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Hitchcock's Films Revisited
by Robin WoodWhen Hitchcock's Films was first published, it quickly became known as a new kind of book on film and as a necessary text in the growing body of Hitchcock criticism. <p><p>This revised edition of Hitchcock's Films Revisited includes a substantial new preface in which Wood reveals his personal history as a critic -- including his coming out as a gay man, his views on his previous critical work, and how his writings, his love of film, and his personal life and have remained deeply intertwined through the years. This revised edition also includes a new chapter on Marnie.
English Revenge Drama: Money, Resistance, Equality
by Linda WoodbridgeVengeance permeates English Renaissance drama - for example, it crops up in all but two of Shakespeare's plays. This book explores why a supposedly forgiving Christian culture should have relished such bloodthirsty, vengeful plays. A clue lies in the plays' passion for fairness, a preoccupation suggesting widespread resentment of systemic unfairness - legal, economic, political, and social. Revengers' precise equivalents - the father of two beheaded sons obliges his enemy to eat her two sons' heads - are vigilante versions of Elizabethan law, where penalties suit the crimes: thieves' hands were cut off, scolds' tongues bridled. The revengers' language of 'paying' hints at the operation of revenge in the service of economic redress. Revenge makes contact with resistance theory, justifying overthrow of tyrants, and some revengers challenge the fundamental inequity of social class. Woodbridge demonstrates how, for all their sensationalism, their macabre comedy and outlandish gore, Renaissance revenge plays do some serious cultural work.
English Theatre in Transition 1881-1914 (Routledge Library Editions: Victorian Theatre #6)
by James WoodfieldOriginally published in 1984. The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a time of considerable change in the English theatre. Victorian attitudes were shocked or shattered by the new drama of Ibsen; the major figure of George Bernard Shaw dominated the period; theatre censorship was the subject of a long and furious contest; and staging conventions changed from the spectacular stylings of Irving and Beerbohm Tree to the masking and statuesque styles of Isadora Duncan and the inner realism of Stanislavsky. This book traces the activities of the leading figures in the English theatre, notably William Archer who introduced Ibsen to this country and who became one of the main promoters of the idea of a National Theatre. Other personalities discussed include Harley Granville Barker, particularly his association with Shaw at the Court Theatre and his part in campaigns against censorship and for changes in the staging of Shakespeare, and Edward Gordon Craig, whose rebellion against the Victorian theatre took and anti-realist direction. This is a stimulating account of the background to the modern English theatre which can only increase appreciation of its standard and variety.
Art History as Cultural History: Warburg's Projects (Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture)
by Richard WoodfieldThis book focuses on Aby Warburg (1866-1929), one of the legendary figures of twentieth century cultural history. His collection, which is now housed in the Warburg Institute of the University of London bears witness to his idiosyncratic approach to a psychology of symbolism, and explores the Nachleben of classical antiquity in its manifold cultural legacy. This collection of essays offers the first translation of one of Warburg's key essays, the Gombrich lecture, described by Carlo Ginzburg as 'the richest and most penetrating interpretation of Warburg' and original essays on Warburg's astrology, his Mnemosyne project and his favourite topic of festivals. Richard Woodfield is Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University, England. He has edited E.H Gombrich's Reflections on the History of Art (1987), Gombrich on Art and Psychology (1996), The Essential Gombrich (1996), and a volume on Riegl in the Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture series. He is also the General Editor of a new series of books for G+B Arts International, Aesthetics and the Arts. Edited by Richard Woodfield, Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, UK.
Shakespeare in Cuba: Caliban’s Books (Global Shakespeares)
by Donna Woodford-GormleyShakespeare in Cuba: Caliban’s Books explores how Shakespeare is consumed and appropriated in Cuba. It contributes to the underrepresented field of Latin American Shakespeares by applying the lens of cultural anthropophagy, a theory with Latin American roots, to explore how Cuban artists ingest and transform Shakespeare’s plays. By consuming these works and incorporating them into Cuban culture and literature, Cuban writers make the plays their own while also nourishing the source texts and giving Shakespeare a new afterlife.
John Lowin and the English Theatre, 1603–1647: Acting and Cultural Politics on the Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)
by Barbara WoodingEven for scholars who have devoted their careers to the early modern theatre, the name John Lowin may not instantly evoke recognition-until now, the actor's life and contribution to the theatre of the period has never been the subject of a full-length publication. In this study, Barbara Wooding provides a comprehensive overview of the life and times of Lowin, a leader of the King's Men's Company and one of the greatest actors of the seventeenth century. She examines his involvement in the Jacobean/Caroline world as performer, citizen and company manager, and contextualizes his life and career within the socio-economic and political framework of the period. Although references to him in the archives are patchy and sporadic, information about his activities within the King's Men's Company is well documented. In the course of analysing less familiar plays of the period and the characters Lowin played in them, Wooding supplements critical understanding of the scope and range of Caroline drama. Because Lowin's career burgeoned after Shakespeare's and Burbage's death, his life in Southwark and his career with the same company furnishes the opportunity for an examination of the changing status of actors, and the exercising of their skills within the drama of the later playhouse period.
Sonic Engagement: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Community Engaged Audio Practice (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Sarah Woodland Wolfgang VachonSonic Engagement examines the relationship between community engaged participatory arts and the cultural turn towards audio, sound, and listening that has been referred to as the 'sonic turn'. This edited collection investigates the use of sound and audio production in community engaged participatory arts practice and research. The popularity of podcast and audio drama, combined with the accessibility and portability of affordable field recording and home studio equipment, makes audio a compelling mode of participatory creative practice. This book maps existing projects occurring globally through a series of case study chapters that exemplify community engaged creative audio practice. The studies focus on audio and sound-based arts practices that are undertaken by artists and arts-led researchers in collaboration with (and from within) communities and groups. These practices include—applied audio drama, community engaged podcasting, sound and verbatim theatre, participatory sound art, community-led acoustic ecology, sound and media walks, digital storytelling, oral history and reminiscence, and radio drama in health and community development. The contributors interrogate the practical, political, and aesthetic potentialities of using sound and audio in community engaged arts practice, as well as its tensions and possibilities as an arts-led participatory research methodology. This book provides the first extensive analysis of what sound and audio brings to participatory, interdisciplinary, arts-led approaches, representing a vital resource for community arts, performance practice, and research in the digital age.
Author and Audience in Latin Literature
by Tony Woodman Jonathan PowellThe relationship between the author and his audience has received much critical attention from scholars in non-classical disciplines yet the nature of much ancient literature and of its 'publication' meant that audiences in ancient times were more immediate to their authors than in the modern world. This book contains essays by distinguished scholars on the various means by which Latin authors communicated effectively with their audiences. The authors and works covered are Cicero, Catullus, Lucretius, Propertius, Horace's Odes, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Senecan tragedy, Persius, Pliny's letters, Tacitus' Annals and medieval love lyric. Contributors have provided detailed analyses of particular passages in order to throw light on the many different ways in which authors catered for their audiences by fulfilling, manipulating and thwarting their expectations; and in an epilogue the editors have drawn together the issues raised by these contributions and have attempted to place them in an appropriate critical context.
Europides' Bacchae
by Paul Woodruff Stephen EspositoAn English translation of Euripides' tragedy based on the mythological story of King Pentheus of Thebes and his fateful encounter with the god DIonysus. Includes an introductory essay, extensive notes, appendices on lacuna, a geneological chart of the gods, and an essay by Valerie M. Warrior: "The Roman Bid to Control Bacchic Worship". The Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture and the roots of contemprary thought.
Four Tragedies: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes
by Paul Woodruff Peter Meineck SophoclesMeineck and Woodruff's new annotated translations of Sophocles' Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes combine the same standards of accuracy, concision, clarity, and powerful speech that have so often made their Theban Plays a source of epiphany in the classroom and of understanding in the theatre. Woodruff's Introduction offers a brisk and stimulating discussion of central themes in Sophoclean drama, the life of the playwright, staging issues, and each of the four featured plays.
Oedipus Tyrannus
by Paul Woodruff Peter Meineck SophoclesPeter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's collaboration on this new translation combines the strengths that have recently distinguished both as translators of Greek tragedy: expert knowledge of the Greek and of the needs of the teaching classicist, intimate knowledge of theatre, and an excellent ear for the spoken word. Their Oedipus Tyrannus features foot-of-the-page notes, an Introduction, stage directions and a translation characterized by its clarity, accuracy, and power.
Philoctetes
by Paul Woodruff Peter Meineck SophoclesFirst published in Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's Sophocles: Four Tragedies, this riveting translation by Peter Meineck of Sophocles' Philoctetes features a new Introduction by Paul Woodruff.
Theban Plays
by Paul Woodruff Peter Meineck SophoclesThis volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.
Dancing in the Vortex: The Story of Ida Rubinstein (Choreography and Dance Studies Series #Vol. 20.)
by Vicki WoolfParis at the turn of the century - Art Nouveau, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Folies Bergere. This was the atmosphere which nurtured the artistic development of the remarkable dancer and choreographer Ida Rubinstein.This long-awaited biography gives us a unique insight into the life of a remarkable woman, responsible for a fascinating chapter of our artistic heritage. She was a chameleon, a diva, who lived many lives, overcoming the anti-Semitism of her times to enchant and captivate the highest of societies.Untrained as a dancer, Ida Rubinstein's charisma attracted collaborators such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Cocteau, Bakst, and Benois.
Chekhov's Three Sisters and Woolf's Orlando
by Virginia Woolf Sarah Ruhl Anton Chekhov"[Ruhl's Orlando] captures both the intellectual spirit and the literary brilliance of Woolf's work. . . . Ruhl writes with the imaginative sweep that allows Woolf's poetry to soar."--Variety "Sarah Ruhl's smart new translation [of Three Sisters] feels just right to contemporary American ears--lean, colloquial, and conversational for us and true to Chekhov's original work."--The Cincinnati Enquirer In her stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending, period-hopping novel, award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl "is her usual unfailingly elegant, unbeatably witty self, cleverly braiding her own brand-name wit with Woolf's" (New York )magazine. Preserving Woolf's vital ideas and lyrical tone, Ruhl brings to the stage the life of an Elizabethan nobleman who's magically transformed into an immortal woman. In her fresh translation of Three Sisters, the Anton Chekhov classic of ennui and frustration, Ruhl employs her signature lyricism and elegant understanding of intimacy to reveal the discontent felt by fretful Olga, unhappy Masha, and idealistic Irina as they long to leave rural Russia for the ever-alluring Moscow. Sarah Ruhl's other plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) and The Clean House, as well as Passion Play, Dean Man's Cell Phone, Demeter in the City, Eurydice, Melancholy Play, and Late: a cowboy song. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her plays have premiered on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in many theaters around the world.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (The Fourth Wall)
by Julian Woolford'Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, Bloom and grow forever' Often dismissed as kitsch sentimentalism, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music has proven an enduringly popular and surprisingly influential cultural icon, both within the field of musical theatre and the wider world. The Broadway production won five Tony Awards, the London production became the longest-running West End musical, and the movie version was the highest-grossing film of all time. This book examines how the musical heralded the end of an era on Broadway; its reinvention of history and biography; how the film has influenced future stage productions; the ways in which it put child performers centre stage; and how, nearly 60 years after its stage debut, the musical still has a direct impact on the modern world, from the United States to the Middle East. In this series of short essays, Julian Woolford re-examines the musical from seven different perspectives, revealing the ways in which it continues to impact the 21st century.
The School Play: Independent Reading Red 2 (Reading Champion #367)
by Katie WoolleyLil and Tim are having trouble choosing an outfit for the school play ... what will they be?Reading Champion offers independent reading books for children to practise and reinforce their developing reading skills.Fantastic, original stories are accompanied by engaging artwork and a reading activity. Each book has been carefully graded so that it can be matched to a child's reading ability, encouraging reading for pleasure. Perfect for the 4-5 year old beginner reader or those reading book band red.
Doctor Faustus: With The English Faust Book
by David Wootton Christopher MarloweThis edition of Doctor Faustus features annotated versions, with modernized spelling and punctuation, of the 1604 A-text and the 1592 text of Marlowe's source, the English Faust Book--a translation of the best-selling Historia von Johann Fausten published in Frankfurt in 1587, which recounts the strange story of Doctor John Faustus and his pact with the spirit Mephistopheles.David Wootton's Introduction charts Marlowe's brief, meteoric career; the delicate social and political climate in which Doctor Faustus was staged and the vexed question of the religious sensibilities to which it may have catered; the interpretive significance of variations between the A and B texts; and the shrewd and subversive uses to which Marlowe put the English Faust Book in crafting, according to Wootton, a drama in which orthodox Christian teaching triumphed, but in which Faustus has all the best lines.
Celebrity, Performance, Reception
by David WorrallBy 1800 London had as many theatre seats for sale as the city's population. This was the start of the capital's rise as a centre for performing arts. Bringing to life a period of extraordinary theatrical vitality, David Worrall re-examines the beginnings of celebrity culture amidst a monopolistic commercial theatrical marketplace. The book presents an innovative transposition of social assemblage theory into performance history. It argues that the cultural meaning of drama changes with every change in the performance location. This theoretical model is applied to a wide range of archival materials including censor's manuscripts, theatre ledger books, performance schedules, unfamiliar play texts and rare printed sources. By examining prompters' records, box office receipts and benefit night takings, the study questions the status of David Garrick, Sarah Siddons and Edmund Kean, and recovers the neglected actress, Elizabeth Younge, and her importance to Edmund Burke.
The Moscow Art Theatre (Theatre Production Studies)
by Nick WorrallUnprecedented in its comprehensiveness, The Moscow Art Theatre fills a large gap in our knowledge of Stanislavsky and his theatre. Worrall focuses in particular detail on four of The Moscow Art Theatre's best-known productions: * Tolstoy's Tsar Fedor Ioannovich * Gorky's The Lower Depths * Chekov's The Cherry Orchard * Turgenev's A Month in the Country
Sheridan And Goldsmith (English Dramatists)
by Katharine WorthEach generation needs to be introduced to the culture and great works of the past and to reinterpret them in its own ways. This series re-examines the important English dramatists of earlier centuries in the light of new information, ew interests and new attitudes. The books will be relevant to those interested in literatire, theatre and cultural history, and to threatre-goers and general readers who want an up-to-date view of these dramatists and their plays, with the emphasis on performance and relevant culture history. This book explores the reasons for the deep and lasting appeal of Sheridan's and Goldsmith's comedies, showing how they operate at the profound imaginative level and draw on their author's experience as Irish wits in an English scene. Their subtle dramatic techniques are examined in relation to physical features of the eighteenth-century stage. A chapter on sentimental comedy relates to plays such as Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy to the balance of irony and sentiment in Goldsmith's The Good Natur'd Man and Sheridan's A Trip to Scarborough. The continuing freshness of the comedy of mistakes, masks and Harlequin-like role playing which the two playwrights draw from the operatic and theatrical conventions of their day is illustrated from modern productions. These have helped to illuminate the psychological truth and social awareness underlying the sparkling surfaces of Sheridan's and Goldsmith's classic comedies.
Anna Halprin (Routledge Performance Practitioners)
by Libby Worth Helen PoynorAnna Halprin traces the life's work of this radical dance-maker, documenting her early career as a modern dancer in the 1940s through to the development of her groundbreaking approach to dance as an accessible and life-enhancing art form. Now revised and reissued, this book: sketches the evolution of the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, exploring Halprin's connections with the avant-garde theatre, music, visual art and architecture of the 1950s and 60s offers a detailed analysis of Halprin’s work from this period provides an important historical guide to a time when dance was first explored beyond the confines of the theatre and considered as a healing art for individuals and communities. As a first step towards critical understanding, and an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today’s student.
Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of theater
by W. B. WorthenThe history of drama is typically viewed as a series of inert "styles. " Tracing British and American stage drama from the 1880s onward, W. B. Worthen instead sees drama as the interplay of text, stage production, and audience. How are audiences manipulated? What makes drama meaningful? Worthen identifies three rhetorical strategies that distinguish an O'Neill play from a Yeats, or these two from a Brecht. Where realistic theater relies on the "natural" qualities of the stage scene, poetic theater uses the poet's word, the text, to control performance. Modern political theater, by contrast, openly places the audience at the center of its rhetorical designs, and the drama of the postwar period is shown to develop a range of post-Brechtian practices that make the audience the subject of the play. Worthen's book deserves the attention of any literary critic or serious theatergoer interested in the relationship between modern drama and the spectator.
Shakespeare Performance Studies
by W. B. WorthenTaking a 'performance studies' perspective on Shakespearean theatre, W. B. Worthen argues that the theatrical event represents less an inquiry into the presumed meanings of the text than an effort to frame performance as a vehicle of cultural critique. Using contemporary performances as test cases, Worthen explores the interfaces between the origins of Shakespeare's writing as literature and as theatre, the modes of engagement with Shakespeare's plays for readers and spectators, and the function of changing performance technologies on our knowledge of Shakespeare. This book not only provides the material for performance analysis, but places important contemporary Shakespeare productions in dialogue with three influential areas of critical discourse: texts and authorship, the function of character in cognitive theatre studies, and the representation of theatre and performing in the digital humanities. This book will be vital reading for scholars and advanced students of Shakespeare and of Performance Studies.
The Wadsworth Anthology Of Drama
by W. B. WorthenThe boldest and most distinguished introduction to drama available today, W.B. Worthen's pace-setting text continues to provide exciting plays usefully situated within their historical and cultural contexts. Based on the best-selling WADSWORTH ANTHOLOGY OF DRAMA, the Brief Edition provides many of the important elements of that anthology but in a more streamlined form.