Shakespeare and the theatrical event

Palgrave Macmillan

2002

237 p.

9780333801321

Preface.- Introduction: Theatrical Events.- PART ONE: AUDIENCES Playgoing and Participation.- Functions.- Responses.- PART TWO: ACTORS Texts and Techniques.- Persons in a Play.- Parts to Perform.- Actions and Reactions.- Visual Interplay.- Improvisation.- PART THREE: CONTEXTS Stage Space.- Off-Stage Space.- Time.- PART FOUR: PLAYS IN PRINT Reading.- Study and Criticism.- Index.

In his latest book, John Russell Brown offers a new and revealing way of reading and studying Shakespeare's plays, focusing on what a play does for an audience, as well as what its text says. By considering the entire theatrical experience and not only what happens on stage, Brown takes his readers back to the major texts with a fuller understanding of their language, and an enhanced view of a play's theatrical potential. Chapters on theatre-going, playscripts, acting, parts to perform, interplay, stage space, off-stage space, and the use of time all bring recent developments in Theatre studies together with Shakespeare Studies. Every aspect of theatre-making comes into view as a dozen major plays are presented in the context for which they were written, making this an adventurous and eminently practical book for all students of Shakespeare.

Английский