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Edward II Revised
by Christopher Marlowe Stephen Guy-Bray Martin Wiggins Robert LindseyDramatically compressing the reign of Edward II and enlivening the historical narrative with humour, romance, and horrific violence, Marlowe interrogates how the transgression of accepted codes of behaviour affects even those at the highest level of society. Kept off the stage for almost three hundred years because of its dramatization of explicit homosexual relationships, it has become increasingly popular with modern day readers and performed on stage and film to great acclaim. This student edition contains a completely new introduction by Stephen Guy-Bray, and offers students a useful and lively overview of recent criticism, an updated performance history paying greater attention to Derek Jarman's film, a background on the author and themes, as well as an updated bibliography and a fully annotated version of the playtext.
Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare’s London
by Siobhan KeenanActing Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history. Siobhan Keenan's analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeth's players, 'Beeston's Boys' and the King's Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood. We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.
Early Modern Actors and Shakespeare's Theatre: Thinking with the Body
by Evelyn TribbleWhat skills did Shakespeare's actors bring to their craft? How do these skills differ from those of contemporary actors? Early Modern Actors and Shakespeare's Theatre: Thinking with the Body examines the 'toolkit' of the early modern player and suggests new readings of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries through the lens of their many skills.Theatre is an ephemeral medium. Little remains to us of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: some printed texts, scattered documents and records, and a few scraps of description, praise, and detraction. Because most of what survives are printed playbooks, students of English theatre find it easy to forget that much of what happened on the early modern stage took place within the gaps of written language: the implicit or explicit calls for fights, dances, military formations, feats of physical skill, song, and clowning. Theatre historians and textual editors have often ignored or denigrated such moments, seeing them merely as extraneous amusements or signs that the text has been 'corrupted' by actors. This book argues that recapturing a positive account of the skills and expertise of the early modern players will result in a more capacious understanding of the nature of theatricality in the period.
Anecdotal Shakespeare: A New Performance History
by Paul MenzerShakespeare's four-hundred-year performance history is full of anecdotes – ribald, trivial, frequently funny, sometimes disturbing, and always but loosely allegiant to fact. Such anecdotes are nevertheless a vital index to the ways that Shakespeare's plays have generated meaning across varied times and in varied places. Furthermore, particular plays have produced particular anecdotes – stories of a real skull in Hamlet, superstitions about the name Macbeth, toga troubles in Julius Caesar – and therefore express something embedded in the plays they attend. Anecdotes constitute then not just a vital component of a play's performance history but a form of vernacular criticism by the personnel most intimately involved in their production: actors. These anecdotes are therefore every bit as responsive to and expressive of a play's meanings across time as the equally rich history of Shakespearean criticism or indeed the very performances these anecdotes treat. Anecdotal Shakespeare provides a history of post-Renaissance Shakespeare and performance, one not based in fact but no less full of truth.
Contemporary Welsh Plays: Tonypandemonium, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, Gardening: For the Unfulfilled and Alienated, Llwyth (in Welsh), Parallel Lines, Bruised (Play Anthologies)
by Matthew Trevannion Rachel Trezise Tim Price Kate Wasserberg Dafydd James Katherine Chandler Brad BirchRecent years have seen an explosion of new Welsh writing for the stage. With the advent of Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru in 2003 and the launch of National Theatre Wales in 2009, there has been a tectonic shift in Welsh theatre and its perception. Wales has famously celebrated its poets and novelists, but in the twenty-first century, it is the playwright asking the crucial questions. Never before have there been so many playwrights of all ages, from across Wales, finding the stage to be the home for their stories.This collection is the first to officially recognise this new wave of Welsh playwrights. It showcases a wide range of forms, themes and political concerns, as well as representing the most exciting voices at the forefront of Welsh drama, taking the temperature on what be considered to be the first golden age of Welsh playwriting.Tonypandemonium by Rachel Trezise The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning by Tim PriceGardening for the Unfulfilled and Alienated by Brad BirchLlwyth by Dafydd James (published in Welsh) Parallel Lines by Katherine ChandlerBruised by Matthew TrevannionFeatured in the volume are the following plays, along with a foreword by Professor David Ian Rabey of Aberystwyth University, and an introduction by the editors, Tim Price and Kate Wasserberg.
Contemporary Irish Plays: Freefall; Forgotten; Drum Belly; Planet Belfast; Desolate Heaven; The Boys of Foley Street (Play Anthologies)
by Michael West Pat Kinevane Richard Dormer Rosemary Jenkinson Ailis Ni Riain Louise Lowe Patrick LonerganContemporary Irish Plays showcases the new drama that has emerged since 2008. Featuring a blend of established and emerging writers, the anthology shows how Irish writers are embracing new methods of theatre-making to explore exciting new themes – while also finding new ways to come to terms with the legacies of the Troubles and the Celtic Tiger. Freefall is a sharp, humorous and exhilarating look at the fragility of a human life, blending impressionistic beauty, poignancy and comedy.Forgotten features the interconnecting stories of four elderly people living in retirement homes and care facilities around Ireland, who range in age from 80 to 100 years old.Drum Belly is a fascinating play about the Irish mafia in late 1960s' New York. It premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 2012.Previously unpublished, Planet Belfast by Rosemary Jenkinson is about a woman named Alice – Stormont's only Green MLA who must toe a delicate line between large, sectarian power bases in order to promote an environmental agenda in Northern Ireland.Desolate Heaven is a story about two young girls hoping to find freedom from home in the trappings of love. It was first performed at Theatre 503, London, in 2013Written for the 2012 Dublin Theatre Festival, and previously unpublished, The Boys of Foley Street by Louise Lowe is a piece of site-specific theatre which led audience members on a tour of the backstreets of inner-city Dublin.Edited by the leading scholar on Irish theatre, Patrick Lonergan, Contemporary Irish Plays is a timely reminder of the long-held tradition and strength of Irish theatre which blossoms even in its new-found circumstances.
Coriolanus (Modern Plays)
by William Shakespeare Rob Hastie Josie RourkeWhen an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But famine threatens the city, the citizens' hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.This is one of Shakespeare's last tragedies, best known for its political and military themes. Shakespeare's searing play of political manipulation and revenge is here abridged and this version was first produced at the Donmar Warehouse, London, directed by Josie Rourke and with Tom Hiddleston in the title role.The script has been edited and abridged by Rob Hastie and Josie Rourke.
Applied Theatre: Pedagogies, Practices, Resilience (Applied Theatre)
by Sheila PrestonApplied Theatre: Facilitation is the first publication that directly explores the facilitator's role within a range of socially engaged theatre and community theatre settings. The book offers a new theoretical framework for understanding critical facilitation in contemporary dilemmatic spaces and features a range of writings and provocations by international practitioners and experienced facilitators working in the field.Part One offers an introduction to the concept, role and practice of facilitation and its applications in different contexts and cultural locations. It offers a conceptual framework through which to understand the idea of critical facilitation: a political practice that that involves a critical (and self-critical) approach to pedagogies, practices (doing and performing), and resilience in dilemmatic spaces. Part Two illuminates the diversity in the field of facilitation in applied theatre through offering multiple voices, case studies, theoretical positions and contexts. These are drawn from Australia, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, India, Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, the United Kingdom and North America, and they apply a range of aesthetic forms: performance, process drama, forum, clowning and playmaking. Each chapter presents the challenge of facilitation in a range of cultural contexts with communities whose complex histories and experiences have led them to be disenfranchised socially, culturally and/or economically.
Shakespeare and Economic Theory (Shakespeare and Theory)
by David Hawkes Evelyn GajowskiOver the last 20 years, the concept of 'economic' activity has come to seem inseparable from psychological, semiotic and ideological experiences. In fact, the notion of the 'economy' as a discrete area of life seems increasingly implausible. This returns us to the situation of Shakespeare's England, where the financial had yet to be differentiated from other forms of representation. This book shows how concepts and concerns that were until recently considered purely economic affected the entire range of sixteenth and seventeenth century life. Using the work of such critics as Jean-Christophe Agnew, Douglas Bruster, Hugh Grady and many others, Shakespeare and Economic Theory traces economic literary criticism to its cultural and historical roots, and discusses its main practitioners. Providing new readings of Timon of Athens, King Lear, The Winter's Tale, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest, David Hawkes shows how it can reveal previously unappreciated qualities of Shakespeare's work.
Protest Song (Modern Plays)
by Tim PriceDanny sleeps rough on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. Has done for years. Then one morning he wakes to see a canvas city being erected in front of him. And Danny finds himself swept up in the last occupation of London. Protest Song is a fictional play inspired by real events. Tim Price's funny and savage monologue explores the reality of the Occupy movement.Protest Song received its world premiere in the National Theatre's Shed Theatre on 16 December 2013.This edition features an introduction by the playwright, Tim Price.
Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes
by Duška RadosavljevicThe world of theatre criticism is rapidly changing in its form, function and modes of operation in the twenty-first century. The dominance of the internet has led to a growing trend of selfappointed theatre critics and bloggers who are changing the focus and purpose of the discussion around live performance. Even though the blogosphere has garnered suspicion and hostility from some mainstream newspaper critics, it has also provided significant intellectual and ideological challenges to the increasingly conservative profile of the professional critic.This book features 16 commissioned contributions from scholars, arts journalists and bloggers, as well as a small selection of innovative critical practice. Authors from Australia, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Russia, the UK and the US share their perspectives on relevant historical, theoretical and political contexts influencing the development of the discipline, as well as specific aspects of the contemporary practices and genres of theatre criticism.The book features an introductory essay by its editor, Duška Radosavljevic.
Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Text and Performance
by Pamela Bickley Jenny StevensWhere does Shakespeare fit into the drama of his day? Getting to know the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries offers an insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean preoccupations and the theatrical climate of the early modern period. This book provides an essential overview of some major dramatic works from their stage origins to today's screen productions.Each chapter includes:· a detailed analysis of a play by Shakespeare considered alongside a key work by one other significant playwright of the day (including The Merchant of Venice, Volpone, The Spanish Tragedy, Titus Andronicus, Othello, The Changeling, Romeo and Juliet, The Duchess of Malfi, Measure for Measure, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tragedy of Mariam, Doctor Faustus and Hamlet)· close reading of the text· discussion of early modern theatrical practices· a focus on one ground-breaking example of early modern drama on screen · suggestions for links with other early modern texts and further readingThis book provides a route map to the very latest developments in early modern drama studies, fostering confident and independent thinking, making it an ideal introduction for students of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Shakespeare's Religious Language: A Dictionary (Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries)
by R. Chris Hassel Jr. Sandra ClarkReligious issues and discourse are key to an understanding of Shakespeare's plays and poems. This dictionary discusses over 1000 words and names in Shakespeare's works that have a religious connotation. Its unique word-by-word approach allows equal consideration of the full nuance of each of these words, from 'abbess' to 'zeal'. It also gradually reveals the persistence, the variety, and the sophistication of Shakespeare's religious usage. Frequent attention is given to the prominence of Reformation controversy in these words, and to Shakespeare's often ingenious and playful metaphoric usage of them. Theological commonplaces assume a major place in the dictionary, as do overt references to biblical figures, biblical stories and biblical place-names; biblical allusions; church figures and saints.
Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho (Modern Plays)
by Jon Brittain Matt TedfordLook at us, Margaret - the press is on our side. We're heroes: the public is behind us, we're protecting our children, the party is united behind the cause. You can stand against it if you want, but you will stand alone.Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female Prime Minister, gets lost around the streets of Soho on the eve of the vote for Section 28. Unwittingly, she finds herself quickly becoming a cabaret sensation within London's gay community.This camp political drag cabaret explores, through songs and laughter, homophobia and censorship, and how one person could have made a difference.Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho received its world premiere at London's Theatre503 in June 2013 as part of the Thatcherwrite Festival, and was revived in a full production there in December 2013.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, Revised Edition: Third Series (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series)
by William Shakespeare Lois PotterThis tragi-comedy is one of the plays we know Shakespeare worked with a collaborator on -- John Fletcher -- and is based on Chaucer's Knight's Tale. This revised edition includes a new introductory essay bringing the edition up-to-date in terms of both the play's performance and critical history, and in particular with current thinking about the nature of Shakespeare's collaboration with other playwrights. As scholars have begun to discover more about this aspect of his career, interest in the play has grown. This revised edition is ideal for undergraduate study, offering on-page annotations to the play text as well as a lengthy, illustrated introduction.
Feelgood (Modern Plays)
by Alistair BeatonAn outrageously funny satire on modern politics, New Labour and the fine art of spinAlistair Beaton's hilarious play, part farce, part biting satire, is set in the plush seaside hotel of a party conference. As anti-capitalist riots rage in the streets below, sinister and obsessive press secretary Eddie and young speech-writing aide Paul are trying to finalise the PM's conference speech. But Eddie's manipulative skills are to be tested far more by the scandal that George, dim-witted lord and close friend of the PM, gradually reveals - not helped by the arrival of Eddie's ex-wife and investigative journalist, Liz."Left me sobbing with laughter" (The Times)"Alistair Beaton rediscovers and restores the lost art of political satire in this hilariously timely portrait of new Labour fibbing and deceiving" (Benedict Nightingale, The Times)"Political satire was joyfully restored to the stage last night ... A satirical treat to savour" (Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard)
Rapture, Blister, Burn (Modern Plays)
by Gina GionfriddoWomen are running for president. Men are exfoliating. It's all jumbled: you can't read the signs.Can any woman have it all? After university Catherine and Gwen chose opposite paths: Catherine built a career as a rock-star academic, while Gwen built a home with a husband and children. Decades later, unfulfilled in opposite ways, each woman covets the other's life, and a dangerous game begins as each tries to claim the other's territory. Sparks fly and the age-old question arises: what do women really want?Gina Gionfriddo dissects modern gender politics in this breathtakingly witty and virtuosic comedy, set in a small New England college town. Traversing the experiences of women across the generations, this play is a hugely entertaining exploration of a new style of feminism, ripe for the twenty-first century.Rapture, Blister, Burn was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, where it premiered, with funds from the Harold and Mim Steinberg Charitable Trust. It received its UK premiere at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in January 2014.
Great Shakespeareans Set III (Great Shakespeareans)
by Adrian Poole Peter HollandGreat Shakespeareans presents a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. This major project offers an unprecedented scholarly analysis of the contribution made by the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors as well as novelists, poets, composers, and thinkers from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. An essential resource for students and scholars in Shakespeare studies.
Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines: Woman's Work (Methuen Drama Engage)
by Jessica Silsby Brater Enoch Brater Mark Taylor-BattyConstituting the first comprehensive look at Ruth Maleczech's work, Jessica Brater's companion is a landmark study in innovative theatre practice, bringing together biography, critical analysis, and original interviews to establish a portrait of this Obie-award winning theatre artist. Tracing Maleczech's background, training, and influences, the volume contextualizes her work and the founding of Mabou Mines within the wider landscape of American avant-garde theatre. It considers her performances and productions, revealing both her interest in making ordinary women important onstage, and her predilection for resurrecting extraordinary women from history and finding their resonances within a contemporary theatrical context. Brater considers Maleczech's investment in redrawing the boundaries of what women are allowed to say, both on stage and off, and shows how her commitment to radical artistic and production risks has reshaped the contours of a contemporary theatrical experience. Highlights of the volume include discussion of productions such as Mabou Mines' Lear, Dead End Kids, Hajj, Lucia's Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, Red Beads, and La Divina Caricatura, as well as a close look at Maleczech's final work-in-progress, Imagining the Imaginary Invalid.
Why Stand-up Matters: How Comedians Manipulate and Influence
by Sophie QuirkFunny, lively and unpredictable, stand-up comedy is above all a medium to be enjoyed. Popular as a good night out and packing the TV schedules, stand-up permeates British society and culture.Ubiquitous though it is, we are generally reluctant to consider comedy's social consequences. When comedians offend we seem ready to consider the potential for stand-up to do some wider harm, yet we rarely consider the good that it might do.This book looks at the social and political impact of stand-up comedy in both its positive and negative forms. Drawing on exclusive interviews with comedians such as Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Joe Wilkinson and Mark Thomas, and examples of comic material on everything from revolution, terrorism and homosexuality, to knitting and the inefficiency of the home shower, it explores comedy's role in determining our attitudes and opinions. While revealing the conventions comics use to manage audience response, Sophie Quirk demonstrates how comedy audiences allow themselves to be manipulated, and the potential harm – and real benefits – that may arise from 'just' being funny.
Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things
by Bertolt Brecht Antony Tatlow Tom KuhnBertolt Brecht's Me-ti, which remained unpublished in his own lifetime, now appears for the first time in English. Me-ti counselled against 'constructing too complete images of the world'. For this work of fragments and episodes, Brecht accumulated anecdotes, poems, personal stories and assessments of contemporary politics. Given its controversial nature, he sought a disguise, using the name of a Chinese contemporary of Socrates, known today as Mozi. Stimulated by his humorous aphoristic style and social focus, as well as an engrained Chinese awareness of the flow of things, Brecht developed a practical, philosophical, anti-systematic ethics, discussing Marxist dialectics, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Moscow trials, and the theories behind current events, while warning how ideology makes people the 'servants of priests'.Me-ti is central to an understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and his commitment to change and the non-eternal, the philosophy which informs much of his writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of Szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers. First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works from Brecht's oeuvre.
Shiver (Modern Plays)
by Daniel KanaberFrom the despair of aninut, even in a short shiva, the ice inside you is thawing, Mordecai, it will open you to the world if you let it. After, shloshim. After a year, yizkor, yarhrzeit. And yes, sorrow, but also hope, hope in those who'll welcome you, love you. Let them love you. Don't neglect God now that you need him.In Judaism you have seven days to mourn a loved one, unless interrupted by a high holy day. Sadie died yesterday, Yom Kippur is tomorrow, so Mordecai only has tonight to say goodbye to his wife. Exploring themes of identity, love and faith, Shiver is a comic play about grief and Judaism. With moments of farce, as well as a touch of the surreal, this is a skilfully written play that marks the start of an exciting playwriting career for Daniel Kanaber.Shiver received its world premiere at Watford Palace Theatre on 3 February 2014, starring David Horovitch (Hysteria, Hampstead Theatre; Grief, National Theatre; Seven Jewish Children, Royal Court).
Conservatory (Modern Plays)
by Michael West'I wasn't throwing up. I was dying. I was very ill . . . And do you know what? In the middle of all that . . . malaise, I remember thinking "This is what it's like to be married." But I'd do it again'An elderly couple sit in a dark room in their house, doing the crossword, taking their tablets and knitting, all the while raking over a traumatic past that has all but destroyed them.Conservatory is a compelling play about loss and family which shows that happiness is not a necessary condition of togetherness. It premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in March 2014.
Verse Drama in England, 1900-2015: Art, Modernity and the National Stage (Critical Companions)
by Irene MorraVerse Drama in England, 1900-2015 provides a critical and historical exploration of a tradition of modern dramatic creativity that has received very little scholarly attention. Exploring the emergence of a distinctly modern verse drama at the turn of the century and its development into the twenty-first, it counters common assumptions that the form is a marginal, fundamentally outdated curiosity. Through an examination of the extensive and diverse engagement of literary and theatrical writers, directors and musicians, Irene Morra identifies in modern verse drama a consistent and often prominent attempt to expand upon, revitalize, and redefine the contemporary English stage.Dramatists discussed include Stephen Phillips, Gordon Bottomley, John Masefield, James Elroy Flecker, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Ronald Duncan, Christopher Fry, John Arden, Anne Ridler, Tony Harrison, Steven Berkoff, Caryl Churchill, and Mike Bartlett. The book explores the negotiation of these dramatists with the changing position of verse drama in relation to constructions of national and communal audience, aesthetic challenge, and dramatic heritage. Key to the study is the self-conscious positioning of many of these dramatists in relation to an assumed mainstream tradition – and the various critical responses that that positioning has provoked. The study advocates for a scholarly revaluation of what must be identified as an influential and overlooked tradition of aesthetic challenge and creativity.
Theatre of Real People: Diverse Encounters at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer and Beyond (Methuen Drama Engage)
by Ulrike Garde Meg MumfordTheatre of Real People offers fresh perspectives on the current fascination with putting people on stage who present aspects of their own lives and who are not usually trained actors. After providing a history of this mode of performance, and theoretical frameworks for its analysis, the book focuses on work developed by seminal practitioners at Berlin's Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) production house. It invites the reader to explore the HAU's innovative approach to Theatre of Real People, authenticity and cultural diversity during the period of Matthias Lilienthal's leadership (2003–12). Garde and Mumford also elucidate how Theatre of Real People can create and destabilise a sense of the authentic, and suggest how Authenticity-Effects can present new ways of perceiving diverse and unfamiliar people. Through a detailed analysis of key HAU productions such as Lilienthal's brainchild X-Apartments, Mobile Academy's Blackmarket, and Rimini Protokoll's 100% City, the book explores both the artistic agenda of an important European theatre institution, and a crucial aspect of contemporary theatre's social engagement.