the UK, Europe, the USA and Latin America – continue to engage with Beckett. The book offers fresh insights into how his work has kept inspiring both practitioners and audiences in the twenty-first century, operating through methodologies and approaches that aim to facilitate and establish the study of modern-day adaptations, not just of Beckett but other (multimedia) authors as well.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Pim Verhulst, Anna McMullan and Jonathan Bignell1 Beckett’s ‘adaphatroce’ revisited: toward a poetics of adaptation – Pim Verhulst2 Adaptation and convergence: Beckett on Film – Jonathan Bignell3 ‘Imprecations from the Brighton Road to Foxrock Station’: the effect of place on Mouth on Fire’s stagings of All That Fall – Feargal Whelan4 Engines of reverence? Beckett, festivals and adaptation – Trish McTighe and Kurt Taroff5 Passing by, gazing upon: gendered agency in adaptations of Come and Go and Happy Days – Katherine Weiss6 ‘Last state last version’: adaptation and performance in Gare St Lazare Ireland’s How It Is – Dúnlaith Bird7 Intermedial embodiments: Company SJ’s staging of Beckett’s Company – Anna McMullan8 Beckett, neurodiversity and the prosthetic: the posthuman turn in contemporary art – Derval Tubridy9 Beckett and new media adaptation: from the literary corpus to the transmedia archive – David Houston Jones10 Opera as adaptation: György Kurtág’s Samuel Beckett: Fin de partie, scènes et monologues – Olga Beloborodova11 Questioning norms in three Beckettian choreographic projections: Maguy Marin, Dominique Dupuy, Joanna Czajkowska – Evelyne Clavier12 ‘I’ll give you just enough to keep you from dying’: power dynamics disclosed in Tania Bruguera’s Endgame – Luz María Sánchez Cardona13 Godot noir: Beckett in black and whiteface – S. E. Gontarski14 Deferred dreams: waiting for freedom and equality in Nwandu and Beckett – Graley Herren15 ‘How can you photograph words?’: expanding the Godot universe from adaptation to transmedia storytelling – Luciana Tamas and Eckart Voigts16 The figure of Beckett in four contemporary novels– Paul StewartIndex
£115.76
Manchester University Press Sound Effects: Hearing the Early Modern Stage
Book SynopsisThis book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard. Sound effects should not resound from scene to scene without examination, any more than a pun can be reshaped in dialogue without acknowledgement of its shifting connotations. This book listens to sound as a rhetorical device, able to penetrate the ears and persuade the mind, to influence and to affect.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Follow the noise1 Soundgrams on stage: sonic allusions and commonplace sounds2 Hearing the night: nocturnal scenes and unsound effects3 The head and the (play)house: bodies and sound in Ben Jonson4 'Unheard’ and ‘untold’: the promise of sound in ShakespeareConclusionConclusion
£76.50
Manchester University Press Performing Care: New Perspectives on Socially
Book SynopsisThis edited collection brings together essays presenting an interdisciplinary dialogue between theatre and performance and the fields of care ethics, care studies, health and social care. The book advances our understanding of performance as a mode of care, challenging existing debates in this area by re-thinking the caring encounter as a performed, embodied experience and interrogating the boundaries between care practice and performance. Through an examination of a wide range of different care performances drawn from interdisciplinary and international settings, the book interrogates how performance might be understood as caring or uncaring, careless or careful, and correlatively how care can be conceptualised as artful, aesthetic, authentic or even ‘fake’ and ‘staged’.Trade Review'... 13 rigorous essays that utilize theory, analysis, and critique to interrogate “care as embodied knowledge, and care as emotional labor” (p. 3). The collection effectively complicates discourse around philosophies of care, allowing space for the critical considerations of age, gender, abilities, and memories.'CHOICE(Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association.)'This book is an invaluable addition to the relevance of our modality and contains many crossovers with which our practice is affiliated... The global COVID-19 pandemic witnessed the power that the arts hold in keepingpeople creative, playful and, most importantly, connected. Care is ultimately about our relationship with others. This book is tantamount for exploring how and why it is so important to enmesh the arts within the caring professions.'Dramatherapy -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: caring performance, performing care – Amanda Stuart FisherPart I Performing interrelatedness1 Care ethics and improvisation: can performance care? – Maurice Hamington2 Towards an aesthetics of care – James Thompson 3 Performing tenderness: fluidity and reciprocity in the performance of caring in Fevered Sleep’s Men & Girls Dance – Amanda Stuart FisherPart II Care-filled performance4 Caring beyond illness: an examination of Godder’s socially engaged art and participatory dance for Parkinson’s work – Sara Houston5 Convivial theatre: care and debility in collaborations between non-disabled and learning disabled theatre makers – Dave Calvert6 Road care – Jen Archer-Martin and Julieanna PrestonPart III Care deficits7 Clean Break: a practical politics of care – Caoimhe McAvinchey8 Performing a museum of living memories: beholding young people’s experiences and expressions of care through oral history performance – Kathleen Gallagher and Rachel Turner-King9 'Still Lives': Syrian displacement and care in contemporary Beirut – Ella Parry-DaviesPart IV Care as performance10 Verbatim practice as research with care-experienced young people: an ‘aesthetics of care’ through aural attention – Sylvan Baker and Maggie Inchley11 Acts of care: applied drama, 'sympathetic presence' and person-centred nursing – Matt Jennings, Pat Deeny and Karl Tizzard-Kleister12 Taking care of the laundry in care homes – Jayne Lloyd 13 Performing the ‘aesthetics of care’ – James Thompson
£999.99
Manchester University Press All Fools: George Chapman
Book SynopsisOf all the poets Francis Meres names in his famous Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury (1598), just two rate a mention as being both ‘our best for tragedy’ and ‘the best poets for comedy’: William Shakespeare and George Chapman. All Fools, written in 1599, is the only Elizabethan comedy based directly on the plays of Terence. By taking episodes and characters from two brilliant works, The Self-Tormenter and The Brothers, Chapman creates something that is distinctly Elizabethan while remaining faithful to the spirit of the great Roman master. In this edition, an extensive introduction and commentary show how Chapman combines the literary and theatrical traditions of ancient Rome with everyday life in his own time to fashion a sparkling and innovative comedy that will delight audiences today as much as it did those of 1599.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION Chapman at the Rose, 1598–99From the Rose to BlackfriarsTerence goes to London: the sources of All FoolsThe primary plot: Terence transmogrified Love and marriage in Terence and ChapmanThe secondary plot: adultery for fun and profitOvid and the art of adulteryCuckoldry as a spectator sport Divorce English style‘Tis at the Half Moon Tavern’In praise of the hornThe textALL FOOLS APPENDIX The Walsingham SonnetINDEX
£19.00
Manchester University Press Witness Onstage: Documentary Theatre in
Book SynopsisAs the Kremlin’s crackdown on freedom of expression continues to tighten, Russian playwrights and directors are using documentary theatre to create space for the public discussion of injustice in the civic sphere and its connections to the country’s twentieth-century past. Witness Onstage traces the history of documentary theatre’s rapid growth in twenty-first century Russia and situates the form within the socio-political setting of the Putin years. It argues that through the practice of performing documents, Russian theatre artists are creating a new type of cultural and historical archive that challenges the dominance of state-sponsored media and invites individuals to participate in a collective renegotiation of cultural narratives.Trade Review'This book analyzes twenty-first century Russian theater in conjunction with Teatr.doc and related stage productions. Molly Flynn offers a close-up perspective as a translator, performer, and producer, and in her own creative work demonstrates the different roles performed on stage by documents.'The Russian Review -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. History on Trial 2. Called to the Stand 3. Evidentiary Hearing 4. Material Witness 5. Burden of Proof 6. A Special Verdict ConclusionIndex
£999.99
Manchester University Press Love's Victory: By Lady Mary Wroth
Book SynopsisLove’s Victory by Lady Mary Wroth (1587–1651) is the first romantic comedy written in English by a woman. The Revels Plays publishes for the first time a fully-authorised, modern spelling edition of the Penshurst manuscript, the only copy of the play containing all five acts, handwritten by Wroth and privately owned by the Viscount De L’Isle. Edited by Alison Findlay, Philip Sidney and Michael G. Brennan, their critical introduction provides details of Wroth’s remarkable life and work as a member of the Sidney family, tracing connections between Love’s Victory, her prose and poetry and her family’s extensive writings. The editors introduce readers to the influence of court drama on Love’s Victory and offer a new account of the play’s stage history in productions from 1999–2018. Extensive commentary notes guiding the modern reader include explanatory glosses, literary references and staging information.
£19.00
Manchester University Press Politics, Performance and Popular Culture:
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is political. The book is organised into three parts in dialogue regarding specific approaches to popular performance and politics. Part I offers a series of conceptual studies using popular culture as an analytical category for social and political history. Part II explores the ways that performance represents and constructs contemporary ideologies of race, nation and empire. Part III investigates the performance techniques of specific politicians – including Robert Peel, Keir Hardie and Henry Hyndman – and analyses the performative elements of collective movements.Trade Review'This collection will be a landmark work across the disciplines of theatre studies, social and cultural history, and cultural studies broadly conceived.' Peter Bailey, Indiana University‘This welcome, and often entertaining, volume brings together a synergy often remarked on but seldom explored in a systematic way: politics and the theatre. Bringing together historians and theatre scholars, the editors are to be congratulated for producing a coherent and focused collection of essays, largely structured around the concept and practice of performance, which probe that relationship from both sides of the divide: the politics of theatre, and the theatrical nature of politics.’Matthew Roberts, Sheffield Hallam University, Parliamentary History, June 2019'This book constitutes an argument for theatre history as a rigorous interdisciplinary form of study that can remake social history through attentiveness to the meanings of performance. For that reason, it deserves to have an impact beyond that of Victorian Studies. It also constitutes one of the most original works of political history for a long time.'Rohan McWilliam, Anglia Ruskin University, Social History'The authors and editors have collectively enriched the study of politics and performance and helped to carry it forward.'Joseph S. Meisel, Brown University, Journal of Victorian Culture -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: politics, performance and popular culture - Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newey and Jeffrey RichardsPart I: Conceptualising performance, theorising politics1. 'To the last drop of my blood': melodrama and politics in late Georgian England' - Robert Poole2. The platform and the stage: the primary aesthetics of Chartism - Michael Sanders3. 'Bubbles of the day': the melodramatic and the pantomimic - Katherine Newey4. Theatrical hierarchy, cultural capital and legitimate/illegitimate divide - Caroline Radcliffe5. Performances for imagined communities: Gladstone, the national theatre and the contested didactics of the stage - Anselm Heinrich6. Women's suffrage and theatricality - Sos EltisPart II: Politics in performance7. English pantomime and the Irish question - Jill Sullivan8. 'Executed with remarkable care and artistic feeling': popular imperialism and the music hall ballet - Jane Pritchard and Peter Yeandle9. Drury Lane imperialism - Jeffrey RichardsPart III: The performance of politics10. 'Love, bitter wrong, freedom, sad pity, and lust of power': politics and performance in 1820 - Malcolm Chase11. Robert Peel - actor dramatist - Richard Gaunt12. The performance of protest: the 1889 dock strike on and off the stage - Janice Norwood13. Class, performance and socialist politics: the political campaigns of early labour leaders - Marcus MorrisIndex
£18.75
Manchester University Press James Baldwin Review: Volume 8
Book SynopsisJames Baldwin Review (JBR) is an annual journal that brings together a wide array of peer-reviewed critical and creative work on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin. In addition to these cutting-edge contributions, each issue contains a review of recent Baldwin scholarship and an award-winning graduate student essay. James Baldwin Review publishes essays that invigorate scholarship on James Baldwin; catalyze explorations of the literary, political, and cultural influence of Baldwin’s writing and political activism; and deepen our understanding and appreciation of this complex and luminary figure.Table of ContentsIntroduction:Brothers or FoolsJustin A. JoyceFeature Essay:Nonviolence, Black Power, and “the citizens of Pompeii”: James Baldwin’s 1968Ed Pavlic Essays: “A Kind of Joy”: Laughing and Grinning through Sonny’s Blues James Nikopoulos“Forging a New Language”: A New Spatiotemporal Logic in James Baldwin’s The Evidence of Things Not SeenÖzge Özbek AkimanTortuous Time: Undoing the Past in Jean Améry and James BaldwinJoseph WeissBaldwin and the Role of the Citizen ArtistMonika GehlawatGraduate Student Essay Award Winner:Reaching Toward the Reader: James Baldwin’s Voice in “Notes of a Native Son”Beth Tillman Dispatches:“This Music Begins on the Auction Block”: Learning in the Twenty-First Century from James Baldwin on MusicJosh FriedbergMaking Experiences Our Own: A Review of The Amen Corner, 2021Ijeoma N. Njaka Baldwin Boxed In at Virginia State Symposium: A ReviewHerb BoydCelia, James, and MeMichael A.L. BroylesBibliographic Essay :The Evidence of Things Translated: Circulating Baldwin in Contemporary Europe Remo VerdicktInterview:They Came to See if I’m for Real: James Baldwin Interviewed by Hakim Jamal for LA Free Press (1968) Ed Pavlic
£23.10
Manchester University Press The Aesthetic Exception: Essays on Art, Theatre,
Book SynopsisThe aesthetic exception theorises anew the relation between art and politics. It challenges critical trends that discount the role of aesthetic autonomy, to impulsively reassert art as an effective form of social engagement. But it equally challenges those on the flipside of the efficacy debate, who insist that art’s politics is limited to a recondite space of ‘autonomous resistance’. The book shows how each side of the efficacy debate overlooks art’s exceptional status and its social mediations. Mobilising philosophy and cultural theory, and employing examples from visual art, performance, and theatre, it proposes four alternative tests to ‘effect’ to offer a nuanced account of art’s political character. Those tests examine how art relates to politics as a practice that articulates its historical conjuncture, and how it prefigures the ‘new’ through simulations capable of activating the political life of the spectator.Trade Review'Starting with a seemingly simple question ‘Can art be political?’, this book opens a Pandora’s box that reveals the paradoxical nature of the relationship between art and life, the impossibility of taxonomy of political theatre, on the one hand, and its potential as a hermeneutical tool, on the other, and when it comes to postdramatic theatre and theory – nothing is anymore as it seemed before … The depth of analysis is impressive, whenever we feel we have reached a conceptual stable ground, Fisher probes further and invites us to question deeper!'Silvija Jestrovic, University of Warwick'Fisher is a joy to read! He writes with clarity and urgency but without oversimplification and gratuitous polemic. He draws on the whole toolkit of interdisciplinary thought and covers a vast terrain in contemporary theatre, but he never relies on jargon and avoids any form of superficiality … with cautious optimism, [he] takes the lead of key artists and heads out towards new horizons of possibility, en route, he has revitalized our understanding of both politics and aesthetics.'Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction The horizon of the aestheticPart I The aesthetic exception1 The paradox of the aesthetic exception2 Crossing the threshold3 The institution of art: critical and theoretical reflectionsPart II Political art after the communicative turn4 The classical debate revisited: Sartre, Brecht, Adorno5 Art of the communicative turn: Habermas and the political6 What is the proper way to display a US flag? – the work of “dissensual speech” in artPart III Taxonomy of the political theatre7 Foundational problems and problems of foundation8 Displacement effects: Althusser’s “Brecht” and the theatre of the conjuncture9 Activist theatre of the conjuncture: the case of Janam and the street theatre in India10 The “closure” of the political theatre and the critique of post-dramatic reason11 The political theatre redefined12 The theatre of the planetary conjuncture: Milo Rau’s Congo Tribunal13 On taxonomic strategiesIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Adaptation and Resilience in the Performing Arts
Book SynopsisEight teams share their research about live performing arts during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting on digital innovations and analogue adaptations in dance and theatre, accessibility and community-building, and on how the pandemic impacted on artists and companies. -- .
£38.00
Manchester University Press Pierrot and His World: Art, Theatricality, and
Book SynopsisPierrot, a theatrical stock character known by his distinctive costume of loose white tunic and trousers, is a ubiquitous figure in French art and culture. This richly illustrated book offers an account of Pierrot’s recurrence in painting, printmaking, photography and film, tracing this distinctive type from the art of Antoine Watteau to the cinema of Occupied France. As a visual type, Pierrot thrives at the intersection of theatrical and marketplace practices. From Watteau’s Pierrot (c. 1720) and Édouard Manet’s The Old Musician (1862) to Nadar and Adrien Tournachon’s Pierrot the Photographer (1855) and the landmark film Children of Paradise (1945), Pierrot has given artists a medium through which to explore the marketplace as a form for both social life and creative practice. Simultaneously a human figure and a theatrical mask, Pierrot elicits artistic reflection on the representation of personality in the marketplace.Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Antoine Watteau and the fête marchande2 Pierrot-co-co3 New Paris, old Pierrot (new Pierrot, old Paris)4 Nadar charlatan5 Old clothes and the dreams of the artistConclusionIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Reanimating Grief
Book SynopsisThis book explores how literature, theatre and music revive the dead to explore the dynamics of grief and mourning. Combining expressive and analytical writing, it offers a critical poetics of loss to show how ghosts, scenes of mourning, memories of reading or viewing, and acoustic fragments, all reanimate the dead in different ways. -- .
£76.50
Manchester University Press Shakespeares Borrowed Feathers
Book SynopsisThis book uses the latest techniques in textual analysis to reveal the influence of a community of English playwrights on the celebrated works of William Shakespeare. -- .
£23.75
Manchester University Press The Theatrical Orchestra
Book SynopsisThis book analyses experimental performances by British music ensembles in the twenty-first century. It shows how theatrical approaches to presenting orchestral music can facilitate unique and powerful experiences for audiences, enable new interpretation of repertoire, and connect music-making to contemporary social issues. -- .
£76.50
Manchester University Press Theatre Activism Subjectivity
Book SynopsisIn modern times of political confusion, when Leftist agendas and struggles often collapse or become appropriated by Right, this book stress the necessity of recovering the Leftist ethos of solidarity, social justice, and care for the commons. -- .
£81.00
Manchester University Press Hyde Park
Book SynopsisHyde Park is a striking Caroline example of London city comedy. This critical edition unpicks its valuable insights into the shifting nature of the genre and early modern conceptions of London and courtship. -- .
£19.00
Manchester University Press The Family of Love
Book SynopsisThe Family of Love is a rumbustious citizen comedy. Delivering farcical twists on familiar dramatic situations, it offers a glimpse of spiritual freedom in paraperopandemical times. -- .
£19.00
Manchester University Press Becketts Afterlives
Book SynopsisBeckett's afterlives is the first book-length study dedicated to posthumous adaptations of Beckett's oeuvre. This collection analyses the remarkable diversity of creative engagements across different media and cultural contexts that have ensured the survival and continuing relevance of Beckett's work in a constantly changing world. -- .
£22.50
Manchester University Press The Queen or the Excellency of Her Sex
Book SynopsisA scholarly, modern-spelling edition of a play by the Caroline dramatist John Ford which was accidentally omitted from the 1652 edition of his works and so has not received much attention. A full introduction explores what made the play interesting to audiences both when it was first written in the late 1620s and when it was published in 1653. -- .
£76.50
Manchester University Press An Idea for a Theatre Ecology
Book SynopsisThis book reconfigures theatre's relationship with urgent issues to do with ecology and environment by showing how theatre is an ecological event in and by itself. It does so by providing a new theory of theatre ecology that is clearly written and rigorously developed. -- .
£76.50
Manchester University Press The Aesthetic Exception
Book SynopsisThe aesthetic exception critically re-evaluates the relation between art and politics by challenging longstanding assumptions surrounding political effect' in art and the problem of art's autonomous status. Drawing on examples from visual art and theatre, it offers a new approach based on a conjunctural understanding of how art becomes political. -- .
£23.75
Manchester University Press Death in Modern Theatre
Book SynopsisThis book analyses representations of death and dying in modern Western theatre from the late nineteenth century onward, examining how and why historically informed conceptions of mortality are dramatized and staged. -- .
£19.00
Manchester University Press Do it Yourself
Book SynopsisDo It Yourself is a practical guide for artists, activists, and organisers to create impactful theatre rooted in working-class communities. Drawing on fifteen years of experience, UK theatre company Common/Wealth share their experimental approach, offering a vision of theatre as a powerful tool for political change. -- .
£14.24
Manchester University Press Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 1011
Book Synopsis
£45.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Here in the Dark
Book SynopsisBy night, Vivian Parry performs the role of Manhattan’s sharpest theatre critic, immersing herself fully in every show she sees. By day, she uses work, sex, and psychotropic drugs to keep her comfortably numb. Desperate for a promotion and at the urging of her editor, she agrees to an interview with David Adler, an enigmatic graduate student. When he later disappears, Vivian soon learns from his devastated fiancée that she was the last person to have seen him alive. The police refuse to investigate his disappearance and Vivian finds herself obsessed with what happened, assuming the role of amateur investigator. But as she gets closer to the truth about David Adler, she finds that the boundaries between theatre and reality are more tenuous than even she could have believed. 'An impressive debut' Financial Times 'A sharp, funny, and pacy slice of Manhattan noir' Guardian Trade ReviewAlexis Soloski portrays Manhattan's thespian scene and high-end social life in vivid detail with snappy dialogue. This is an impressive debut * Financial Times *A sharp, funny and pacy slice of Manhattan noir that manages to be over-the-top and weirdly plausible, with a terrific payoff * Guardian *Alexis Soloski's debut novel is an elegant, chilling read that examines the lives of critics, actors, and addicts. It poses the question: can you know or even have your own identity, when your entire life is spent acting? Recommended for lovers of New York and the theatre, this is a taut, beautifully written psychological thriller that dares to delve into the darkness behind the curtains -- Laura SheppersonA moody, taut dose of noir, Here in the Dark is a poised, daring debut - the kind of novel I relish and can't get out of my head, evoking the work of icons like Megan Abbott and Margaret Millar in its hypnotic prose and mesmerizing characters. Readers will not forget Vivian Parry - and they won't want to -- Alex Segura, bestselling author of Secret IdentitySoloski does not disappoint in either her sharp-eyed and unflinching portrait of an unravelling critic, or in her delicious upending of genre. Hitchcock meets a slippery metatheatrics of power, performance, desire, and escape. This is a novel and a protagonist who moves with a precarious velocity, constantly choosing the most dangerous move and bringing us careening after -- Jen Silverman, author of We Play OurselvesHere in the Dark lives up to its title and is indeed a dark tale; it’s also hilarious, addictive, elegantly constructed, and composed. It’s ultimately a book about art and the love of art, but it's cleverly disguised as a thrill ride, a jolt of pulp and a shot of noir. It became a New York classic to me the minute I read the last sentence -- Michael Imperioli, actor, writer, and musicianFrom its very first page to its final revelation, Here in the Dark will possess you with a mix of acerbic wit and Highsmithian invention. I blazed through this book, delighting equally in the cleverness of its plot and the delicious wickedness of Vivian Parry - a woman you can’t look away from even for a second. And why would you, when there’s a life-or-death mystery, dialogue that feels beamed in from a classic noir, and a ballet about rabies on offer? Even if you’ve never seen a play, you’ll be thrilled by the ways author Alexis Soloski takes the novel of suspense and turns it into a meditation on seeing and being seen, knowing and being known, judging and being judged -- Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to ACT
£15.29
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Here in the Dark
Book Synopsis'Impressive' Financial Times 'Terrific' Guardian'Elegant' Laura SheppersonBy night, Vivian Parry performs the role of Manhattan's sharpest literary critic, immersing herself fully in every show she sees. By day, she uses work, sex and psychotropic drugs to keep her comfortably numb. Desperate for a promotion and at the urging of her editor, she agrees to an interview with David Adler, an enigmatic graduate student. When he later disappears, Vivian soon learns from his devastated fiancée that she was the last person to have seen him alive. The police refuse to investigate his disappearance and Vivian finds herself obsessed with what happened, assuming the role of amateur investigator. But as she gets closer to the truth about David Adler, she finds that the boundaries between theatre and reality are more tenuous than even she could have believed.
£9.49
Pan Macmillan Paradise
Book Synopsis‘Tempest has a gift for shattering and transcending convention.’ New York TimesPhiloctetes lives in a cave on a desolate island: the wartime hero is now a wounded outcast. Stranded for ten years, he sees a chance of escape when a young soldier appears with tales of Philoctetes’ past glories. But with hope comes suspicion – and, as an old enemy emerges, he is faced with an even greater temptation: revenge.Kae Tempest is now widely acknowledged as a revolutionary force in contemporary British poetry, music and drama; they continue to expand the range of their work with a new version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes in a bold new translation. Like Brand New Ancients before it, Paradise shows Tempest’s gift for lending the old tales an immediate contemporary relevance – and will find this timeless story a wide new audience.Trade ReviewTempest . . . doesn't just leap off the page, but leaps into your throat and demands to be shouted all the way out. -- Marlon JamesOne of the brightest British talents around. [Tempest's] spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart . . . drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday * Guardian *Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality . . . [An] hypnotically persuasive vision * New York Times *Breathe[s] new life into old classic forms . . . I loved its vision, powerful and merciful. -- Ali Smith, on Brand New Ancients
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Break a Leg: A memoir, manifesto and celebration
Book Synopsis'With spot-on injections of humour and a frequently raised sardonic eyebrow, joy and warmth shine from this fascinating and funny book' Jo BrandA joyful celebration of amateur theatreFrom the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages, via the Georgian aristocrats who built opulent private theatres in their own homes, to the radical lefties taking political theatre to the streets, this is the story of amateur dramatics in Britain. We meet a cast of characters who tell us about the joy amateur theatre brings them and we follow the full arc of a production, from first auditions to last night party, with all the mishaps and forgotten lines that come in between. In a triumphant mix of memoir, social history and manifesto, Jenny Landreth opens our eyes to am-dram and shows us a vibrant world that is a crucial part of our culture.Trade ReviewAn unputdownable, utterly delightful stroll through British amateur theatre and why it has a vital place for us all -- Shappi KhorsandiLandreth's charming book is both a cultural history of amateur theatre and a loving look at am-dram and its role in British life -- Sarah Hughes * i *This funny and interesting book makes you yearn for a long-lost sense of community, and then realise it’s been there all along. Jenny Landreth, take an Am Dram style bow -- John O’FarrellAmateur is not a dirty word, but implies disinterested love, dedication and a clubbable, community feeling . . . Landreth reminds us, importantly, that the word amateur includes student and community theatre, vital seed corn and support to the professional world -- Libby Purvis * The Times *With spot-on injections of humour and a frequently raised sardonic eyebrow, joy and warmth shine from this fascinating and funny book -- Jo Brand
£9.49
