Reading Shakespeare on StageUniversity of Delaware Press, 1995 - 298 pages "Reading Shakespeare on Stage offers a straightforward set of criteria whereby anyone, from the first-time playgoer to the most experienced Shakespearean scholar, may evaluate his or her response to a production of one of Shakespeare's scripts. This articulation of response is not a by-product of going to the theater, but a central part of the experience. The "invitation to response" is a function of Shakespeare's stage, which was open to the audience on three sides, and is incorporated into his scripts through soliloquies, asides, and references to Shakespeare's stage and his dramaturgy." "The concept of "script" (as opposed to "text") makes possible an approach to Shakespeare's plays as plays, a function to which their literary quality is subordinate. That fact, however, does not mean that recent critical tendencies are irrelevant to the scripts. Feminist and historicist readings of the plays are "contextualized" in and by the ongoing energy system of production. It remains true, however, that many members of the growing audience for live performances can not determine what may have been strong or weak about a given production. The size and shape of the stage and the size of the auditorium, for example, define what can occur within the given space, but few spectators take that crucial factor into account. Reading Shakespeare on Stage provides the criteria for evaluation, while at the same time admitting that the criteria themselves are subject to debate and that their application emerges from the subjective psychology of perception of individual spectators."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
From inside the book
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Herbert R. Coursen. Reading Shakespeare on Stage H. R. COURSEN Reading Shakespeare on Stage offers a straightforward set of criteria whereby anyone , from the first - time playgoer to the most experienced Shakespearean scholar , may ...
Herbert R. Coursen. Reading Shakespeare on Stage H. R. COURSEN Reading Shakespeare on Stage offers a straightforward set of criteria whereby anyone , from the first - time playgoer to the most experienced Shakespearean scholar , may ...
Page 10
... Shakespeare Bulletin . San Diego Union - Tribune . Studies in English Literature . Shakespeare Film Newsletter . Stratford for Students ( Ontario ) . Stratford Herald ( G.B. ) . Shakespeare Survey . Shakespeare Studies . St. Louis Post ...
... Shakespeare Bulletin . San Diego Union - Tribune . Studies in English Literature . Shakespeare Film Newsletter . Stratford for Students ( Ontario ) . Stratford Herald ( G.B. ) . Shakespeare Survey . Shakespeare Studies . St. Louis Post ...
Page 17
... Shakespeare's plays insists . Wardle says that " the idea of a codified set of standards is a myth " ( 37 ) and that " any reviewer would be asking for trouble if he started laying down the laws of theatrical literacy " ( 95 ) . Still ...
... Shakespeare's plays insists . Wardle says that " the idea of a codified set of standards is a myth " ( 37 ) and that " any reviewer would be asking for trouble if he started laying down the laws of theatrical literacy " ( 95 ) . Still ...
Page 18
... tural and thematic purposes , as shown in the first act of Richard II , which alternates between formality and intimacy . Although technical ability has developed remarkably since Shakespeare's time , when 18 READING SHAKESPEARE ON STAGE.
... tural and thematic purposes , as shown in the first act of Richard II , which alternates between formality and intimacy . Although technical ability has developed remarkably since Shakespeare's time , when 18 READING SHAKESPEARE ON STAGE.
Page 20
... Shakespeare must , on a reinterpretation of the words as encountered by those actors and in that space . It was , then , the critics who failed , not David Chambers and the actors . Another of the late plays , A Winter's Tale , can be ...
... Shakespeare must , on a reinterpretation of the words as encountered by those actors and in that space . It was , then , the critics who failed , not David Chambers and the actors . Another of the late plays , A Winter's Tale , can be ...
Contents
Television and Live Performance | 31 |
The Concept of Script | 39 |
1987 and the Question of Space | 69 |
Directors Decisions 1989 | 90 |
The Summer of King Lear | 136 |
Winter of the Scottish Play | 157 |
Measure for Measure at Stratford Canada 1992 | 175 |
The Good the Horrid and the InBetween | 186 |
Common terms and phrases
24 April acting actors Alexander Antony audience auditorium August Beale become Billington Bolingbroke Branagh Brian Cox Caesar characters Claudius Cleopatra concept Cordelia costumes create critics David director downstage duction Duke Edmund effect Elizabethan emotional emphasis film Fool Gertrude Ghost Gloucester Goneril Hall's Hamlet Helena Hulce Irving Wardle Isabella John July June Kenneth Branagh King Lear Lear's Lepage Lepage's London Main Stage Malvolio Mark Rylance McKellen Measure for Measure Michael modern National Theatre Nightingale Olivier Othello performance Photo play's Player political Polonius Portia production proscenium Regan response Review Richard Richard III Robert role Royal National Theatre Royal Shakespeare Company Rylance Sally Dexter says scene script seems sense sexual Shake Shakespeare Bulletin Shakespeare Quarterly Shakespeare's plays Shrew Shylock Simon Russell Beale Smallwood soliloquy space spectator speech Stratford Stratford-on-Avon suggested Taming television Thalbach theatrical tion Twelfth Night upstage Warner's words
Popular passages
Page 29 - A strong presence of actors and a strong presence of spectators can produce a circle of unique intensity in which barriers can be broken and the invisible become real.