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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Page 17
... effect of a production . The reviewers ' criteria for judging a play go well beyond the questions below . " The plays , " says Irving Wardle , " are out in the world leading a life of their own " ( Theatre Criticism , 66 ) , and that ...
... effect of a production . The reviewers ' criteria for judging a play go well beyond the questions below . " The plays , " says Irving Wardle , " are out in the world leading a life of their own " ( Theatre Criticism , 66 ) , and that ...
Page 19
... effect was largely the result of an intelligent use of the inherited space . If the director's original intention was to achieve such an effect , it would have had to be produced in other ways in other spaces . A Shakespearean ...
... effect was largely the result of an intelligent use of the inherited space . If the director's original intention was to achieve such an effect , it would have had to be produced in other ways in other spaces . A Shakespearean ...
Page 20
Herbert R. Coursen. Rhythm can occur within pacing and provide the effect of sponta- neity . Good actors make us believe that all of this is happening for the first time . " Degree of difficulty " is a very subjective criterion . The ...
Herbert R. Coursen. Rhythm can occur within pacing and provide the effect of sponta- neity . Good actors make us believe that all of this is happening for the first time . " Degree of difficulty " is a very subjective criterion . The ...
Page 21
... effect " ( ShS 36 , 62-63 ; his emphasis ) . If everything is done for us , we are unlikely to become involved , too likely to retain our worka- day " balance . " Lois Potter suggests how modern techniques can interfere with the effects ...
... effect " ( ShS 36 , 62-63 ; his emphasis ) . If everything is done for us , we are unlikely to become involved , too likely to retain our worka- day " balance . " Lois Potter suggests how modern techniques can interfere with the effects ...
Page 22
... effects , is that [ the spectators ] are forced to watch in helpless clarity as the hero walks blindly , in his private darkness , over a precipice " ( " Realism vs. Night- mare , " 187 ) . Some productions ask us to cooperate with them ...
... effects , is that [ the spectators ] are forced to watch in helpless clarity as the hero walks blindly , in his private darkness , over a precipice " ( " Realism vs. Night- mare , " 187 ) . Some productions ask us to cooperate with them ...
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.