- Table View
- List View
The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre
by Marianne Mcdonald J. Michael WaltonThis series of essays by prominent academics and practitioners investigates in detail the history of performance in the classical Greek and Roman world. Beginning with the earliest examples of 'dramatic' presentation in the epic cycles and reaching through to the latter days of the Roman Empire and beyond, the Companion covers many aspects of these broad presentational societies. Dramatic performances that are text-based form only one part of cultures where presentation is a major element of all social and political life. Individual chapters range across a two thousand year timescale, and include specific chapters on acting traditions, masks, properties, playing places, festivals, religion and drama, comedy and society, and commodity, concluding with the dramatic legacy of myth and the modern media. The book addresses the needs of students of drama and classics, as well as anyone with an interest in the theatre's history and practice.
The Cambridge Companion to Moliere
by David Bradby Andrew CalderA detailed introduction to Molière and his plays, this Companion evokes his own theatrical career, his theatres, patrons, the performers and theatre staff with whom he worked, and the various publics he and his troupes entertained with such success. It looks at his particular brands of comedy and satire. L'École des femmes, Le Tartuffe, Dom Juan, Le Misanthrope, L'Avare and Les Femmes savantes are examined from a variety of different viewpoints, and through the eyes of different ages and cultures. The comedies-ballets, a genre invented by Molière and his collaborators, are re-instated to the central position which they held in his œuvre in Molière's own lifetime; his two masterpieces in this genre, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Le Malade imaginaire, have chapters to themselves. Finally, the Companion looks at modern directors' theatre, exploring the central role played by productions of his work in successive 'revolutions' in the dramatic arts in France.
The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry
by Patrick CheneyThis Companion provides a full introduction to the poetry of William Shakespeare through discussion of his freestanding narrative poems, the Sonnets, and his plays. Fourteen leading international scholars provide accessible and authoritative chapters on all relevant topics: from Shakespeare's seminal role in the development of English poetry, the wide-ranging practice of his poetic form, and his enigmatic place in print and manuscript culture, to his immersion in English Renaissance politics, religion, classicism, and gender dynamics. With individual chapters on Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, 'The Phoenix and the Turtle', the Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint, the Companion also includes chapters on the presence of poetry in the dramatic works, on the relation between poetry and performance, and on the reception and influence of the poems. The volume includes a chronology of Shakespeare's life, a note on reference works, and a reading list for each chapter.
The Cambridge Companion to David Hare
by Richard BoonDavid Hare is one of the most important playwrights to have emerged in the UK in the last forty years. This volume examines his stage plays, television plays and cinematic films, and is the first book of its kind to offer such comprehensive and up-to-date critical treatment. Contributions from leading academics in the study of modern British theatre sit alongside those from practitioners who have worked closely with Hare throughout his career, including former Director of the National Theatre Sir Richard Eyre. Uniquely, the volume also includes a chapter on Hare's work as journalist and public speaker; a personal memoir by Tony Bicât, co-founder with Hare of the enormously influential Portable Theatre; and an interview with Hare himself in which he offers a personal retrospective of his career as a film maker which is his fullest and clearest account of that work to date.
The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel
by Anthony RocheBrian Friel is widely recognized as Ireland's greatest living playwright, winning an international reputation through such acclaimed works as Translations (1980) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This 2006 collection of specially commissioned essays includes contributions from leading commentators on Friel's work (including two fellow playwrights) and explores the entire range of his career from his 1964 breakthrough with Philadelphia, Here I Come! to his most recent success in Dublin and London with The Home Place (2005). The essays approach Friel's plays both as literary texts and as performed drama, and provide the perfect introduction for students of both English and Theatre Studies, as well as theatregoers. The collection considers Friel's lesser-known works alongside his more celebrated plays and provides a comprehensive critical survey of his career. This is a comprehensive study of Friel's work, and includes a chronology and further reading suggestions.
The Cambridge Companion to Brecht
by Peter Thomson Glendyr SacksThis Companion offers students crucial guidance on virtually every aspect of the work of this complex and controversial writer, bringing together the contrasting views of major critics and active practitioners. The opening essays place Brecht's creative work in its historical and biographical context and are followed by chapters on single texts, from The Threepenny Opera to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, on some early plays, on the Lehrstücke and on the neglected contribution of Elisabeth Hauptmann to the Brecht canon. The third group of essays analyse Brecht's directing, his theatrical theories, his poetry, his interest in music, his significant collaboration with stage designers and his work with actors, concluding with an assessment of Brecht's continuing influence on theatre practice. A detailed calendar of Brecht's life and work and a selective bibliography of English criticism complete this provocative overview of a writer who constantly aimed to provoke.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre
by Richard Beadle Alan J. FletcherThe drama of the English Middle Ages is perennially popular with students and theatre audiences alike, and this is an updated edition of a book which has established itself as a standard guide to the field. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, second edition, continues to provide an authoritative introduction and an up-to-date, illustrated guide to the mystery cycles, morality drama and saints' plays which flourished from the late fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries. The book emphasises regional diversity in the period and engages with the literary and particularly the theatrical values of the plays. Existing chapters have been revised and updated where necessary, and there are three entirely new chapters, including one on the cultural significance of early drama. A thoroughly revised reference section includes a guide to scholarship and criticism, an enlarged classified bibliography and a chronological table.
The Cambridge Companion to August Wilson
by Christopher BigsbyOne of America's most powerful and original dramatists, August Wilson offered an alternative history of the twentieth century, as seen from the perspective of black Americans. He celebrated the lives of those seemingly pushed to the margins of national life, but who were simultaneously protagonists of their own drama and evidence of a vital and compelling community. Decade by decade, he told the story of a people with a distinctive history who forged their own future, aware of their roots in another time and place, but doing something more than just survive. Wilson deliberately addressed black America, but in doing so discovered an international audience. Alongside chapters addressing Wilson's life and career, and the wider context of his plays, this Companion dedicates individual chapters to each play in his ten-play cycle, which are ordered chronologically, demonstrating Wilson's notion of an unfolding history of the twentieth century.
The Winter's Tale (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare edited by Susan Snyder Deborah T. Curren-AquinoThe Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's most varied, theatrically self-conscious, and emotionally wide-ranging plays. This 2007 edition provides a newly-edited text, a comprehensive introduction that takes into account current critical thinking, and a detailed commentary on the play's language designed to make it easily accessible to contemporary readers. Much of the play's copiousness inheres in its generic intermingling of tragedy, comedy, romance, pastoral, and the history play. In addition to dates and sources, the introduction attends to iterative patterns, the nature and cause of Leontes' jealousy, the staging and meaning of the bear episode, and the thematic and structural implications of the figure of Time. Special attention is paid to the ending and its tempered happiness. Performance history is integrated throughout the introduction and commentary. Textual analysis, four appendices - including the theatrical practice of doubling, and a select chronology of performance history - and a reading list complete the edition.
Pericles (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare edited by Doreen DelVecchio Antony HammondOver the past two decades there has been a resurgence of theatrical interest in Shakespeare's Pericles, which has been rescued from comparative neglect and is now frequently performed. This development is charted in the introduction to this edition, which differs radically from any other currently available. Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond reject the critical orthodoxies of a corrupt text and divided authorship. Instead they show the play to be a unified aesthetic experience. The result is a more enthusiatic view of Pericles than that of other editions.
Troilus and Cressida (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Anthony B. DawsonLargely neglected during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Troilus and Cressida has recently been proven popular on the stage as well as in studies. In this edition, Dawson views the play from a performance perspective--through commentary as well as in a detailed section on stage history featured in the introduction. His textual choices are often surprising but based on thoughtful analysis.
As You Like It (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Michael HattawayShakespeare's As You Like It can appear bright or sombre in performance: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors; or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. This updated edition provides an account of what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. There is a section on recent critical, stage and film interpretations of the play, an updated reading list and a new appendix on an early court performance of As You Like It in 1599. Mapping the complexities of the play's setting - a no man's land related to both France and England, the edition also includes detailed commentary on its language and an analytical account of performance.
King Richard II (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Andrew GurrAndrew Gurr has added a new section to the Introduction of this updated edition in which he describes the growing interest in new historical and political analysis of the play. He also surveys a number of important professional theatre productions and guides the reader through scholarly criticism of recent years. The Reading List has been revised and augmented.
The Taming of the Shrew (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Ann ThompsonAnn Thompson has added new sections to the Introduction of this new edition which describe the "deeply problematic" nature of debates about the play and its reception since the 1980s. She discusses recent editions and textual, performance and critical studies.
Much Ado About Nothing (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare F. H. MaresFamous actors have appeared as this play's sparring lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, from David Garrick's time in the eighteenth century to the present. Angela Stock has added a new section to the Introduction where she reviews the romantic and darker, more cynical aspects of the play in the context of late twentieth-century stage, film and critical interpretations. She also tackles the critical fortunes of Hero and Claudio as they reflect the play's concerns with sexuality and misogyny, eavesdropping and deception.
The Merchant of Venice (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare M. M. MahoodCharles Edelman focuses on the play's sexual politics and recent scholarship devoted to the position of Jews in Shakespeare's time in this new edition. He surveys the international scope of theatrical interpretations of The Merchant in the 1980s and 1990s as well as different ways of tackling the troubling figure of Shylock. First Edition Hb (1988): 0-521-22156-0 First Edition Pb (1988): 0-521-29371-5
Julius Caesar (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by Marvin Spevack William ShakespeareMarga Munkelt has added a new section and pictures to the Introduction of this updated edition of Julius Caesar. It surveys stage and critical interpretations since the 1980's of Shakespeare's most famous Roman play. The reading list has also been brought up to date.
All's Well That Ends Well (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Russell FraserAlexander Leggatt has written a new Introduction to this updated edition of Russell Fraser's text on one of Shakespeare's most ambiguous plays. Leggatt's interest in performance informs his introduction and account of the instability of the main characters. He offers a thoughtful account of the play's critical and theatrical fortunes to the end of the twentieth century, as well as of the audience experience. An updated reading list completes the edition.
The Comedy of Errors (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare T. S. DorschRos King provides a completely new Introduction to the existing text and commentary for this updated edition of The Comedy of Errors. She argues that the play cannot be regarded only as a farcical romp based on a classical model, but should be considered part of a critically misunderstood genre of tragi-comedy. Stressing the play's underlying seriousness, the Introduction pays special attention to its religious imagery.
King Henry V (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Andrew GurrFor this updated edition of Shakespeare's most celebrated war play, Andrew Gurr has added a new section to his introduction which considers recent critical and stage interpretations. He analyzes the play's double vision of Henry as both military hero and self-seeking individual and demonstrates how the patriotic declarations of the Chorus are contradicted by the play's action. Gurr analyzes the play's more controversial sequences in the context of Elizabethan thought, in particular, the studies of the laws and morality of war written in the years before Henry V. An updated reading list completes the edition.
Antony and Cleopatra (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare David BevingtonA magnificent drama of love and war, this riveting tragedy presents one of Shakespeare's greatest female characters--the seductive, cunning Egyptian queen Cleopatra. The Roman leader Mark Antony, a virtual prisoner of his passion for her, is a man torn between pleasure and virtue, between sensual indolence and duty . . . between an empire and love. Bold, rich, and splendid in its setting and emotions, Antony And Cleopatra ranks among Shakespeare's supreme achievements.
The First Part of King Henry IV (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by Judith Weil William Shakespeare Herbert WeilThis updated edition offers a strongly theatrical perspective on the origins of Shakespeare's The First Part of King Henry IV and the history of its interpretation. The introduction clarifies the play's surprising, de-centred dramatic structure, questioning the dominant assumption that the drama focuses on the education of Prince Hal. It calls attention to the effects of civil war upon a broad range of relationships. Falstaff's unpredictable vitality is explored, together with important contemporary values of honour, friendship, festivity and reformation. Extensive lexical glosses of obscure, ambiguous or archaic meanings make the rich wordplay accessible. The notes also provide a thorough commentary on Shakespeare's transformation of his sources (particularly Holinshed's Chronicles) and suggest alternative stagings. This updated edition contains a new introductory section by Katharine A. Craik, which describes recent stage, film and critical interpretations, and an updated reading list.
The Second Part of King Henry IV (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
by William Shakespeare Giorgio MelchioriMelchiori offers a fresh approach to the text of The Second Part of King Henry IV, which he sees as an unplanned sequel to the First Part, itself a 'remake' of an old, non-Shakespearean play. The Second Part deliberately exploits the popular success of Sir John Falstaff, introduced in Part One; the resulting rich humour gives a comic dimension to the play which makes it a unique blend of history, morality play and comedy. Among modern editions of the play this is the one most firmly based on the quarto. It presents an eminently actable text, by showing how Shakespeare's own choices are superior for practical purposes to suggested emendations, and by keeping interference in the original stage directions to a minimum, in order to respect, as Shakespeare did, the players' freedom. This updated edition includes a new introductory section by Adam Hansen describing recent stage, film and critical interpretations.
The Shakespearean Stage Space
by Mariko IchikawaHow did Renaissance theatre create its powerful effects with so few resources? In The Shakespearean Stage Space, Mariko Ichikawa explores the original staging of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries to build a new picture of the artistry of the Renaissance stage. Dealing with problematic scenes and stage directions, Ichikawa closely examines the playing conditions in early modern playhouses to reveal the ways in which the structure of the stage was used to ensure the audibility of offstage sounds, to control the visibility of characters, to convey fictional locales, to create specific moods and atmospheres and to maintain a frequently shifting balance between fictional and theatrical realities. She argues that basic theatrical terms were used in a much broader and more flexible way than we usually assume and demonstrates that, rather than imposing limitations, the bare stage of the Shakespearean theatre offered dramatists and actors a variety of imaginative possibilities.
Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare
by Paul WerstineEarly Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare argues for editing Shakespeare's plays in a new way, without pretending to distinguish authorial from theatrical versions. Drawing on the work of the influential scholars A. W. Pollard and W. W. Greg, Werstine tackles the difficult issues surrounding 'foul papers' and 'promptbooks' to redefine these fundamental categories of current Shakespeare editing. In an extensive and detailed analysis, this book offers insight into the methods of theatrical personnel and a reconstruction of backstage practices in playhouses of Shakespeare's time. The book also includes a detailed analysis of nineteen manuscripts and three quartos marked up for performance - documents that together provide precious insight into how plays were put into production. Using these surviving manuscripts as a framework, Werstine goes on to explore editorial choices about what to give today's readers as 'Shakespeare'.