Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of PlayingUniversity of Chicago Press, 1993 - 325 pages For the Renaissance, all the world may have been a stage and all its people players, but Shakespeare was also an actor on the literal stage. Meredith Anne Skura asks what it meant to be an actor in Shakespeare's England and shows why a knowledge of actual theatrical practices is essential for understanding both Shakespeare's plays and the theatricality of everyday life in early modern England. Despite the obvious differences between our theater and Shakespeare's, sixteenth-century testimony suggests that the experience of acting has not changed much over the centuries. Beginning with a psychoanalytically informed account of acting today, Skura shows how this intense and ambivalent experience appears not only in literal references to acting in Shakespearean drama but also in recurring narrative concerns, details of language, and dramatic strategies used to engage the audience. Looking at the plays in the context of both public and private worlds outside the theater, Skura rereads the canon to identify new configurations in the plays and new ways of understanding theatrical self-consciousness in Renaissance England. Rich in theatrical, psychoanalytic, biographical, and historical insight, this book will be invaluable to students of Shakespeare and instructive to all readers interested in the dynamics of performance. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... experience as an actor . Shakespeare's texts were produced specifically for public consumption in circumstances limited by economic and political constraint and , thus , were shaped in many ways by the culture in which he worked . But ...
... experience as an actor . Shakespeare's texts were produced specifically for public consumption in circumstances limited by economic and political constraint and , thus , were shaped in many ways by the culture in which he worked . But ...
Page x
... experience as tragedy or pageant ) , the scripted action ( often with literal or implied inner plays ) , and perhaps the actors ' own justifica- tion for their calling . The issue at stake in these comparisons between world and stage is ...
... experience as tragedy or pageant ) , the scripted action ( often with literal or implied inner plays ) , and perhaps the actors ' own justifica- tion for their calling . The issue at stake in these comparisons between world and stage is ...
Page xi
... experience . Burckhardt and Calderwood see the kings and heroes in the history plays , for example , as playwrights trying to order their material and reshape reality . The metaphysical critic moves from the theatrum mundi metaphor to ...
... experience . Burckhardt and Calderwood see the kings and heroes in the history plays , for example , as playwrights trying to order their material and reshape reality . The metaphysical critic moves from the theatrum mundi metaphor to ...
Page 2
... experience in the theater . Certainly as we become increasingly aware of the intersubjective nature of experience we need to look more closely at what the actor feels as it impinges on the spectator , as well as looking at whatever ...
... experience in the theater . Certainly as we become increasingly aware of the intersubjective nature of experience we need to look more closely at what the actor feels as it impinges on the spectator , as well as looking at whatever ...
Page 3
... experience , focused unrelentingly on the actor's body . More than those in other professions , the actor puts himself on the line for every performance , displaying his body for public approval ; he is engaged in an intimate exchange ...
... experience , focused unrelentingly on the actor's body . More than those in other professions , the actor puts himself on the line for every performance , displaying his body for public approval ; he is engaged in an intimate exchange ...
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Common terms and phrases
Actaeon acting Anne Antony Arden Armado attack audience audience's baiting Barber and Wheeler bearbaiting beggar Bottom Brutus Caesar called Callow chapter character child cited in Chambers clown Comedy Coriolanus crowd crown death deer describes Drama dream Elizabethan Stage English Epilogue Fairy Falstaff fantasies father fawning fear flattering fool Hal's Hamlet Henriad Henry Henry IV Henry VI Histriomastix histrionic hunt identified inner plays italics added John John Marston Jonson King King Lear kneel Launce Lear literally London Lord Love's Labour's Lost male Midsummer Night's Dream mirror mother murder narcissistic offstage onstage performance play's players poet Queen Renaissance Richard Richard III role says scene Shake Shakespeare shame Shrew Sly's social sonnet speare's stage fright story suggests Tarlton tells theater theatrical thee Thomas thou Timon Timon of Athens Titus Titus Andronicus University Press Wives wounds York