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Time Slips: Queer Temporalities, Contemporary Performance, and the Hole of History
by Jaclyn I. PryorPryor illuminates how each artist deploys performance as a tool to render history visible, trauma recognizable, and transformation possible by laying bare the histories and ongoing systems of violence woven deep into our society.
Elizabethan Comedies: A Basic Anthology (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Inc. Dover PublicationsA new and vital form of drama blossomed in 16th-century England, blending classic Latin comedy traditions with keen satires of contemporary London life. Although Shakespeare remains the most recognizable playwright of the Elizabethan age, there were many others whose work continues to entertain and educate students of drama to this day. This anthology collects timeless comedies that both informed Shakespeare's work and took inspiration from the Bard himself.Six plays include Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, the comedy that made the author's reputation; Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay by Robert Greene, a groundbreaking play in terms of multiple-plot structure; The Shoemaker's Holiday, or The Gentle Craft by Thomas Dekker, the "Dickens of English theater"; All Fools, George Chapman's sprightly romp; A Trick to Catch the Old One by Thomas Middleton, one of the era's most prolific and successful playwrights; and Eastward Ho!, a collaborative work by Chapman, Jonson, and John Marston.
Elizabethan Tragedies: A Basic Anthology
by Inc. Dover PublicationsAlthough Shakespeare towers over the Elizabethan period, it was a robust time in the evolution of English theater, and many plays beyond the Bard's survive to enthrall modern drama students. This original anthology collects prime examples of the era's tragedies, dramas that both informed and were influenced by Shakespeare's work.Include here are The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd; Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe; Thomas Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness; The Tragedy of Mariam, by Elizabeth Cary (the first work in English to be published under a female author's own name); and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.
Euripides’ Revolution under Cover: An Essay (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology #65)
by Pietro PucciIn this provocative book, Pietro Pucci explores what he sees as Euripides's revolutionary literary art. While scholars have long pointed to subversive elements in Euripides’s plays, Pucci goes a step further in identifying a Euripidean program of enlightened thought enacted through carefully wrought textual strategies. The driving force behind this program is Euripides’s desire to subvert the traditional anthropomorphic view of the Greek gods—a belief system that in his view strips human beings of their independence and ability to act wisely and justly. Instead of fatuous religious beliefs, Athenians need the wisdom and the strength to navigate the challenges and difficulties of life.Throughout his lifetime, Euripides found himself the target of intense criticism and ridicule. He was accused of promoting new ideas that were considered destructive. Like his contemporary, Socrates, he was considered a corrupting influence. No wonder, then, that Euripides had to carry out his revolution "under cover." Pucci lays out the various ways the playwright skillfully inserted his philosophical principles into the text through innovative strategies of plot development, language and composition, and production techniques that subverted the traditionally staged anthropomorphic gods.
Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama
by Martin PuchnerGrounded equally in discussions of theater history, literary genre, and theory, Martin Puchner's Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-Theatricality, and Drama explores the conflict between avant-garde theater and modernism. While the avant-garde celebrated all things theatrical, a dominant strain of modernism tended to define itself against the theater, valuing lyric poetry and the novel instead. Defenders of the theater dismiss modernism's aversion to the stage and its mimicking actors as one more form of the old "anti-theatrical" prejudice. But Puchner shows that modernism's ambivalence about the theater was shared even by playwrights and directors and thus was a productive force responsible for some of the greatest achievements in dramatic literature and theater.A reaction to the aggressive theatricality of Wagner and his followers, the modernist backlash against the theater led to the peculiar genre of the closet drama—a theatrical piece intended to be read rather than staged—whose long-overlooked significance Puchner traces from the theatrical texts of Mallarmé and Stein to the dramatic "Circe" chapter of Joyce's Ulysses. At times, then, the anti-theatrical impulse leads to a withdrawal from the theater. At other times, however, it returns to the stage, when Yeats blends lyric poetry with Japanese Nôh dancers, when Brecht controls the stage with novelistic techniques, and when Beckett buries his actors in barrels and behind obsessive stage directions. The modernist theater thus owes much to the closet drama whose literary strategies it blends with a new mise en scène. While offering an alternative history of modernist theater and literature, Puchner also provides a new account of the contradictory forces within modernism.
Memory, Allegory, and Testimony in South American Theater: Upstaging Dictatorship (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies #Vol. 8)
by Ana Elena PugaMemory, Allegory, and Testimony in South American Theater traces the shaping of a resistant identity in memory, its direct expression in testimony, and its indirect elaboration in two different kinds of allegory. Each chapter focuses on one contemporary playwright (or one collaborative team, in the case of Brazil) from each of four Southern Cone countries and compares the playwrights’ aesthetic strategies for subverting ideologies of dictatorship: Carlos Manuel Varela (memory in Uruguay), Juan Radrigán (testimony in Chile), Augusto Boal and his co-author Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (historical allegory in Brazil), Griselda Gambaro (abstract allegory in Argentina).
Performances of Suffering in Latin American Migration: Heroes, Martyrs and Saints
by Ana Elena Puga Víctor M. EspinosaThis book questions the reliance on melodrama and spectacle in social performances and cultural productions by and about migrants from Mexico and Central America to the United States. Focusing on archetypal characters with nineteenth-century roots that recur in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries – heroic saviors, saintly mothers and struggling fathers, martyred children and rebellious youth – it shows how theater practitioners, filmmakers, visual artists, advocates, activists, journalists, and others who want to help migrants often create migrant melodramas, performances that depict their heroes as virtuous victims at the mercy of evil villains. In order to gain respect for the human rights that are supposedly already theirs on paper and participate in a global market that trades in performances of suffering, migrants themselves sometimes accept the roles into which they are cast, or even cast themselves. Some express their suffering publicly, often on demand. Others find ways to twist, parody, resist, or reject migrant melodrama.
On the Queerness of Early English Drama: Sex in the Subjunctive
by Tison PughOften viewed as theologically conservative, many theatrical works of late medieval and early Tudor England nevertheless exploited the performative nature of drama to flirt with unsanctioned expressions of desire, allowing queer identities and themes to emerge. Early plays faced vexing challenges in depicting sexuality, but modes of queerness, including queer scopophilia, queer dialogue, queer characters, and queer performances, fractured prevailing restraints. Many of these plays were produced within male homosocial environments, and thus homosociality served as a narrative precondition of their storylines. Building from these foundations, On the Queerness of Early English Drama investigates occluded depictions of sexuality in late medieval and early Tudor dramas. Tison Pugh explores a range of topics, including the unstable genders of the York Corpus Christi Plays, the morally instructive humour of excremental allegory in Mankind, the confused relationship of sodomy and chastity in John Bale’s historical interludes, and the camp artifice and queer carnival of Sir David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis. Pugh concludes with Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi, pondering the afterlife of medieval drama and its continued utility in probing cultural constructions of gender and sexuality
Milton the Mole
by Carol Pugliano-Martin Anne Flounders Karen LeonPerform this script about the unique features that make animals different from one another.
Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
by Todd S. PurdumA revelatory portrait of the creative partnership that transformed musical theater and provided the soundtrack to the American CenturyThey stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play. Their songs and dance numbers served to advance the drama and reveal character, a sharp break from the past and the template on which all future musicals would be built.Though different in personality and often emotionally distant from each other, Rodgers and Hammerstein presented an unbroken front to the world and forged much more than a songwriting team; their partnership was also one of the most profitable and powerful entertainment businesses of their era. They were cultural powerhouses whose work came to define postwar America on stage, screen, television, and radio. But they also had their failures and flops, and more than once they feared they had lost their touch.Todd S. Purdum’s portrait of these two men, their creative process, and their groundbreaking innovations will captivate lovers of musical theater, lovers of the classic American songbook, and young lovers wherever they are. He shows that what Rodgers and Hammerstein wrought was truly something wonderful.
Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century: How They Happened, When They Happened (And What We’ve Learned)
by Stephen PurdyFlop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century offers a provocative and revealing historical narrative of a group of musicals that cost millions, that were created by world-renowned writers and directors, and that had spectacular potential… but bombed anyway. Stephen Purdy asks the reader to consider what the legendary creators of Les Misérables, pop superstar Elton John, and wunderkind Julie Taymor have in common besides being inspired storytellers of iconic Broadway musicals. The answer is that they also all created shows that, for one reason or a dozen, flopped. This book shares the story of what can happen when formidable creative teams of sell-out musicals attempt to repeat their success but miss the mark. First-hand accounts from the cast members, backstage staff, and the creative team, combined with a wealth of secondary sources gathered from press articles, reviews, and critical commentary, offer an intriguing insight into the factors behind success and failure in the musical theatre business. This is a fascinating book for students, scholars, practitioners, and fans of musical theatre that contains thoughtful observations about luck and creative differences, botched adaptations, and alienated audiences, all of which can determine the fate of a musical.
Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century: Part I: The Creatives
by Stephen PurdyFlop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century offers a provocative and revealing historical narrative of a group of musicals that cost millions and had spectacular potential ... but bombed anyway. Stephen Purdy examines at length the production histories, which are all bound together by a common thread. The book focuses the lens on several seemingly infallible theatre creatives who weren’t destined to repeat their successes with the shows discussed in this volume. As such, Purdy grounds the discussion by examining what the legendary creators of Les Misérables, pop superstar Elton John, wunderkind Julie Taymor, and many others have in common besides being inspired storytellers of iconic Broadway musicals. The answer is that they also all created shows that, for one reason or a dozen, didn’t find an audience. Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century shares the story of what can happen when formidable creative teams of sell-out musicals attempt to re-create their success but miss the mark. This is an engaging book for students, practitioners, and fans of musical theatre that contains thoughtful observations about luck and creative differences, botched adaptations, and alienated audiences, all of which can determine the fate of a musical.
Shakespeare and Manuscript Drama
by James PurkisHow did Shakespeare write his plays and how were they revised during their passage to the stage? James Purkis answers these questions through a fresh examination of often overlooked evidence provided by manuscripts used in early modern playhouses. Considering collaboration and theatre practice, this book explores manuscript plays by Anthony Munday, Thomas Middleton, and Thomas Heywood to establish new accounts of theatrical revision that challenge formerly dominant ideas in Shakespearean textual studies. The volume also reappraises Shakespeare's supposed part in the Sir Thomas More manuscript by analysing the palaeographic, orthographic, and stylistic arguments for Shakespeare's authorship of three of the document's pages. Offering a new account of manuscript writing that avoids conventional narrative forms, Purkis argues for a Shakespeare fully participant in a manuscript's collaborative process, demanding a reconsideration of his dramatic canon. The book will greatly interest researchers and advanced students of Shakespeare studies, textual history, authorship studies and theatre historians.
Boris Godunov, Little Tragedies, and Others: The Complete Plays (Vintage Classics)
by Alexander PushkinThe award-winning translators bring us the complete plays of the most acclaimed Russian writer of the Romantic era.Known as the father of Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin was celebrated for his dramas as well as his poetry and stories. His most famous play is Boris Godunov (later adapted into a popular opera by Mussorgsky), a tale of ambition and murder centered on the sixteenth-century Tsar who preceded the Romanovs. Pushkin was inspired by the example of Shakespeare to create this panoramic drama, with its richly varied cast of characters and artful blend of comic and tragic scenes. Pushkin&’s shorter forays into verse drama include The Water Nymph, A Scene from Faust, and the four brief plays known as the Little Tragedies: The Miserly Knight, set in medieval France; Mozart and Salieri, which inspired the popular film Amadeus; The Stone Guest, a tale of Don Juan in Madrid; and A Feast in a Time of Plague, in which a group of revelers defy quarantine in plague-ridden London. These new translations of the complete plays, from the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, freshly reveal the range of Pushkin&’s enduring artistry.
Surviving Theatre: The Living Archive of Spectatorship (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Marco PustianazWritten soon before and in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic when theatre ground to a halt and spectatorship was suspended, this book takes stock of spectatorship as theatre’s living archive and affirms its value in the midst of the present crisis. Drawing from a manifold affective archive of performances and installations by Marina Abramović, Ron Athey, Forced Entertainment, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Blast Theory, LIGNA, Doris Salcedo, Graeme Miller, Lenz Rifrazioni, Cristina Rizzo ..., and expanding on the work of many theorists and scholars like Roland Barthes and Jacques Rancière, Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou, Nicholas Ridout and Alan Read, among others, the book focuses on the spectator as the subject, rather than the object, of investigation. This is the right time to remember their secret power and theorise their collective time in the theatre. This book is an archive of their adventure and a manifesto rooted in their potentiality. It boldly posits the spectator as the inaugurator of theatre, the surplus that survives it. The book will be of great interest to spectators all and sundry, to scholars and students of theatre and performance studies, of spectatorship and politics.
The Celtic Revival in Shakespeare’s Wake
by Adam PutzThis book reconsiders the Celtic Revival by examining appropriations of Shakespeare, using close readings of works by Arnold, Dowden, Yeats and Joyce to reveal the pernicious manner in which the discourse of Anglo-Irish cultural politics informed the critical paradigms that mediated the reading of Shakespeare in Ireland for a generation.
The Regal Phantasm: Shakespeare and the Politics of Spectacle (Routledge Revivals)
by Christopher PyeFirst published in 1989, this title explores the relationship between theater and power in the English Renaissance. Shakespeare’s Henry V, Richard II, and Macbeth are examined alongside a range of cultural materials, including philosophical and historical accounts of sovereignty, royal portraiture and representations of treason and punishment. Renaissance theater was far more than a vehicle for the expression of a political content: it played a constitutive role in forming the distinctive theory of sovereignty and the distinctive political subjectivity of the era. By reading Shakespeare’s plays in conjunction with other, ideologically charged forms of representation, the book continues new-historicist efforts to uncover the complex relations between literary texts and cultural contexts. Providing an interesting and detailed analysis, this reissue will be of value to students of Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, and those concerned with exploring the intersection between cultural analysis, post-structuralism, and psychoanalytic interpretation.
The Storm at Sea: Political Aesthetics in the Time of Shakespeare
by Christopher PyeThe Storm at Sea: Political Aesthetics in the Time of Shakespeare counters a tradition of cultural analysis that judges considerations of aesthetic autonomy in the early modern context to be either anachronistic or an index of political disengagement. Pye argues that for a post-theocratic era in which the mise-en-forme of the social domain itself was for the first time at stake, the problem of the aesthetic lay at the very core of the political; it is precisely through its engagement with the question of aesthetic autonomy that early modern works most profoundly explore their relation to matters of law, state, sovereignty, and political subjectivity. Pye establishes the significance of a “creationist” political aesthetic—at once a discrete historical category and a phenomenon that troubles our familiar forms of historical accounting—and suggests that the fate of such an aesthetic is intimately bound up with the emergence of modern conceptions of the political sphere. The Storm at Sea moves historically from Leonardo da Vinci to Thomas Hobbes; it focuses on Shakespeare and English drama, with chapters on Hamlet, Othello, A Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, as well as sustained readings of As You Like It, King Lear, Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Engaging political thinkers such as Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, Claude Lefort, and Roberto Esposito, The Storm at Sea will be of interest to political theorists as well as to students of literary and visual theory.
Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice: Perspectives on Activating the Actor
by Valerie Pye Hillary BucsObjectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice is the first book that compiles practical approaches of the best practices from a range of practitioners on the subject of working with Stanislavski’s "objectives," "obstacles," and "tactics." The book offers instructors and directors a variety of tools from leading acting teachers, who bring their own individual perspectives to the challenge of working with Stanislavski’s principles for today’s actors, in one volume. Each essay addresses its own theoretical and practical approach and offers concrete instructions for implementing new explorations both in the classroom and in the rehearsal studio. An excellent resource for acting and directing instructors at the university level, directing and theatre pedagogy students, high school/secondary theatre teachers, and community theatre leaders, Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice serves as a resource for lesson planning and exploration, and provides an encyclopedia of the best practices in the field today.
Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe
by Valerie Clayman PyeWhat can the Globe Theatre tell us about performing Shakespeare? Unearthing Shakespeare is the first book to consider what the Globe, today’s replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, can contribute to a practical understanding of Shakespeare’s plays. Valerie Clayman Pye reconsiders the material evidence of Early Modern theatre-making, presenting clear, accessible discussions of historical theatre practice; stages and staging; and the relationship between actor and audience. She relays this into a series of training exercises for actors at all levels. From "Shakesball" and "Telescoping" to Elliptical Energy Training and The Radiating Box, this is a rich set of resources for anyone looking to tackle Shakespeare with authenticity and confidence.
Shakespeare and Tourism (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Valerie Clayman Pye Robert OrmsbyShakespeare and Tourism provides a dialogical mapping of Shakespeare studies and touristic theory through a collection of essays by scholars on a wide range of material. This volume examines how Shakespeare tourism has evolved since its inception, and how the phenomenon has been influenced and redefined by performance studies, the prevalence of the World Wide Web, developments in technology, and the globalization of Shakespearean performance. Current scholarship recognizes Shakespearean tourism as a thriving international industry, the result of centuries of efforts to attribute meanings associated with the playwright’s biography and literary prestige to sites for artistic pilgrimage and the consumption of cultural heritage. Through bringing Shakespeare and tourism studies into more explicit contact, this collection provides readers with a broad base for comparisons across time and location, and thereby encourages a thorough reconsideration of how we understand both fields.
The Winter's Tale: A Commentary on the Structure
by Fitzroy PyleFirst published in 1969. Critics have in the past described The Winter's Tale as a work of "haphazard structure". More recent criticism has defended the structure of the play and this work shows that the evidence points to the fact that Shakespeare took infinite pains with the choice and disposition of the materials of The Winter's Tale. The scene-by-scene commentary considers The Winter's Tale in isolation, but prologue, epilogue and appendix place it in the context of related plays, and discuss, among others, the problem of genre as it affects the play.
Sócrates. Amanhecer na caverna
by Ariel Pytrell Juliana Fernandes e Manuela FerreiraDescrição do livro “Sócrates, o criador do Iluminismo grego, não fundou um sistema filosófico [...]. Até mesmo em sua cela, em companhia de si mesmo, naqueles momentos extremos, Sócrates jamais deteve a busca pela quintessência da vida. Dois mil e quinhentos anos depois, como se fosse um discípulo contemporâneo do grande filósofo, o amante do helênico e dramaturgo argentino Ariel Pytrell, nesta maravilhosa obra, Sócrates. Amanhecer na caverna, assumiu a responsabilidade de transmitir [...] a atmosfera dos últimos momentos da vida do filósofo”. Eleni Leivaditou de Bulgari, Embaixadora da Grécia na Argentina “Em Sócrates. Amanhecer na caverna, Ariel Pytrell dramatiza vários episódios essenciais na vida de um dos filósofos mais destacados da civilização grega. Mediante um jogo metateatral brilhante, salpicado por momentos de intriga, ternura, conflito, humor, tragédia e diálogos poéticos, Pytrell logra recriar efetivamente um protagonista histórico, de carne e osso, para um público moderno. Convida-nos a celebrar a vida desta grande figura, mas neste caso, brindamos com uma taça sinistra. Com cada gota que saboreamos, desenvolve-se mais uma cena nesta obra que é, ao mesmo tempo, enigmática, mágica e perspicaz, cuja estrutura caleidoscópica segue girando até o amanhecer; ou seja, até que vejamos a luz e descubramos a verdade”. Susan P. Berardini, Ph. D, Associate Professor of Spanish, Pace University, NY
Socrate. Lever du jour dans la caverne
by Ariel Pytrell Antony Gautier Morales"Dans Socrate. Lever du jour dans la caverne, Ariel Pytrell adapte plusieurs épisodes clés de la vie d'un des philosophes les plus remarquables de la civilisation grecque. Grâce à un jeu méta théâtral brillant, parsemé de moments d'intrigue, de tendresse, de conflit, d'humour, de tragédie et de dialogues poétiques, Pytrell réussit à recréer effectivement un personnage historique, en chair et en os, pour un public moderne. Il nous invite à célébrer la vie de cette grande figure, mais dans ce cas nous trinquons avec une coupe sinistre. Avec chaque goutte que nous savourons, une scène de plus se déroule dans cette œuvre, à la fois énigmatique, magique et perspicace, dont la structure caléidoscopique continue de tourner jusqu'au lever du jour ; c'est-à-dire jusqu'à ce que nous voyions la lumière et découvrions la vérité." Susan P. Berardini | Ph. D Associate Professor of Spanish, Pace University, NY -------------------------------- "Même dans sa cellule, seul avec lui-même dans ces moments extrêmes, Socrate n'a jamais cessé sa recherche de la quintessence de la vie. Deux mille cinq cents ans après, comme s'il était un disciple contemporain du grand philosophe, l'amoureux de la Grèce antique et dramaturge argentin Ariel Pytrell, dans cette merveilleuse œuvre « Socrate. Lever du jour dans la caverne », assuma la responsabilité de transmettre l'atmosphère des derniers moments de la vie du philosophe..." Eleni Leivaditou de Bulgari | Ambassadrice de Grèce en Argentine