Rescripting Shakespeare
The Text, the Director, and Modern Productions

In this 2002 book, Alan Dessen examines the pluses and minuses of directors' rescripting or rewrighting of Shakespeare's playtexts.

Alan C. Dessen (Author)

9780521007986, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 June 2002

282 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.449 kg

'Rescripting Shakespeare is an informative guide for theatregoers …'. The Journal of the English Association

Building on almost 300 productions from the last 25 years, this 2002 book focuses on the playtexts used when directors stage Shakespeare's plays: the words spoken, the scenes omitted or transposed, and the many other adjustments that must be made. Directors rescript to streamline the playscript and save running time, to eliminate obscurity, conserve on personnel, and occasionally cancel out passages that might not fit their 'concept'. They rewright when they make more extensive changes, moving closer to the role of playwrights, as when the three parts of Henry VI are compressed into two plays. Alan Dessen analyzes what such choices might exclude or preclude, and explains the exigencies faced by actors and directors in placing before today's audiences words targeted at players, playgoers, and playhouses that no longer exist. The results are of interest and importance as much to theatrical professionals as to theatre historians and students.

1. 'Let it be hid': price tags, trade-offs, and economies
2. Rescripting Shakespeare's contemporaries
3. Adjustments and improvements
4. Inserting an intermission-interval
5. What's in an ending? Rescripting final scenes
6. Rescripting stage directions and actions
7. Compressing Henry VI
8. The tamings of the shrews: rescripting the First Folio
9. The editor as rescripter
10. Conclusion: what's not here.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Theatre studies [AN]