Shakespeare in Stages
New Theatre Histories

Sixteen original case studies explore significant English-speaking performances of a range of Shakespeare's plays, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Christine Dymkowski (Edited by), Christie Carson (Edited by)

9781107634015, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 April 2013

324 pages, 14 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

The history of Shakespearean performance is very well served at its two extremes, with volumes providing a valuable historical overview of the subject and others concentrating on the performance history of a particular play. However, no individual volume provides an in-depth consideration of the stage histories of a number of plays, chosen for their particular significance within specific cultural contexts. Shakespeare in Stages addresses this gap. The original case studies explore significant anglophone performances of the plays, as well as ideas about 'Shakespeare', through the changing prisms of three different cultural factors that have proved influential in the way Shakespeare is staged: notions of authenticity, attitudes towards sex and gender, and questions of identity. Ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries and examining productions of plays in Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, the studies focus attention on the complex interaction between particular plays, issues, events, and periods.

Introduction Christine Dymkowski and Christie Carson
Part I. Notions of Authenticity: 1. The move indoors Andrew Gurr
2. Whig heroics: Shakespeare, Cibber, and the troublesome King John Elaine M. McGirr
3. Coriolanus and the (in)authenticities of William Poel's platform stage Lucy Munro
4. 'A fresh advance in Shakespearean production': Tyrone Guthrie in Canada Neil Carson
5. Authenticity in the 21st century: Propeller and Shakespeare's Globe Abigail Rokison
Part II. Attitudes Towards Sex and Gender: 6. Performing beauty on the Renaissance stage Farah Karim-Cooper
7. The artistic, cultural, and economic power of the actress in the age of Garrick Fiona Ritchie
8. Women writing Shakespeare's women in the nineteenth century: The Winter's Tale Jan McDonald
9. 'Not our Olivia': Lydia Lopokova and Twelfth Night Elizabeth Schafer
10. Measure for Measure: Shakespeare's twentieth-century play Christine Dymkowski
Part III. Questions of Identity: 11. Shakespeare and the rhetoric of scenography 1770–1825 Christopher Baugh
12. The presence of Shakespeare Susan Bennett
13. Finding local habitation: Shakespeare's Dream at play on the stage of contemporary Australia Kate Flaherty and Penny Gay
14. 'Haply for I am black': shifting race and gender dynamics in Talawa's Othello Lynette Goddard
15. British directors in post-colonial South Africa Brian Pearce
Epilogue: Shakespeare's audiences as imaginative communities Christie Carson.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Shakespeare plays [DDS], Literature & literary studies [D]