Theatre studies Books

Book SynopsisEvery artist has a dream project an enterprise that he or she has continuously taken up but never completed. Via archived notes and drafts, a retrospective reconstitution of such projects can serve as a key for better understanding the authors artistic corpus. The present study reaches out to the authorship of Paul Claudel, Jean Genet, and Federico Fellini. Claudel deferred and never completed the fourth segment of his Trilogie des Coufontaine. The only indication of the existence of this prospective fourth part of the theatre sequence is a brief entry in his Journal. In 1949, he began writing a third version of his first great work Tête d'Or. Like the unfinished fourth section that was to be added to the trilogy, the draft of the third version of Tête d'Or reveals a dialogue between the Old and New Testaments a theme that appears to be central to Claudel's entire corpus. Genet labored over La Mort for many years. At the conclusion of Saint Genet, comédien et martyr (1952), Sartre mentions this final work of Genet. Genet discussed his progress on La Mort in correspondence and even published Fragments of La Mort in the literary magazine Les Temps Modernes. While the project never came to fruition, it nevertheless remains an important means through which to understand Genets work. The aborted production of Fellinis Voyage de G. Mastorna has become a legend. After 8" and Giulietta degli spiriti, Fellini wrote a screenplay that he began to film but subsequently abandoned, much to the chagrin of producer Dino de Laurentiis who had already invested in sets and costumes. Fellini would often revisit this project, but never completed it. This book also examines additional dream projects taken from different art forms: poetry (Mallarmés Le Livre); literature (Vignys Daphné); painting (Monets Nymphéas); music (Schoenbergs Moses und Aron); and various films (Clouzots LEnfer, Viscontis La Recherche, Kubricks Napoleon, etc.).

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis play-analysis textbook contains 50 short essays on geographically diverse, historically significant dramas -- among them Major Barbara, Our Town, Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Julie, Electra, Death of a Salesman, The Balcony, The Cherry Orchard, Mother Courage, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Old Times. The essays are supported by a Step-by-Step Approach to Play Analysis, a Glossary of Dramatic Terms, Study Guides, Topics for Writing and Discussion, Bibliographical Resources, and a comprehensive Index. Written for university and advanced high school students, these critical essays provide practical models to aid and promote writing and analytical skills. The author is a close reader committed to a detailed yet objective examination of the structure, style, imagery, and language of a play. He is concerned with dramatic analysis that can be of benefit to directors, designers, and even actors. Analysis of character, action, dialogue, and setting can thus be translated into concepts for theatrical production. The three key benefits of ANALYZING DRAMA are: 1. Most so-called play analysis texts are books about the methods and techniques of play analysis but contain few (if any) actual play analyses. The book describes the methods and techniques of play analysis while at the same time providing numerous examples of such analysis. 2. The Topics for Writing and Discussion and Study Guides provide a wide range of set tasks for students. 3. Readings are not biased by any particular social or political doctrine. Aimed at students, teachers, educated readers, and drama aficionados with an interest in world drama in particular and drama studies in general, as well as at theatregoers with an interest in the practice of play analysis and criticism.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis play-analysis textbook contains 50 short essays on geographically diverse, historically significant dramas -- among them Major Barbara, Our Town, Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Julie, Electra, Death of a Salesman, The Balcony, The Cherry Orchard, Mother Courage, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Old Times. The essays are supported by a Step-by-Step Approach to Play Analysis, a Glossary of Dramatic Terms, Study Guides, Topics for Writing and Discussion, Bibliographical Resources, and a comprehensive Index. Written for university and advanced high school students, these critical essays provide practical models to aid and promote writing and analytical skills. The author is a close reader committed to a detailed yet objective examination of the structure, style, imagery, and language of a play. He is concerned with dramatic analysis that can be of benefit to directors, designers, and even actors. Analysis of character, action, dialogue, and setting can thus be translated into concepts for theatrical production. The three key benefits of ANALYZING DRAMA are: 1. Most so-called play analysis texts are books about the methods and techniques of play analysis but contain few (if any) actual play analyses. The book describes the methods and techniques of play analysis while at the same time providing numerous examples of such analysis. 2. The Topics for Writing and Discussion and Study Guides provide a wide range of set tasks for students. 3. Readings are not biased by any particular social or political doctrine. Aimed at students, teachers, educated readers, and drama aficionados with an interest in world drama in particular and drama studies in general, as well as at theatregoers with an interest in the practice of play analysis and criticism.

Read more less

Book SynopsisRobert Hatch's critical life spanned five decades. Starting in 1947 and continuing until 1984, he wrote about drama (and film) for The New Republic, The Nation, Theatre Arts, The Reporter, and Horizon. Along with John Simon, Robert Brustein, Richard Gilman, and Stanley Kauffmann, Hatch was one of the most potent, influential authors in the New York school of twentieth-century American arts criticism. With style and erudition Open Hatch discusses plays and productions from the following countries: England, the United States, France, Russia, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Greece, and Australia. Among the many works discussed are The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen; The Three Sisters, by Anton Chekhov; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams; The Bourgeois Gentleman, by Molière; The Iceman Cometh, by Eugene O'Neill; Measure for Measure, by William Shakespeare; The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht; Exiles, by James Joyce; Endgame, by Samuel Beckett; The Blacks, by Jean Genet; The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee; Dutchman, by LeRoi Jones; and Leonce and Lena, by Georg Büchner. Also included in Open Hatch are articles on the following subjects: the idea of repertory; the Living Theatre; the Actors' Studio; Broadway and Off-Broadway; melodrama; and scene design. In addition, one may find in this rich collection bio-critical pieces on such figures as Tyrone Guthrie, Orson Welles, and John Arden. The precision, wit, and wisdom of Hatch's writing chime in Open Hatch, as he reveals his sense of cultural mission - and love of all the arts - by applying to theater and drama the same high standards that are applied to fiction, poetry, art, and music.

Read more less

Book SynopsisColonialism and Slavery in Performance brings together original archival research with recent critical perspectives to argue for the importance of theatrical culture to the understanding of the French Caribbean sugar colonies in the eighteenth century. Fifteen English-language essays from both established and emerging scholars apply insights and methodologies from performance studies and theatre history in order to propose a new understanding of Old Regime culture and identity as a trans-Atlantic continuum that includes the Antillean possessions whose slave labour provided enormous wealth to the metropole. Carefully documented studies of performances in Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous French colony, illustrate how the crucible of a brutally racialized colonial space gave rise to a new French identity by adapting many of the cherished theatrical traditions that colonists imported directly from the mainland, resulting in a Creole performance culture that reflected the strong influence of African practices brought to the islands by plantation slaves. Other essays focus on how European theatregoers reconciled the contradiction inherent in the eighteenth century’s progressive embrace of human rights, with an increasing dependence on the economic spoils of slavery, thus illustrating how the stage served as a means to negotiate new tensions within “French” identity, in the metropole as well as in the colonies. In the final section of the volume, essays explore the place of performance in representations of the Old Regime Antilles, from the Haitian literary diaspora to contemporary performing artists from Martinique and Guadeloupe, as the stage remains central to understanding history and identity in France’s former Atlantic slave colonies.Featuring contributions from Sean Anderson, Karine Bénac-Giroux, Bernard Camier, Nadia Chonville, Laurent Dubois, Logan J. Connors, Béatrice Ferrier, Kaiama L. Glover, Jeffrey M. Leichman, Laurence Marie, Pascale Pellerin, Julia Prest, Catherine Ramond, Emily Sahakian, Pierre Saint-Amand, and Fredrik Thomasson.Trade Review‘None of the sections of this well-organized and thought-provoking collaborative work disappoint. They contain well-articulated and well-researched contributions at the intersections of history and culture, with the French essays translated for English-speaking readers. The book enriches the field of Colonial Studies with contributions that explore fascinating dialogues between colonies and the metropole… Colonialism and Slavery in Performance beautifully fills historiographic lacunae with vibrant and thorough discussions of theatrical culture and practices.’ Jacqueline Couti, New West Indian Guide

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the middle years of the sixteenth century, English drama witnessed the emergence of the ‘tyrant by entrie’ or the usurper, who supplanted earlier ‘tyrant by the administration’ as the main antihero of political drama. This usurper or, in Machiavellian terms principe nuove, was the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtù’ and through an act of ‘lawmaking’ violence. Early Tudor morality plays were exclusively concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant; in the political drama of the first half of the sixteenth century, we do not encounter a single instance of usurpation among the texts that are still available to us. In contrast, the historical and tragic plays of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods teem with illegitimate monarchs. Almost all of Shakespeare’s history plays, at least four of his ten tragedies, and even a few of his comedies feature usurpation or potential usurpation of sovereign power as a crucial plot device. Why and how does usurpation emerge as a preoccupation in English theatre? What are the political, historical, legal, and dramaturgical transformations that influence and are influenced by this moment of emergence? As the first book-length study devoted exclusively to the study of usurpation and tyranny in sixteenth-century drama and politics, Tyranny and Usurpation: The New Prince and Lawmaking Violence will challenge existing disciplinary boundaries in order to engage with these critical questions.Trade ReviewReviews'Original scholarship of significant value to the academic study of the intersections between drama and politics in the early modern period; its strengths lie in its wide coverage of dramatic texts, from political moralities to Senecan tragedies, and from university dramas to histories of the commercial stage; its combination of these dramatic texts with the analysis of a variety of political materials; and its dual focus on the historical and political contexts of both England and Scotland.'Dr Clare Egan, Lancaster University'[A] perceptive study... [Majumder] examines a span of English and Scottish works, from John Skelton’s Magnificence, through David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis and George Buchanan’s literary and polemical work, to the Richard III plays of the late 1500s, identifying a crucial shift in the ways in which tyranny and its relationship to usurpation were represented.'Lucy Munro, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900Doyeeta Majumder [provides] a refreshing approach to what has become one of the most discussed topics in Shakespearean studies—that of the expression and negotiation of authority on the stage. [...] It is the final chapter that offers a truly original approach to the issues of tyranny and usurpation in its consideration of three versions of Richard III. [...] Majumder’s analysis takes into consideration the particular audiences and literary conceits employed in each play and offers nuanced and intelligent readings that expose the constant contestation and fluidity of supreme authority.'Ben Haworth, The Year's Work in English Studies Table of ContentsNote on Spellings and AbbreviationsIntroductionChapter One: The Kingly Vice: The Tyrant in Early Tudor DramaChapter Two: Sovereignty, Counsel, and Consent in Scotland: Ane Satyre of the Thrie EstaitisChapter Three: Artful Construction of the Political Realm: Buchanan and the Legitimacy of ResistanceChapter Four: Gorboduc: Absolutist Decision and the Two Bodies of the KingChapter Five: Tyranny Added to Usurpation: Richardus Tertius, The True Tragedy, and Richard IIIEpilogueBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. As the prominence of the recent #WakingTheFeminists movement illustrates, the Irish theatre world is highly conscious of the ways in which theatre can foster social emancipation. This volume of essays uncovers a wide range of marginalised histories by reflecting on the emancipatory role that the Dublin Gate Theatre (est. 1928) has played in Irish culture and society, both historically and in more recent times. The Gate’s founders, Hilton Edwards and Michéal mac Liammóir, promoted the work of many female playwrights and created an explicitly cosmopolitan stage on which repressive ideas about gender, sexuality, class and language were questioned. During Selina Cartmell’s current tenure as director, cultural diversity and social emancipation have also featured prominently on the Gate’s agenda, with various productions exploring issues of ethnicity in contemporary Ireland. The Gate thus offers a unique model for studying the ways in which cosmopolitan theatres, as cultural institutions, give expression to and engage with the complexities of identity and diversity in changing, globalised societies. CONTRIBUTORS: David Clare, Marguérite Corporaal, Mark Fitzgerald, Barry Houlihan, Radvan Markus, Deirdre McFeely, Justine Nakase, Siobhan O'Gorman, Mary Trotter, Grace Vroomen, Ian R. Walsh, Feargal WhelanTrade ReviewReviews‘The excellent essays in this collection add significantly to our knowledge of the Gate Theatre and its social and cultural practices and their contexts.’ Professor José Lanters, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee‘This rich stimulating collection revisions the work of Dublin’s Gate Theatre and celebrates how it posed radical challenges to Irish society’s social and cultural sore points and no-go-areas. Through a dazzling diversity of case studies in production, performance and theatrical practices the essays argue convincingly for the role of the Gate in confronting audiences with images and impacts that countered attitudes and assumptions about sexuality, gender, class divisions, racialization and Irish (including language) identity. While the Gate’s acknowledged theatrical aesthetics are not neglected, the book stresses the Gate Theatre’s achievement in juggling localism and cosmopolitanism with invigorating and engaging tension.’Dr Cathy Leeney, University College Dublin'A Stage of Emancipation is full of outstanding theatre scholarship from emerging and established voices. It provides fascinating insight into the role that the Dublin Gate Theatre has played in promoting social, economic, and cultural change within Irish society since the late 1920s. Most notably, it highlights the valiant efforts by key figures in the theatre’s history to bring marginalised stories and progressive attitudes to the Irish stage. This is an enormously valuable book for students, academics, and practitioners alike.'Dr Fiona McDonagh, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick'This collection makes room to breathe in Irish theatre – allowing us to inhale the extraordinary diversity of identities and artistry which were embodied on the Gate stage. Our eyes are opened once again to these forgotten legacies which challenge singular concepts of nation and society, transforming not only our understanding of the past but liberating our approach to theatre now.'- Dr Melissa Sihra, Trinity College DublinTable of Contents1. IntroductionMarguérite Corporaal and Ruud van den BeukenI: Liberating Bodies2. Queering the Irish Actress: The Gate Theatre Production of Children in Uniform (1934)Mary Trotter3. Maura Laverty at the Gate: Theatre as Social Commentary in 1950s IrelandDeirdre McFeelyII: Emancipating Communities4. ‘Let’s Be Gay, While We May’: Artistic Platforms and the Construction of Queer Communities in Mary Manning’s Youth’s the Season–?Grace Vroomen5. Images and Imperatives: Robert Collis’s Marrowbone Lane (1939) at the Gate as Theatre for Social ChangeIan R. WalshIII: Staging Minority Languages 6. Authenticity and Social Change on the Gate Stage in the 1970s: ‘Communicating with the People’Barry Houlihan7. Micheál mac Liammóir, the Irish Language and the Idea of FreedomRadvan MarkusIV: Deconstructing Aesthetics8. The Use of Minority Languages at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and Barcelona’s TeatreLliureFeargal Whelan and David Clare9. Mogu and the Unicorn: Frederick May’s Music for the Gate TheatreMark Fitzgerald10. Tartan Transpositions: Materialising Europe, Ireland and Scotland in the Designs of Molly MacEwenSiobhán O’GormanV: Contesting Traditions in Contemporary Theatre11. From White Othello to Black Hamlet: A History of Race and Representation at the Gate TheatreJustine Nakase12. Bending the Plots: Selina Cartmell’s Gate and Politics of Gender InclusionMarguérite Corporaal

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish women’s playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners. Covering three hundred years of Irish theatre history from 1716 to 2016, it is the most comprehensive study of plays written by Irish women to date. These short essays provide both a valuable introduction and innovative analysis of key playtexts, bringing renewed attention to scripts and writers that continue to be under-represented in theatre criticism and performance.Volume One covers plays by Irish women playwrights written between 1716 to 1992, and seeks to address and redress the historic absence of Irish female playwrights in theatre histories. Highlighting the work of nine women playwrights from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as thirteen of the twentieth century’s key writers, the chapters in this volume explore such varied themes as the impact of space and place on identity, women’s strategic use of genre, and theatrical responses to shifts in Irish politics and culture.CONTRIBUTORS: Conrad Brunström, David Clare, Thomas Conway, Marguérite Corporaal, Mark Fitzgerald, Shirley-Anne Godfrey, Úna Kealy, Sonja Lawrenson, Cathy Leeney, Marc Mac Lochlainn, Kate McCarthy, Fiona McDonagh, Deirdre McFeely, Megan W. Minogue, Ciara Moloney, Justine Nakase, Patricia O'Beirne, Kevin O'Connor, Ciara O'Dowd, Clíona Ó Gallchoir, Anna Pilz, Emilie Pine, Ruud van den Beuken, Feargal WhelanTrade Review'Spanning from the eighteenth-century to the present day, The Golden Thread brings together the work of leading scholars in Irish theatre and women’s writing with that of theatre practitioners to recover the often-hidden contributions of women playwrights. The collection develops a counter-canon of Irish playwrights that examines issues of class, sexuality, and disability.'Colleen English, The New Books Network'This is one of those indispensable works that will influence the future of performance studies and feminist criticism. The number and variety of voices on display, the effort in the reconstruction of the canon by adding women playwrights who had been erased in the past, and the declared ambition to draw attention to and create the conditions for revivals and publications of plays created by contemporary women playwrights make this extensive compilation more than recommendable. [....] All in all, a very enjoyable edition, which makes for a rewarding read and provides essential information.'María Gaviña-Costero, Estudios Irlandeses'In a word, The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, 1716–2016... is superb. This two-volume collection showcases writers familiar and less familiar, offers valuable context and incisive textual readings, attends to performance as well as stagecraft, and ranges among historical periods and critical approaches.'Prof. Paige Reynolds, English Studies‘The Golden Thread is an ambitious, richly textured and multifaceted research piece that opens up the field of Irish theatre studies in most fruitful ways. It offers a robust counteracting to the under-representation of Irish women playwrights in the canon and is a strong incentive for producers to revive their work… a most valuable book for anyone interested in Irish studies, in Irish theatre studies and also for anyone interested in an alternative history of Irish theatre.’ Hélène Lecossois, Études irlandaisesTable of ContentsIntroductionDavid Clare, Fiona McDonagh & Justine Nakase“There’s no Place like old England”: Space and Identity in Mary Davys’s The Northern Heiress; Or, the Humours of York (1716)Marguérite Corporaal“Some tender scenes demand the melting tear”: Frances Sheridan’s The Discovery (1763) and the Vindication of “Sentimental Comedy”Conrad BrunströmIrish Wit on the London Stage: Elizabeth Griffith’s The Platonic Wife (1765)Clíona Ó GallchoirDeceptive Disabilities in Maria Edgeworth’s The Double Disguise (1786): Irish Patriotism, Consumption, and the Martial Male BodySonja LawrensonReimagining Maria Edgeworth’s The Knapsack (1801) for a Contemporary Young AudienceFiona McDonagh & Marc Mac LochlainnMary Balfour’s Kathleen O’Neil (1814): An Expression or Betrayal of Her Ulster Scots Background?David ClareJustice and the “Triple Goddess” Archetypes in Anna Maria Hall’s Mabel’s Curse (1837)Ciara MoloneyOperas without a Hero: A Comic Trilogy (1876–1879) by Elena Norton and Mary HeyneMark Fitzgerald“Petticoats!—petticoats! petticoats!”: Sartorial Economics in Clotilde Graves’s A Mother of Three (1896)Justine NakaseFrom Gort to Antarctica: Lady Gregory’s Audiences and The Rising of the Moon (1903)Anna PilzLady Gregory’s Grania (1912): Myth and MythologyShirley-Anne Godfrey“You have let the play go to pieces”: Geraldine Cummins and Susanne R. Day’s Fox and Geese (1917) and the Hegemony of the Early Abbey TheatreThomas Conway“Something left over from the Eighteenth Century, undergoing a slow process of decay”: The Impotence of the Ascendancy in Mary Manning’s Youth’s the Season–? (1931)Ruud van den BeukenShape Shifting the Silence: An Analysis of Talk Real Fine, Just Like a Lady (2017) by Amanda Coogan in Collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, an Appropriation of Teresa Deevy’s The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935)Úna Kealy & Kate McCarthyThe Premiere Staging of Mount Prospect (1940) by Elizabeth Connor (the Pen Name of Una Troy) at the Abbey TheatreCiara O’DowdCorruption and Socio-Political Tensions in Christine Longford’s Tankardstown (1948)Kevin O’ConnorSocial Class, Space, and Containment in 1950s Ireland: Maura Laverty’s “Dublin Trilogy” (1951–1952)Cathy Leeney & Deirdre McFeelyMáiréad Ní Ghráda’s An Triail/On Trial (1964): Hiding Hypocrisy in Plain SightFeargal WhelanChristina Reid: Acts of Memory in Tea in a China Cup (1983), The Belle of the Belfast City (1989), and My Name, Shall I Tell You My Name (1989)Emilie PineAnne Devlin: Depicting a Gendered Journey: Men and Women on The Long March (1984)Megan W. MinogueA Partial Eclipse: The Role of the Religious in Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed (1988 / 1992)Patricia O’BeirneCoda – What the Woman Sees: Waking Up to Feminist AestheticsCathy Leeney

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish women’s playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners. Covering three hundred years of Irish theatre history from 1716 to 2016, it is the most comprehensive study of plays written by Irish women to date. These short essays provide both a valuable introduction and innovative analysis of key playtexts, bringing renewed attention to scripts and writers that continue to be under-represented in theatre criticism and performance. Volume Two contains chapters focused on plays by sixteen Irish women playwrights produced between 1992 and 2016, highlighting the explosion of new work by contemporary writers. The plays in this volume explore women’s experiences at the intersections of class, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity, pushing at the boundaries of how we define not only Irish theatre, but Irish identity more broadly.CONTRIBUTORS: Nelson Barre, Mary Burke, David Clare, Shonagh Hill, Mária Kurdi, José Lanters, Fiona McDonagh, Dorothy Morrissey, Justine Nakase, Brian Ó Conchubhair, Brenda O'Connell, Shane O'Neill, Graham Price, Siobhán Purcell, Carole Quigley, Sarah Jane Scaife, Melissa Sihra, Clare WallaceTrade Review'In a word, The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, 1716–2016... is superb. This two-volume collection showcases writers familiar and less familiar, offers valuable context and incisive textual readings, attends to performance as well as stagecraft, and ranges among historical periods and critical approaches.'Prof. Paige Reynolds, English Studies‘The Golden Thread is an ambitious, richly textured and multifaceted research piece that opens up the field of Irish theatre studies in most fruitful ways. It offers a robust counteracting to the under-representation of Irish women playwrights in the canon and is a strong incentive for producers to revive their work… a most valuable book for anyone interested in Irish studies, in Irish theatre studies and also for anyone interested in an alternative history of Irish theatre.’ Hélène Lecossois, Études irlandaises‘This is one of those indispensable works that will influence the future of performance studies and feminist criticism. The number and variety of voices on display, the effort in the reconstruction of the canon by adding women playwrights who had been erased in the past, and the declared ambition to draw attention to and create the conditions for revivals and publications of plays created by contemporary women playwrights make this extensive compilation more than recommendable... All in all, a very enjoyable edition, which makes for a rewarding read and provides essential information.’ María Gaviña-Costero, Estudios Irlandeses‘Spanning from the eighteenth-century to the present day, The Golden Thread brings together the work of leading scholars in Irish theatre and women’s writing with that of theatre practitioners to recover the often-hidden contributions of women playwrights. The collection develops a counter-canon of Irish playwrights that examines issues of class, sexuality, and disability.’ Colleen English, The New Books NetworkTable of ContentsIntroductionDavid Clare, Fiona McDonagh & Justine NakaseMarie Jones’s Don’t Look Down (1992): Representations of Disability for Young AudiencesFiona McDonaghLesbianism and Legibility in Emma Donoghue’s I Know My Own Heart (1993)Shonagh HillLearning to Play Poker: The Re-vision of Irish Women’s Agency in Gina Moxley’s Danti-Dan (1995)Nelson BarreDirecting Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats… (1998) in ChinaSarah Jane ScaifeUrsula Rani Sarma’s Blue (2000) and Social Transformation in IrelandShane O’NeillChallenging “Good Taste”: Roslaeen McDonagh’s The Baby Doll Project (2003) and the Creation of a “Traveller Canon”Mary BurkeDisordered States and Affective Economies in Stella Feehily’s O Go My Man (2006)Clare WallaceLiving in a Rape Culture: Gang Rape and “Toxic Masculinity” in Abbie Spallen’s Pumpgirl (2006)Carole QuigleyMarina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow (2006) and the Ars MoriendiJosé LantersLizzie Nunnery’s Intemperance (2007) and Compromised Mental Health among the Irish in BritainDavid ClareMemory, History, and Forgetting in Anne Devlin’s The Forgotten (2009)Graham Price“We are here, we were here all along”: Queer Invisibility and Performing Age in Amy Conroy’s I (Heart) Alice (Heart) I (2010)Brenda O’ConnellMotherhood and the Search for Recognition in Deirdre Kinahan’s Moment (2011)Dorothy Morrissey“Unrealing the Real”: Disability and Darwinism in Lynda Radley’s Futureproof (2011)Siobhán PurcellFamily Dysfunction and Character Dynamics: Nancy Harris’s Our New Girl (2012) in Conversation with Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlin (1996) and Martin Crimp’s The Country (2000)Mária KurdiUnconscious Casting: Stacey Gregg’s Shibboleth (2015), Walls, and the (En)Gendering of ViolenceJustine NakaseNevertheless, She Persisted: Celia de Fréine’s Luíse (2016)Brian Ó ConchubhairCoda – Spinning Gold: Threads of Augusta Gregory and Marina CarrMelissa Sihra

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. As the prominence of the recent #WakingTheFeminists movement illustrates, the Irish theatre world is highly conscious of the ways in which theatre can foster social emancipation. This volume of essays uncovers a wide range of marginalised histories by reflecting on the emancipatory role that the Dublin Gate Theatre (est. 1928) has played in Irish culture and society, both historically and in more recent times. The Gate’s founders, Hilton Edwards and Michéal mac Liammóir, promoted the work of many female playwrights and created an explicitly cosmopolitan stage on which repressive ideas about gender, sexuality, class and language were questioned. During Selina Cartmell’s current tenure as director, cultural diversity and social emancipation have also featured prominently on the Gate’s agenda, with various productions exploring issues of ethnicity in contemporary Ireland. The Gate thus offers a unique model for studying the ways in which cosmopolitan theatres, as cultural institutions, give expression to and engage with the complexities of identity and diversity in changing, globalised societies. CONTRIBUTORS: David Clare, Marguérite Corporaal, Mark Fitzgerald, Barry Houlihan, Radvan Markus, Deirdre McFeely, Justine Nakase, Siobhan O'Gorman, Mary Trotter, Grace Vroomen, Ian R. Walsh, Feargal WhelanTrade ReviewReviews‘The excellent essays in this collection add significantly to our knowledge of the Gate Theatre and its social and cultural practices and their contexts.’ Professor José Lanters, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee‘This rich stimulating collection revisions the work of Dublin’s Gate Theatre and celebrates how it posed radical challenges to Irish society’s social and cultural sore points and no-go-areas. Through a dazzling diversity of case studies in production, performance and theatrical practices the essays argue convincingly for the role of the Gate in confronting audiences with images and impacts that countered attitudes and assumptions about sexuality, gender, class divisions, racialization and Irish (including language) identity. While the Gate’s acknowledged theatrical aesthetics are not neglected, the book stresses the Gate Theatre’s achievement in juggling localism and cosmopolitanism with invigorating and engaging tension.’Dr Cathy Leeney, University College Dublin'A Stage of Emancipation is full of outstanding theatre scholarship from emerging and established voices. It provides fascinating insight into the role that the Dublin Gate Theatre has played in promoting social, economic, and cultural change within Irish society since the late 1920s. Most notably, it highlights the valiant efforts by key figures in the theatre’s history to bring marginalised stories and progressive attitudes to the Irish stage. This is an enormously valuable book for students, academics, and practitioners alike.'Dr Fiona McDonagh, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick'This collection makes room to breathe in Irish theatre – allowing us to inhale the extraordinary diversity of identities and artistry which were embodied on the Gate stage. Our eyes are opened once again to these forgotten legacies which challenge singular concepts of nation and society, transforming not only our understanding of the past but liberating our approach to theatre now.'- Dr Melissa Sihra, Trinity College DublinTable of Contents1. IntroductionMarguérite Corporaal and Ruud van den BeukenI: Liberating Bodies2. Queering the Irish Actress: The Gate Theatre Production of Children in Uniform (1934)Mary Trotter3. Maura Laverty at the Gate: Theatre as Social Commentary in 1950s IrelandDeirdre McFeelyII: Emancipating Communities4. ‘Let’s Be Gay, While We May’: Artistic Platforms and the Construction of Queer Communities in Mary Manning’s Youth’s the Season–?Grace Vroomen5. Images and Imperatives: Robert Collis’s Marrowbone Lane (1939) at the Gate as Theatre for Social ChangeIan R. WalshIII: Staging Minority Languages 6. Authenticity and Social Change on the Gate Stage in the 1970s: ‘Communicating with the People’Barry Houlihan7. Micheál mac Liammóir, the Irish Language and the Idea of FreedomRadvan MarkusIV: Deconstructing Aesthetics8. The Use of Minority Languages at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and Barcelona’s TeatreLliureFeargal Whelan and David Clare9. Mogu and the Unicorn: Frederick May’s Music for the Gate TheatreMark Fitzgerald10. Tartan Transpositions: Materialising Europe, Ireland and Scotland in the Designs of Molly MacEwenSiobhán O’GormanV: Contesting Traditions in Contemporary Theatre11. From White Othello to Black Hamlet: A History of Race and Representation at the Gate TheatreJustine Nakase12. Bending the Plots: Selina Cartmell’s Gate and Politics of Gender InclusionMarguérite Corporaal

Read more less

Book SynopsisSold as a multi-volume set the individual volumes are also available for purchase. This two-volume edited collection illuminates the valuable counter-canon of Irish women's playwriting with forty-two essays written by leading and emerging Irish theatre scholars and practitioners.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this volume, we are particularly interested in approaching theatre and performance as a dynamic and evolving practice of continuous change, regeneration and cultural mobility. Neither the dramatic texts nor their stage versions should be viewed as finished products but as creative processes in the making. Their richness lies in their unfinished and never-ending potential energy and their openness to constant revision, rehearsal, revival, and collective enterprise. This edited collection aims to create a dialogue on the artistic processes implicated in the various ways of working with the play text, the staging practices, the way audiences and critical reception can impact a production, and the many lives of Iberian theatre beyond the page or the stage. That is, its cultural and social legacies.Trade Review"This book highlights the theater production of the Iberian Peninsula in a very broad spectrum, which is a perspective that is rarely found."Elena Cueto Asín, Bowdoin CollegeTable of ContentsIntroductionMaría del Pilar Chouza-Calo, Esther Fernández, Jonathan ThackerPart I. Playing Upon GenderChapter 1: Snares of Safety: Guillén de Castro’s La fuerza de la costumbre (1610-1615), The Force of Habit (2019) in ProductionKathleen JeffsChapter 2: Unruly Mujeres: Adapting Women’s Rebellious Voices on the Modern StageSarah GrunnahChapter 3: Electra (1910): Daring Memories of Galdós’s Most Polemic SuccessEsther Fernández and Cristina Martínez-CarazoChapter 4: The “Pleasure” of Wife-Murder Drama: The Aesthetics of Gender-Based Violence in Palabras encadenadasSonia Pérez VillanuevaPart II. Daring ActsChapter 5: Theatricality in a “sacred drama, not to be represented”: the Spanish 1700s’ OratorioRosa Sanz HermidaChapter 6: On Action and Discovery and What to Do with Them in Translation and PerformanceCatherine BoyleChapter 7: Habit, Suggestion, and Imitation in fin-de-siècle Spanish TheatreJuan MencheroChapter 8: Fuegoártico: A Beautiful Defeat. Jeremy James and the Creation of an Ensemble Methodology in Madrid, 2014Simon BredenChapter 9: Adapting Bolaño’s 2666 for the Stage: Rigola (2007), Falls (2016), and Gosselin (2016)Anton PujolPart III. Transcultural NegotiationsChapter 10: Translating Marginalities: Staging Linguistic Diversity in the ComediaLaura MuñozChapter 11: The Merry Valencian Widow: Negotiating the Russian Lopean Canon in the Late Twentieth CenturyVeronika RyjikChapter 12: From Golden Age to Civil War: Stages of Spain in YugoslaviaAlma PrelecChapter 13: From the Warsaw Ghetto to Messianic Time: Polis and Memory in Juan Mayorga’s El cartógrafo. Varsovia, 1: 400.000Juan CaamañoChapter 14: Rewriting Race: The Angels in America Scandal and New Representations of Blackness in Contemporary Catalan DramaIsaias FanloChapter 15: Testing the Audience’s Judgement: Please, Continue (Hamlet) by Roger Bernat and Yan DuyvendakDavid Rodríguez-SolásBiographies

Read more less

Book SynopsisCutting across academic boundaries, this volume brings together scholars from different disciplines who have explored together the richness and complexity of colonial-era Caribbean theatre. The volume offers a series of original essays that showcase individual expertise in light of broader group discussions. Asking how we can research effectively and write responsibly about colonial-era Caribbean theatre today, our primary concern is methodology. Key questions are examined via new research into individual case studies on topics ranging from Cuban blackface, commedia dell’arte in Suriname and Jamaican oratorio to travelling performers and the influence of the military and of enslaved people on theatre in Saint-Domingue. Specifically, we ask what particular methodological challenges we as scholars of colonial-era Caribbean theatre face and what methodological solutions we can find to meet those challenges. Areas addressed include our linguistic limitations in the face of Caribbean multilingualism; issues raised by national, geographical or imperial approaches to the field; the vexed relationship between metropole and colony; and, crucially, gaps in the archive. We also ask what implications our findings have for theatre performance today – a question that has led to the creation of a new work set in a colonial theatre and outlined in the volume’s concluding chapter.Trade Review“The volume’s biggest strength… lies in its attention to the silences and gaps in the archive, and its commitment to exploring ways to overcome them.” - Juliane Braun“The attention given to methodology makes this collection extremely valuable and different from what exists.” - Laurence MarieTable of ContentsList of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction, Julia Prest Part I: The Pan-Caribbean Chapter One. Studying the Colonial Caribbean: Combining Geographical and Imperial Approaches Dexnell Peters Chapter Two. Mobility as a Lens for Reading the History of Opera in the Colonial Caribbean Charlotte Bentley Chapter Three. Multilingual Approaches to Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre Research: Challenges and InterventionsSusan Thomas Part II: Approaches Chapter Four. Connecting Metropole and Colony? Harlequin Travels to Suriname Sarah J. Adams Chapter Five. Problems of Framing: National or Colonial Approaches to Blackface Performance? Jill Lane Chapter Six. Contextualizing Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaican Oratorio: Obstacles and OpportunitiesWayne Weaver Part III: Sources and Gaps Chapter Seven. Silences in the Archives: The Mysterious One-Night Stand of John Fawcett’s Obi; or, Three-Finger’d Jack in Kingston, Jamaica (1862) Jenna M. Gibbs Chapter Eight. Using Military Documents to Study Colonial-Era Theatre and Performance in Saint-Domingue Logan J. Connors Chapter Nine. Uncovering Connections between Theatre and Slavery: Runaway Advertisements in Colonial Saint-Domingue and Beyond Julia Prest Chapter Ten. Knowledge Exchange Theatre and the Colonial Caribbean: Creating Placeholder Catherine Bisset, Flavia d’Avila and Jaïrus Obayomi

Read more less

Book SynopsisNewest research into drama and performance of the middle ages. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. This volume features essays on stagecraft, performance, and reception across a wide range of theatrical genres. Overlapping themes include a return to the York Corpus Christi Play, the practicalities of pageant waggon construction and maintenance, mechanical stage effects, international influences, East Anglian theatre and "folk" happenings, academic Latin drama, and private gentry festivities. Contributors include Jamie Beckett, Phil Butterworth, Peter Happé, James McBain, Tom Pettitt, James Stokes, and Diana Wyatt.Table of ContentsPageant-Carriage Maintenance at Chester - Philip Butterworth Carnevale in Norwich, 1443: Gladman's Parade and its Continental Connections - Tom Pettitt The Beccles Game Place and Local Drama in Early North-East Suffolk - James Stokes Pendens super feretrum: Fergus, Aelred, and the York 'Funeral of the Virgin' - Jamie Beckett George Gascoigne at Oxford - James McBain Elizabeth Nevile's Wedding Entertainments: A Yorkshire Family Celebration in 1526 and its Contexts - Diana Wyatt Herod's Killing of the Children in New College Chapel Oxford, 8 February 2017 (review) - Peter Happe

Read more less

Book SynopsisEssays on aspects of early drama. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. The articles in this fortieth volume engage with the key communities for early theatre: royalty, city and household, and religious institutions. Topics include the Royal Entry of Elizabeth Woodville into Norwich (1469); Henry VIII's Robin Hood entertainment for Catherine of Aragon; the sun's contribution to stage effects in the York Corpus Christi Play: the engagement with local worthies in Mankind; and the convent drama of Huy, in the Low Countries. Contributors: Aurélie Blanc, Philip Butterworth, Clare Egan, John Marshall, Olivia Robinson, Michael Spence, Meg Twycross.Table of ContentsProducing the Journal over Forty Years - Meg Twycross William Parnell, supplier of staging and ingenious devices, and his role in the visit of Elizabeth Woodville to Norwich in 1469 - Philip Butterworth William Parnell, supplier of staging and ingenious devices, and his role in the visit of Elizabeth Woodville to Norwich in 1469 - Michael Spence The Huy Nativity from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century: Translation, Play-Back, and Pray-Back - Olivia Robinson The Huy Nativity from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century: Translation, Play-Back, and Pray-Back - Aurélie Blanc A 'Gladnes' of Robin Hood's Men: Henry VIII Entertains Queen Katherine - John Marshall Reading Mankind in a Culture of Defamation - Clare Egan The Sun in York (Part One): Illumination, Reflection, and Timekeeping for the Corpus Christi Play - Meg Twycross

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book highlights the so far unappreciated merit of the Syrian playwrights Durayd Lahham and Muhammad al-Maghout, whose plays are representative of the new wave of Arab theatrical realisation in general and Syrian protest plays in particular. 'Ghawwar', the famous character type created by Lahham, combines art with politics, the past with modern times, lower class-consciousness and identity with Pan-Arab nationalism, and East with West. He also symbolizes a poetical link between the 'bitter cup' of a miserable present and the 'holy rain' of a better future.Trade Review"An excellent contribution to the study of the dynamics of the Arab cultural system in modern times, especially against the background of the current limited research in the field..." -- Professor Reuven Snir, Dept. of Arabic Language & Literature, University of Haifa.Table of ContentsTheatrical Genres and the Carnivalesque: Art of the Theatre; Theatre in the Arab World: The Historical Background; The Early Comedies of Durayd Lahham and Nihad Qal'i: Birth Pangs of Late Satire; When a Gay Rogue Grows to be a Tragic Fool: The Carnivalesque Satires; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book offers a theory and methodology of performance analysis as an alternative to traditional play-analysis. The underlying theme is that theatre performance is a descriptive text generated by the theatre medium and that the process of generating meaning takes place in the actual encounter between a theatre performance and the spectator. Many new understandings result, including how the theatre medium is iconic in the new sense of operating images of real or mental models, and how this impacts on the verbal text and stage metaphor; how poetic principles structure fictional worlds and bestow unity and wholeness on performance-texts; how a dialogue between implied director and implied spectator is inscribed in the performance-text; and how the implied spectator is characterised by functions of framing, reading, interpreting and experiencing a performance-text. It follows that actors' bodies on stage fulfil functions of textuality, metatheatricality, personification, characterisation and aesthetic effect. An Introduction surveys major contributions made to a methodology of performance analysis, particularly throughout the twentieth century, and problematises the main issues. Part I is devoted to the semiotic substratum of the performance-text, i.e. to the theatre medium and its basic means of generating theatre texts and meaning. The innovation of this approach lies in seeing theatre first and foremost as a non-verbal medium. Part II deals with the poetic structure of fictional worlds described by the theatre medium and the metaphoric and rhetoric structures that operate on the level of relationship between the description of such a world and the world of a spectator. Part III contains analyses of actual performance-texts that illustrate the application of principles previously presented. This is the first comprehensive book to address the necessity of a methodology of performance analysis.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I: Semiotic Substratum; Part II: Additional Strata & Disciplines; Part III: Examples of Performance Analysis; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book offers a theory of the archaic mode of fictional thinking and a methodology for the analysis of fictional worlds. It presupposes the mutual independence of the description of a fictional world, in any language or medium, and the described fictional world. Such a world is generated by an autonomous fictional structure, which reflects the spontaneous expectations of the spectator, and thematic specification. A model of this structure is presented, comprising seven layers: personified, mythical, praxical, naive, ironic and aesthetic -- and overriding these layers, the fictional experience on the level of relationship between the fictional world and spectator. This experience depends on the spectator's ability to complement such a description with pertinent associations, drawn from shared cultural resources, and psychical mechanisms of response. Explanations and examples are couched in poetic, pragmatic, aesthetic and rhetoric methodologies. An Introduction surveys the major contributions made to a methodology of fictional analysis since Aristotle's Poetics, problematises them and suggests possible alternatives. Part I is devoted to the inner structure of fictional worlds; i.e., to the poetic rules that generate them. The innovation of this approach lies in its multi-layered nature. Part II deals with the structure of the fictional experience, which is metaphoric and rhetoric in nature. Part III deals with the specific structures of fictional worlds that reflect the particular intentions and purposes of their authors. Part IV contains analyses of actual fictional worlds that illustrate the application of the previously presented principles. The focus throughout is on theatre fictional worlds which by their nature exhibit the most complex fictional thoughts that the human brain can generate. The theoretical insights gained for theatre assumedly apply to descriptions of such worlds in any language or medium. More than a hundred fictional worlds created during 2500 years of theatre recorded history are analysed. The volume has been purposefully designed to address undergraduate and postgraduate student needs to provide a fundamental competence of theatre studies.Table of ContentsIntroduction: State of the Art & Perspectives; The Nature of Fictional Worlds; The Mythical Layer; The Praxical Layer; The Naive Layer; The Ironic Layer; The Modal Layer; The Aesthetic Layer; Structure of Character; Characterisation & Credibility; Intertextual Relations; Fictional Interaction; Fictional Time & Place; Metaphoric Structure; Allegoric Structure; Rhetoric Structure; Spectator's Complementation; Hamartia / Catastrophe Structure; Virtue / Villainy Structure; Hamartia & Christianity; Absurdist Structure; Structure of Conflict; Ritual Experience & Truth; Anti-Aristotelian Poetics; Generic Transformation: The Hippolytus-Phaedra; Generation of Life is a Dream from Oedipus the King; Deconstruction of Archetypal Characterisation in The Seagull; The Chairs in Performance; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book offers a theory and methodology of performance analysis as an alternative to traditional play-analysis. The underlying theme is that theatre performance is a descriptive text generated by the theatre medium and that the process of generating meaning takes place in the actual encounter between a theatre performance and the spectator. Many new understandings result, including how the theatre medium is iconic in the new sense of operating images of real or mental models, and how this impacts on the verbal text and stage metaphor; how poetic principles structure fictional worlds and bestow unity and wholeness on performance-texts; how a dialogue between implied director and implied spectator is inscribed in the performance-text; and how the implied spectator is characterised by functions of framing, reading, interpreting and experiencing a performance-text. It follows that actors' bodies on stage fulfil functions of textuality, metatheatricality, personification, characterisation and aesthetic effect. An Introduction surveys major contributions made to a methodology of performance analysis, particularly throughout the twentieth century, and problematises the main issues. Part I is devoted to the semiotic substratum of the performance-text, i.e. to the theatre medium and its basic means of generating theatre texts and meaning. The innovation of this approach lies in seeing theatre first and foremost as a non-verbal medium. Part II deals with the poetic structure of fictional worlds described by the theatre medium and the metaphoric and rhetoric structures that operate on the level of relationship between the description of such a world and the world of a spectator. Part III contains analyses of actual performance-texts that illustrate the application of principles previously presented. This is the first comprehensive book to address the necessity of a methodology of performance analysis.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I: Semiotic Substratum; Part II: Additional Strata & Disciplines; Part III: Examples of Performance Analysis; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is a book about the central principle of drama and theatre -- how we join up with one another in order to enjoy a play. This is the principle defined by Coleridge when he described poetry as involving 'the willing suspension of disbelief', a phrase often used by theatre critics and others, but one which is rarely examined in any detail, having as much to do with psychology as aesthetics. Roger Grainger is both a psychologist and an actor, and is thus uniquely placed to investigate this shared territory, not only from an academic viewpoint but also professionally, in 'hands-on' ways. Theatre has the ability to transfer reality: it promotes a situation where disbelief is willingly suspended in every gesture of demonstration or presentation. As a consequence, imaginative involvement is at the heart of theatrical endeavour, and thus has inevitable crucial repercussions for human happiness and well-being. Drama and the uses to which we put it represent part of the process of living our lives -- drama is an aspect of being human which is frequently misunderstood and almost always undervalued. This fact about ordinary life is considered here with regard to its social and sociological implications. The concern here is with ordinary human experience; the purpose is to draw attention to something that is usually taken for granted and almost always denied the respect it deserves. Without the experience we so often dismiss as 'mere entertainment', we would not just find life less enjoyable, it would be unendurable. Without the psychological harmony with our inner selves and our worlds which imagination allows and encourages, we would struggle to be human at all. This book sets out to explain what it is that makes drama in all its manifestations -- including literature -- 'work', and how the engagement with imagination leads to psychological wholeness.

Read more less

Book SynopsisLeslie O'Dell's current research focuses on the psychology of acting and the phenomenology of creativity. She has worked in theatre and film as a director, actor, and script writer as well as a coach and dramaturge. A working actor needs chameleon-like skills to transform into fictional characters shaped by the conventions of any of a wide variety of genres. Equally important is charisma, that unique personal energy that transforms a skilled mimic into a star. What is the secret of the charismatic chameleon? Beginning with the premise that actors are creative artists, and tracing individual creativity to six distinct temperaments (personality types), Leslie O'Dell demonstrates how actors can tap the profound resources of the psyche in even the most stress-filled situations. After introducing the nuances of the theory behind the practice, readers encounter a "Virtual Workshop" -- A dialogue among acting students, each representing one of the six Creative Personality types, as they diagnose their individual temperaments and then explore how the charismatic chameleon insight might assist each of them in mastering their craft, confronting barriers to personal excellence, and in preparing themselves for a successful acting career. The volume concludes with an annotated bibliography that positions the concepts of charisma, creative temperament, and the dangers and challenges of acting training within the context of writings by leading scholars and theatre practitioners. At the heart of the book is one simple truth: that an effortless flow of charismatic energy is available at any time and that the process for tapping into that source of authenticity and creativity is straightforward, flexible, and easily blended with other acting strategies and styles. This book is essential reading for working actors, for students of acting, and for teachers and directors who seek a more finely-nuanced understanding of the source of acting excellence and how best to optimise creativity through collaborative and individual praxis.Table of ContentsPart One - An Introduction to Creative Temperament; Part Two - The Virtual Workshop; Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book is a comprehensive introduction to the analysis of fictional worlds in a set of fifteen arts, including theatre, opera, figurative ballet, mime, audio drama, figurative drawing/painting, figurative sculpture, strip cartoon, animation, puppet theatre, still photography, photo-novel, silent movie, cinema and TV drama. Due to their extreme differences, the combination of different arts in the description of a single fictional world, and the translation from one medium to another, are considered problematic. While such differences do not concern fictional creativity, which applies the same poetic and rhetoric rules whatever the medium, it is widely accepted that the problem lies in the extreme differences between the mediums of description. In contrast, this study explores their common grounds. These arts are iconic in nature, and if 'iconicity' is re-defined in terms of imprinting images on matter and mediation of language, and as reflecting the common roots of these mediums in a preverbal mode of imagistic thinking, therein is an explanation of their possible combination and translation from one medium to another without impairing the receivers' reading, interpreting and experiencing capacities. Eli Rozik analyses numerous fictional worlds in all these arts, produced during the last 2,500 years of artistic creativity, especially in theatre, art and cinema. This book presupposes that principles underlying the generation of descriptions of fictional worlds by the theatre medium, as proposed in two earlier works (Generating Theatre Meaning and Fictional Thinking), also apply to all the iconic/fictional arts. The text-book format of the volume has been purposefully designed to address the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate students, suiting the structure of university courses and providing all necessary information to access the images/artistic works discussed in the volume via the web and Google. This inter-art journey from theatre theory to the arts is compelling reading for all those involved and engaged in artistic creativity.

Read more less

Book SynopsisJewish drama and theatre has followed a tortuous path from extreme rabbinical intolerance to eventual secular liberalism, with its openness to the heritages of both Judaism as a culture and prominent foreign cultures, to the extent of multicultural integration. No wonder, therefore, that since biblical times until the seventeenth century there are only examples of tangential theatre practices. This initial intolerance, shared by the Church, was rooted in pagan connotations of theatre rather than in the neutral nature of the theatre medium, capable of formulating and communicating contrasting thoughts. Whereas by the tenth century the Church understood that theatre could be harnessed to its own ends, Jewish theatre was only created seven centuries later through spontaneous and amateurish theatrical practices, such as the Yiddish purim-shpil and the purim-rabbi. Due to their carnivalesque and cathartic nature these practices were tolerated by the rabbinical establishment, albeit only during the Purim holiday. But as a result, Jewish drama and theatre were created and emerged despite rabbinical antagonism. Under the influence of the Jewish Enlightenment, Yiddish-speaking theatres were increasingly established, a trend that became central in the cultural enterprise of the Jews in Israel. This process involved a renewed use of Hebrew as a spoken language, and the transition from a profound religious identity to a secular Jewish one, characterised by a basic liberalism to the extent of openness to cultures traditionally perceived as archetypal enemies of Judaism. This book sets out to analyse play-scripts and performance-texts produced in the Israeli theatre in order to illustrate these trends, and concludes that only a liberal society can bring about the full realisation of theatre's potentialities.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne century after the death of Anton Chekhov (18601904), his plays are celebrated throughout the world as a major milestone in the history of theatre and drama. Outside the Russian-speaking community, he is undoubtedly the most widely translated, studied and performed of all Russian writers. His plays are characterised by their evasiveness: tragedy and comedy, realism and naturalism, symbolism and impressionism, as well as other labels of school and genre all fail to account for the uniqueness of 'Chekhovism' (ie: the essence of his artistic system and world view). Presence through Absence is a bold attempt to map the unique structure and meaning that comprise Chekhov's immensely rich artistic universe. Golomb's text is an incursion into Chekhov's vision of unrealised potentials and present absences. His timeless works are shown with rare insight and clarity to have artistic principles and coherence above and beyond the scope of the individual play.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTraditional theatre semiotics promoted a scientific approach to theatre studies, albeit viewing semiotics as the unique discipline of research. Theatre Sciences: A Plea for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Theatre Studies suggests instead a multi-disciplinary approach, including the following theoretical disciplines: narratology, mythology, pragmatics, ethics, theatre irony, theory of genres, aesthetics, semiotics, theory of non-verbal figures of speech, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, reception theory, history, and sociology -- with semiotics being only one among equals. These disciplines are presented from the perspective of their possible contributions to a sound methodology of theatre-texts analysis. Traditional theatre semiotics, moreover, holds the view that the actual performance on stage is the genuine text of theatre, instead of the play-script. Despite this paradigmatic shift, however, this viewpoint has failed to produce commendable analyses of such texts. The alternative presupposition put forward in this volume entails a series of novel perceptions of the theatre-text and its possible impact on the experiencing spectator, whose role in reading, interpreting and experiencing the theatre-text is not less crucial than that of the text itself. This view presupposes that the theatre-text is a description of a fictional world generated by the theatre medium. The author also contests the age-old view that a theatre/fictional-text reflects a simple narrative structure, and suggests instead a complexity that consists of seven layers: personified, mythical, praxical, naive, ironic, modal and aesthetic -- with each one of them re-structuring the previous layer. Professor Rozik also presents and describes a semiotic layer that lends communicative capacity to the description of a fictional world, and two additional metaphoric and rhetoric layers, which structure the theatre experience. The underlying purpose is to illustrate the application of the aforementioned disciplines to these fictional layers, and eventually their joint application to entire theatre / fictional texts. Organisation of the book reflects the structure of a university course.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book looks at the way theatre works in order to make 'space for living'. It provides the means to help one feel more deeply, think more clearly, relate more personally, by giving audiences and actors the opportunity to rehearse their roles within a setting which is imagined, but to make use of feelings and thoughts which are real. This book extends the territory explored by Peter Brook in The Empty Space. It adds a new psychological dimension: recognising that not only do we ourselves make space for theatre, but it is also true that theatre makes space for us -- a 'space for living'. Roger Grainger looks in turn at the different kinds of space theatre creates, using written sources and the spoken testimony of actors and members of the audience. The author's own discoveries as a professional actor give passion and immediacy to the acting/audience participation opportunities these insights provide. Based on genuine experience of, and love for, the theatre, this book does not present plays solely as literature but as particular kinds of theatrical experience. In so doing the author breaks new ground in theatre studies and provides actors and audience with tools that promote 'hands-on' knowledge and experience of the human value of drama and theatre.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTraditional theatre semiotics promoted a scientific approach to theatre studies, albeit viewing semiotics as the unique discipline of research. Theatre Sciences: A Plea for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Theatre Studies suggests instead a multi-disciplinary approach, including the following theoretical disciplines: narratology, mythology, pragmatics, ethics, theatre irony, theory of genres, aesthetics, semiotics, theory of non-verbal figures of speech, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, reception theory, history, and sociology -- with semiotics being only one among equals. These disciplines are presented from the perspective of their possible contributions to a sound methodology of theatre-texts analysis. Traditional theatre semiotics, moreover, holds the view that the actual performance on stage is the genuine text of theatre, instead of the play-script. Despite this paradigmatic shift, however, this viewpoint has failed to produce commendable analyses of such texts. The alternative presupposition put forward in this volume entails a series of novel perceptions of the theatre-text and its possible impact on the experiencing spectator, whose role in reading, interpreting and experiencing the theatre-text is not less crucial than that of the text itself. This view presupposes that the theatre-text is a description of a fictional world generated by the theatre medium. The author also contests the age-old view that a theatre/fictional-text reflects a simple narrative structure, and suggests instead a complexity that consists of seven layers: personified, mythical, praxical, naive, ironic, modal and aesthetic -- with each one of them re-structuring the previous layer. Professor Rozik also presents and describes a semiotic layer that lends communicative capacity to the description of a fictional world, and two additional metaphoric and rhetoric layers, which structure the theatre experience. The underlying purpose is to illustrate the application of the aforementioned disciplines to these fictional layers, and eventually their joint application to entire theatre / fictional texts. Organisation of the book reflects the structure of a university course.

Read more less

Book SynopsisEli Rozik explores the principles that generated the theatre medium, and its possible roots in the preverbal imagistic mode of thinking. This mode characterises the remnants of preverbal thinking, such as unconscious thinking (dreaming), the embryonic speech of toddlers, and their imaginative play and drawings prior to mastering verbal thinking. The book is a recapitulation of major findings regarding the nature of the theatre, its medium, fictional creativity and origin, and includes new unpublished studies. It address the principles of imagistic, metaphoric, symbolic and fictional thinking, which characterise the theatre, as well as reception and acting. The work has been designed to fit the structure of a university course, and will appeal to people interested in broadening their knowledge and understanding of theatre art.Trade Review"For more than thirty years, Eli Rozik has been among the best known international theorists of theatre, thanks to his wide-ranging books on theatre history and methodology... He makes a major and unique contribution to the field." -- Marvin Carlson, Sidney E Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre & Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York"Eli Rozik joins a long tradition of scholarship on the performance codes of theatre, stretching from the Prague Linguistic School of the 1930s to contemporary writings in theatre semiotics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and audience response theory ... Rozik delivers a rich and complex investigation of theatre performance." -- Thomas Postlewait, Editor of Studies in Theatre History, School of Drama, University of Washington

Read more less

Book Synopsis'You had to decide to let yourself be turned upside down, you had to accept to see the idea you had forged about yourself progressively shatter.' In the summer of 1969, at 19 years old, Didier Mouturat gave up on college, shattering his parents' hopes that he follow a safe and conventional course. Fresh from the wild Parisian student revolt of 1968, with its street battles and slogans, he set out to find a life that would be truly alive, deciding to be a classical actor. When he met Cyrille Dives, however, the universe of masks quietly turned his world upside down. This book describes Mouturat's apprenticeship to a unique theater artist. In the 1970s and early 80s, Dives created a theater of masks, a Western parallel to Japanese Noh. Dives was a true bohemian artist, a sculptor of masks, a painter and theatrical director. Cyrille Dives was also a spiritual master. Mouturat's apprenticeship encompassed everything from walking in a way that brings a mask to life to cultivating a beginner's mind. Slowly and subtly, the theater apprenticeship became an encounter with the deeper truth of his own being. 'I am speaking of an intimate, progressive discovery that we are not masters of our own being -- that it is only the result of a system of reactions that tyrannize us.' Mouturat becomes Dives's right-hand man, helping establish a theater and a school of masks. That work is evident here in enchanting illustrations, as well as words. Yet as translated by the scholar and author Roger Lipsey, Mouturat also offers a pithy chronicle of a search for meaning and inner being.

Read more less

Book SynopsisShakespeare's playwrighting and possibly his directing reflect a consistent intent to explore principles that, in his days, were perceived as foreign to the dramatic idiom. This is evident within the framework of contemporary theatre theories at the time. Eli Rozik's novel reading of the play-scripts provides the classical and synchronic theoretical background required to capture Shakespeare's innovative approach, and is a major contribution to the history of European theatre practice and theory. All of Rozik's earlier publications on theatre practice and theory engage with Shakespeare's play-scripts by example and these insights are re-integrated herein. The result is a new and challenging concept of Shakespeare's contribution to the art of theatre, and to a viewpoint of the Bard as an unprecedented experimental playwright and innovator in all that concerns the mastery of theatre art and, especially, the expansion of its means of expression. The central concern of this study is not the experimentation by modernist and postmodernist directors in producing Shakespeare's play-scripts for diachronic audiences, but with the exploration, experimentation and innovation embodied in the Bard's practice itself, as reflected in the wide artistic and historical range of the play-scripts. Drama and theatre scholarship, with its concomitant comprehensive method of analysis, is indispensable in revealing the nature of the Bard's playwrighting, his historical explorations and theatrical innovations. Rozik's earlier works on the nature of theatre, fictional creativity and origin, best place him to interpret Shakespeare's works against their synchronic theoretical background in the light that experimentation lay at the heart of Shakespeare's creativity.

Read more less

Book SynopsisEli Rozik explores the principles that generated the theatre medium, and its possible roots in the preverbal imagistic mode of thinking. This mode characterises the remnants of preverbal thinking, such as unconscious thinking (dreaming), the embryonic speech of toddlers, and their imaginative play and drawings prior to mastering verbal thinking. The book is a recapitulation of major findings regarding the nature of the theatre, its medium, fictional creativity and origin, and includes new unpublished studies. It address the principles of imagistic, metaphoric, symbolic and fictional thinking, which characterise the theatre, as well as reception and acting. The work has been designed to fit the structure of a university course, and will appeal to people interested in broadening their knowledge and understanding of theatre art.Trade Review"For more than thirty years, Eli Rozik has been among the best known international theorists of theatre, thanks to his wide-ranging books on theatre history and methodology... He makes a major and unique contribution to the field." -- Marvin Carlson, Sidney E Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre & Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York"Eli Rozik joins a long tradition of scholarship on the performance codes of theatre, stretching from the Prague Linguistic School of the 1930s to contemporary writings in theatre semiotics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and audience response theory ... Rozik delivers a rich and complex investigation of theatre performance." -- Thomas Postlewait, Editor of Studies in Theatre History, School of Drama, University of WashingtonFor more than thirty years, Eli Rozik has been among the best known international theorists of theatre, thanks to his wide-ranging books on theatre history and methodology ... He makes a major and unique contribution to the field. -- Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New YorkEli Rozik joins a long tradition of scholarship on the performance codes of theatre, stretching from the Prague Linguistic School of the 1930s to contemporary writings in theatre semiotics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and audience response theory ... Rozik delivers a rich and complex investigation of theatre performance. --Thomas Postlewait, Editor of Studies in Theatre History, School of Drama, University of Washington

Read more less

Book SynopsisA legal document dated 1600, for a Star Chamber case titled Clifton versus Robinson, details how boys were abducted from London streets and forcibly held in order to train them as actors for the Blackfriars theatre. No adults were seen on-stage in this theatre, which was stocked solely by acting boys, resulting in a satirical and scurrilous method of play presentation. Were the boys specifically targeted for skills they may have possessed which would have been applicable to this type of play presentation? And, was this method of recruitment typical or atypical of Elizabethan theatre? Analysis of the background of the boy subjects of the legal case indicate that several had received grammar-school tuition and, as a result, would have possessed skills in oration and rhetoric. Indeed, a significant number of the grammar schools in London provided regular public disputations and theatrical performances which would have made these boys an attractive proposition for inclusion in a theatrical company. The styles of play-texts which the boys performed and their manner of presenting characters helps to assess why child acting companies were commercially viable and popular. Their portrayal of all roles in a performance; young and old, male and female, clearly demonstrated their versatility and skill in mimicry and the adoption of other personas. Therefore the taking of grammar-school boys for re-training as actors was not opportunistic; their abductions were planned. The theatre owners undertook this method of recruitment as they felt that they were immune from prosecution due to holding royal commissions which they used to recruit boys. However, the Clifton vs. Robinson case clearly demonstrates that a determined parent whose child had been taken could challenge this and demand reparation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA legal document dated 1600, for a Star Chamber case titled Clifton versus Robinson, details how boys were abducted from London streets and forcibly held in order to train them as actors for the Blackfriars theatre. No adults were seen on-stage in this theatre, which was stocked solely by acting boys, resulting in a satirical and scurrilous method of play presentation. Were the boys specifically targeted for skills they may have possessed which would have been applicable to this type of play presentation? And, was this method of recruitment typical or atypical of Elizabethan theatre? Analysis of the background of the boy subjects of the legal case indicate that several had received grammar-school tuition and, as a result, would have possessed skills in oration and rhetoric. Indeed, a significant number of the grammar schools in London provided regular public disputations and theatrical performances which would have made these boys an attractive proposition for inclusion in a theatrical company. The styles of play-texts which the boys performed and their manner of presenting characters helps to assess why child acting companies were commercially viable and popular. Their portrayal of all roles in a performance; young and old, male and female, clearly demonstrated their versatility and skill in mimicry and the adoption of other personas. Therefore the taking of grammar-school boys for re-training as actors was not opportunistic; their abductions were planned. The theatre owners undertook this method of recruitment as they felt that they were immune from prosecution due to holding royal commissions which they used to recruit boys. However, the Clifton vs. Robinson case clearly demonstrates that a determined parent whose child had been taken could challenge this and demand reparation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, historical subjects became some of the most popular topics for stage dramas of all kinds on both sides of the Atlantic. This collection of essays examines a number of extraordinary theatrical works in order to cast light on their role in shaping a popular interpretation of historical events. The medium of drama ensured that the telling of these histories – the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, for example, or the travels of Captain Cook and Christopher Columbus – were brought to life through words, music and spectacle. The scale of the productions was often ambitious: a water tank with model floating ships was deployed at Sadler’s Wells for the staging of the Siege of Gibraltar, and another production on the same theme used live cannons which set fire to the vessels in each performance. This illustrated volume, researched and written by experts in the field, explores contemporary theatrical documents (playbills, set designs, musical scores) and images (paintings, prints and illustrations) in seeking to explain what counted as history and historical truth for the writers, performers and audiences of these plays. In doing so it debates the peculiar contradictions of staging history and re-examines some spectacular box office hits.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA listing of plays performed in the theatres of Alicante during the first decade of the 20th century. With this volume, the scope of the Fuentesseries widens both geographically and chronologically. The first volumes dealt with Madrid, concentrating, though not exclusively, on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Latervolumes covered Alcalà de Henares, Tudela and Córdoba. In the present volume Francisco Reus Boyd-Swan lists the plays performed in the theatres of Alicante during the first decade of the twentieth century. Recent critics have become aware of the need to treat the theatre of the provinces of Madrid in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as seriously as that of the capital, and to study it in equal depth. In his Introduction the author recounts the history of the twelve theatres which were in use in the period and studies legislation affecting the theatres, special performances, times and prices of perfomances and analyses the theatre-going public and the types of plays presented. The main listing of plays is in chronological order, supported by indexes of playwrights, librettists and composers. Twelve illustrations include plans of theatres and reproductions of contemporary posters. FRANCISCO REUS BOYD-SWAN is a graduate of the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain's Open University.

Read more less

Book SynopsisEste libro es el primero en examinar lo radicalmente nuevo y desafiante Teatro Pánico, un grupo de obras compuestas por Arrabal entre 1957 y 1966, en el apogeo del movimiento avant-garde. ENGLISH VERSION This book is the first to examine closely the radically new and challenging Panic Theatre, a group of plays composed by Arrabal between 1957 and 1966, at the zenith of the avant-garde movement.Trade ReviewTo be sure, Santos Sánchez's detailed textual analyses offer a useful basis for understanding Arrabal's avant-garde theatre and performance practices of the 1960s. * SYMPOSIUM *Table of ContentsIntroducción Las obras La ceremonia pánica Los mecanismos de la memoria y la neg(oci)ación de la narración Las reglas del azar y la ordenación rigurosa de la acción La confusión y la imperfección de los elementos de la escena Conclusión Bibliografía

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis collection of original essays focuses on the cross-currents and points of contact among Spain, Portugal and Latin America and their impact on the regions' film industries. This book focuses on the cross-currents and points of contact in film production among so-called Hispanic countries (Spain, Portugal and Latin America), and in particular the impact that co-production and supranational funding initiatives are having on both the film industries and the films of Latin America in the twenty-first century. Together with chapters that discuss and further develop transnational approaches to reading films in the Hispanic and Latin American context, the volume includes chapters that focus on funding initiatives, such as IBERMEDIA, that are aimed at Spain, Portugal and Latin America. An analysis of such initiatives facilitates a nuanced discussion of the range of meanings afforded to the term transnationalism: from the workings of those driven by economic imperatives, such as co-productions and 'Hispanic' film festivals, to the cultural, for example the invention of a marketable 'Latinamericaness' in Spain, or a 'Hispanic aesthetic' elsewhere. Stephanie Dennison is Reader in Brazilian Studies at the University of LeedsTrade ReviewThis volume offers an insightful synthesis of the cross currents and co-operation in film production between Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula..a useful book for university students, especially at honours level, and for some academics working in this area. I would expect it to fall into the category of recommended reading, particularly for courses dealing with Hispanic and Latin-American cinema in both departments of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature. * BULLETIN OF SPANISH VISUAL STUDIES *Table of ContentsEditor's Introduction - Stephanie Dennison National, Transnational and Post-national:Issues in Contemporary Film-making in the Hispanic World - Stephanie Dennison Redefining Transnational Cinemas:A Transdisciplinary Perspective - Libia Villazana Deconstructing and Reconstructing 'Transnational Cinema' - Deborah Shaw Ibero-Latin American Co-productions: Transnational Cinema, Spain's Public Relations Venture or Both? - Tamara Falicov Building Latin American Cinema in Europe: Cine en Construcción/ Cinéma en construction - Núria Triana-Toribio Pedro Almodóvar's Latin-American 'Business' - Marvin D'Lugo Transnational Film Financing and Contemporary Peruvian Cinema: The Case of Josué Méndez - Sarah Barrow The Silenced Screen: Fostering a Film Industry in Paraguay - Catherine Leen Finance and Co-productions in Brazil - Alessandra Meleiro Epilogue - Stephanie Dennison Works Cited - Stephanie Dennison

Read more less

Book SynopsisPeral Vega explores the importance of Pierrot as a symbol of failure in matters of love in García Lorca's imagery and his literary and personal life. Academic research has paid little attention to the importance of the figure of Pierrot in García Lorca's imagery and, above all, in his literary and personal life. An image of marginality and failure, Pierrot was soon taken over by Spanish intellectuals of the early twentieth century as a representation of the bohemian spirit and, corresponding to his marginal status in matters of love, as a symbol of furtive desires experienced by those whose sexuality had to remain silent. Consequently, García Lorca, as Pierrot, needs a mask to cover his identity, facing perpetual failure in his relentless pursuit of the other. As can be seen already from the poems, prose and plays of his youth,García Lorca outlines in Pierrot his innermost self, a trend that will continue in the aforementioned series of drawings and some of his major pieces, such as El público. Pierrot / Lorca: White Carnival of Black Desire aims, from a multidisciplinary perspective, to open new critical readings of both García Lorca's work and some episodes of his life; as with, for example, his relationship with Salvador Dalí, which can be presented in theatrical terms: Harlequin (Dalí) / Pierrot (García Lorca). Emilio Peral Vega is Associate Professor of Spanish Literature at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.Trade ReviewEmilio Peral Vega's new monograph, . . . a welcome new title on Lorcan queer studies, restores authorial intention to both creative and critical endeavors, while addressing complex relationships between the personal and the aesthetic, artisticand lived experiences, and visual and literary cultural domains. * STUDIES IN 20TH and 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE *[Peral] combines his deep knowledge of the history of this mask with sharp insights and imaginative thinking to shed new light on García Lorca's multifaceted output. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *[This] book stands as a mandatory reading for those interested in carnival representation of both the poetic self and the dramatic character in Federico García Lorca's works. * ANAGNÓRISIS *Emilio Peral has written a provocative book that will invite further discussion. * BULLETIN OF SPANISH STUDIES *Table of ContentsPrologue A Modern Mask: from Deburau to The Tramp First Examples of an Effeminate Pierrot: from Verlaine to Lorca Pierrot / Lorca: Alter Ego for a Young Poet Lorca / Pierrot: Between Painting and Theatre Love Game and Masquerade: Dalí / Lorca Perlimplín / Lorca / Pierrot: Frustrated Desire A White Clown for a Black Desire: El público and Así que pasen cinco años Epilogue Bibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisBased on extensive archival research and containing rare and previously unpublished photos, this book provides the most detailed reconstruction ever of one of the most important events in Spanish theatrical history. Winner of the 2019-20 AHGBI-Spanish Embassy Publication Prize On 18 June 1933, one of the most important events in Spanish theatrical history took place before an audience of 3,000 spectators in the ruins of the Roman Theatre in Mérida. Translated into Spanish by philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, staged by the renowned Xirgu-Borràs Company and funded by the government, the performance of Seneca's Medea was a triumph of republican culture and widely hailed for its new dramatic and scenic languages. This book provides the most detailed reconstruction of this pivotal production to date, setting it in context and analysing its origin and legacy. Early twentieth-century intellectuals considered Seneca, 'the philosopher from Córdoba', the epitome of Spanishness and the first in an illustrious line of playwrights stretching from Spain's Roman Antiquity to its Silver Age. His play was seen as the ideal vehicle to showcase the Second Spanish Republic's cultural, social and educational agenda but provoked a furious backlash from opponents to the government's progressive programme. The book shows how the performance became a cultural ritual which stood at the centre of critical discussions on national identity, politics, secularism, women's rights and new European aesthetics of theatre-making. Based on extensive archival research and containing rare and previously unpublished photos, it will be of interest to theatre historians, scholars of Classical Reception and historians of the Second Spanish Republic.Table of ContentsList of illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction: A Spanish Medea in Republican Spain I. Seneca's Medea in Mérida: A reconstruction II. Seneca and Hispania III. Republica nunc sum: Building a Republic IV. Medea and the social revolution V. Hispano-Roman tragedy on a reformed stage Conclusion: The Republican Medea that was in Mérida Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis title offers a practical guide to starting or running a theatre for young people. From the initial idea to form the company, through the tense days of rehearsal, to the final performance of the first production, it covers all aspects of youth theatre management, production and direction. Topics include creating a company and choosing a venue; working together - building a team, improving technical standards and motivating individuals; and choosing suitable material and assessing scripts. In addition, pre-rehearsal planning, preparation, conducting auditions and casting, conducting technical and dress rehearsals; devising stories or plays; design, lighting and sound, costume and props; and surviving (and enjoying) the first night and the run of the play is also covered.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMuch of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in the South African context, by examining two case studies. The case studies constitute the core around which is woven this intriguing story of the development of black theatre in South Africa in the early years of the century. It also highlights the dialogue between African and African-American intellectuals, and the intellectual formation of the early African elite in relation to colonial authority and how each affected the other in complicated ways.The first case study centres on Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Here the evangelical and pedagogical drama pioneered by the Rev Bernard Huss, is considered alongside the work of one of the mission’s most eminent alumni, the poet and scholar, B.W. Vilakazi. The second moves to Johannesburg and gives a detailed insight into the working of the Bantu Dramatic Society and the drama of H.I.E. Dhlomo in relation to the British Drama League and other white liberal cultural activities.Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgements Note on Zulu Orthography Introduction: Staging the (Alien)nation: African Theatre and the Colonial Experience Chapter 1 ‘All Work and No Play Makes Civilisation Unattractive to the Masses’: Theatre and Mission Education at Mariannhill Chapter 2 ‘I Will Open My Mouth in Parables’: Accounting for the Crevices in Redemption Chapter 3 Parallel Time, Parallel Signs, Discordant Interpretations Chapter 4 B.W. Vilakazi and the Poetics of the Mental War Zone Chapter 5 The Bantu Men’s Social Centre: Meeting the Devil on His Own Ground Chapter 6 The Bantu Dramatic Society According to a Gossip Columnist Chapter 7 Contesting ‘The Bantu Imagination’: The British Drama League and the New Africans Chapter 8 H.I.E. Dhlomo: Measuring the Distance between Armageddon and Revolution Chapter 9 The Black Bulls: Assembling the Broken Gourds Chapter 10 Hegemony and Identity: What a Difference ‘Play’ Makes Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe appeal of Asian Theater in America today confirms that the theatre of the Far East is a remarkable and catalytic experience for a Western audience. Staging Japanese Theatre presents two complete plays in the theatrical forms of Noh and Kabuki. Each play appears in Japanese with English translations on facing pages and is pre-ceded by a brief history of the theatre form and the evolution of the production. The text contains an abundance of photographs, diagrams, and the stage directions from the IASTA performance.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less