Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage

Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage PDF Author: William H. Steffen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192699954
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Anthropocene Theater and the Shakespearean Stage revises the anthropocentric narrative of early globalization from the perspective of the non-human world in order to demonstrate Nature's agency in determining ecological, economic, and colonial outcomes. It welcomes readers to reimagine theater history in broader terms, and to account for more non-human and atmospheric players in the otherwise anthropocentric history of Shakespearean performance. This book analyses plays, horticultural manuals, cosmetic recipes, Puritan polemics, and travel writing in order to demonstrate how the material practices of the stage both catalyze and resist early forms of globalization in an ecological arena. William Steffen addresses the role of an understudied ecological performance history in determining Shakespeare's iconic cultural status, and models how non-human players have undermined Shakespeare's authoritative role in colonial discourse. Finally, this book makes a celebratory argument for the humanities in the age of climate change, and invites interdisciplinary engagement a research community that is compelled to find strategies for cultivating a hopeful tomorrow amidst unprecedented anthropogenic environmental changes.

Shakespeare, Theatre, and Time

Shakespeare, Theatre, and Time PDF Author: Matthew Wagner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136661638
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
That Shakespeare thematized time thoroughly, almost obsessively, in his plays is well established: time is, among other things, a 'devourer' (Love's Labour's Lost), one who can untie knots (Twelfth Night), or, perhaps most famously, simply ‘out of joint’ (Hamlet). Yet most critical commentary on time and Shakespeare tends to incorporate little focus on time as an essential - if elusive - element of stage praxis. This book aims to fill that gap; Wagner's focus is specifically performative, asking after time as a stage phenomenon rather than a literary theme or poetic metaphor. His primary approach is phenomenological, as the book aims to describe how time operates on Shakespearean stages. Through philosophical, historiographical, dramaturgical, and performative perspectives, Wagner examines the ways in which theatrical activity generates a manifest presence of time, and he demonstrates Shakespeare’s acute awareness and manipulation of this phenomenon. Underpinning these investigations is the argument that theatrical time, and especially Shakespearean time, is rooted in temporal conflict and ‘thickness’ (the heightened sense of the present moment bearing the weight of both the past and the future). Throughout the book, Wagner traces the ways in which time transcends thematic and metaphorical functions, and forms an essential part of Shakespearean stage praxis.

The Shakespearean Stage

The Shakespearean Stage PDF Author: Andrew Gurr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre

Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre PDF Author: Gillian Woods
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474257496
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
What do 'stage directions' do in early modern drama? Who or what are they directing: action on the stage, or imagination via the page? Is the label 'stage direction' helpful or misleading? Do these 'directions' provide evidence of Renaissance playhouse practice? What happens when we put them at the centre of literary close readings of early modern plays? Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre investigates these problems through innovative research by a range of international experts. This collection of essays examines the creative possibilities of stage directions and and their implications for actors and audiences, readers and editors, historians and contemporary critics. Looking at the different ways stage directions make meaning, this volume provides new insights into a range of Renaissance plays.

Stage Matters

Stage Matters PDF Author: Annalisa Castaldo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931505
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This collection features nine essays that explore how the material conditions of the early modern English stage shaped the theater. Topics range from the simulation of pregnant bodies by boy actors (and the effects of those simulations) to how bruises created by make-up might have been used on stage

Popular Shakespeare

Popular Shakespeare PDF Author: S. Purcell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230234224
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In recent years, the 'Popular Shakespeare' phenomenon has become ever more pervasive: in fringe productions, mainstream theatre, or the mass media, Shakespeare is increasingly constructed as an authentic part of popular culture. A vivid account of Shakespeare in performance since the 1990s, this book examines what 'Shakespeare' means to us today.

Shakespeare and Modern Theatre

Shakespeare and Modern Theatre PDF Author: Michael Bristol
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134601204
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The book gathers together a particularly strong line-up of contributors from across the literary-performative divide to examine the relationship between Shakespeare, the 'culture industries', modernism and live performance.

Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars

Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars PDF Author: Ayanna Thompson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350021768
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The first in-depth look at Peter Sellars, the avant-garde director whose Shakespeare productions have polarized communities and critics. Through extensive interviews and archival work, leading Shakespearean Ayanna Thompson takes readers on a journey through experimental theatre and the tensions that arise between innovation and accessibility. An iconoclastic figure who inspires strong reactions both personally and professionally, Peter Sellars continues to amaze and confound. This book takes readers inside his world for the first time.

Shakespeare and Space

Shakespeare and Space PDF Author: Ina Habermann
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781137518347
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This collection offers an overview of the ways in which space has become relevant to the study of Shakespearean drama and theatre. It distinguishes various facets of space, such as structural aspects of dramatic composition, performance space and the evocation of place, linguistic, social and gendered spaces, early modern geographies, and the impact of theatrical mobility on cultural exchange and the material world. These facets of space are exemplified in individual essays. Throughout, the Shakespearean stage is conceived as a topological ‘node’, or interface between different times, places and people – an approach which also invokes Edward Soja’s notion of ‘Thirdspace’ to describe the blend between the real and the imaginary characteristic of Shakespeare’s multifaceted theatrical world. Part Two of the volume emphasises the theatrical mobility of Hamlet – conceptually from an anthropological perspective, and historically in the tragedy’s migrations to Germany, Russia and North America.

Moving Shakespeare Indoors

Moving Shakespeare Indoors PDF Author: Andrew Gurr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113986789X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Shakespeare's company, the King's Men, played at the Globe, and also in an indoor theatre, the Blackfriars. The year 2014 witnessed the opening of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, based on seventeenth-century designs of an indoor London theatre and built within the precincts of the current Globe on Bankside. This volume, edited by Andrew Gurr and Farah Karim-Cooper, asks what prompted the move to indoor theatres, and considers the effects that more intimate staging, lighting and music had on performance and repertory. It discusses what knowledge is required when attempting to build an archetype of such a theatre, and looks at the effects of the theatre on audience behaviour and reception. Exploring the ways in which indoor theatre shaped the writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the late Jacobean and early Caroline periods, this book will find a substantial readership among scholars of Shakespeare and Jacobean theatre history.