Shakespeare and his Contemporaries in Performance

The creation of the new Globe Theatre in London has heightened interest in Shakespeare performance studies in recent years. The essays in this volume testify to this burgeoning research into issues surrounding contemporary performances of plays by Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists, as well as modern trends and developments in stage and media presentations of these works. Truly international in coverage, the discussion here ranges across the performance and reception of Shakespeare in Japan, India, Germany, Italy, Denmark and the United States as well as in Britain. Dennis Kennedy's introductory essay places the new Globe Theatre in the context of Shakespearean cultural tourism generally. This is followed by five sections of essays covering aspects of Shakespeare on film, the stage history of his plays, Renaissance contexts, the movement of the text from page to stage, and female roles. Exploring many of current issues in Shakespeare studies, this volume provides a global perspective on Renaissance performance and the wide variety of ways in which it has been translated by today's media. About the Editor: Edward J. Esche is a Senior Lecturer in English and Head of Drama at Anglia Polytechnic University. He has published on renaissance drama and twentieth-century modern British and American drama. His most recent publication is an edition of Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris for the Clarendon Press The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: Shakespeare and cultural tourism, Dennis Kennedy; Shakespeare on Film: The recent films, H.R. Coursen; (En)gendering desire in performance: King Lear, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran and Tadashi Suzuki’s The Tale of Lear, Yoko Takakuwa; Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Contexts: Touring in Asia: the Miln Company’s Shakespearean productions in Japan, Kaori Kobayashi; Interculturalism or indigenization: modes of exchange, Shakespeare east and west, Poonam Trivedi; Berlin-Zürich-Düsseldorf: Aspects of German theatre during the Nazi period and after, Wilhelm Hortmann; Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore: Hamlet in performance at Kronborg castle, Elsinore, Neils B. Hansen; Culture clustering, gender crossing: Hamlet meets globalization in Robert Lepage’s Elsinore, Nigel Wheale; The ’homestead of history’: Shakespearean medievalism on the mid-Victorian stage, Richard W. Schoch; Renaissance Contexts: Falstaff’s page as early modern youth at risk, Mark H. Lawhorn; Fashion, nation and theatre in late-sixteenth-century London, Janette Dillon; The Italian job: the poetics of graced performance in the Commedia dell’Arte and in Jonson’s humour plays, Rocco Coronato; The true physiognomy of a man: Richard Tarlton and his legend, Peter Thomson; ’’Tis a pageant/To keep us in false gaze’: Othello, virtual history, and the Jacobean audience’s Turkish expectations, Mark Hutchings; From Text to Performance: Don Pedro, Don John and Don...who? - Noting a stranger in Much Adoodle-do, Pamela Mason; ’The Silent Griefs Which Cut the Heart Strings’: John Ford’s The Broken Heart in performance, Kristin Crouch; Cunning with pistols: observations on Gale Edwards’s 1996-7 RSC production of John Webster’s The White Devil, Nick Tippler; The 19th-century productions of A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608), Barry Gaines; The Magnetick Lady: is the unperformed performable? Peter Happé;Female Roles: ’A Woman’s generall: what should we feare?’: Queen Ma

Review :
'Major and minor characters, familiar and obscure plays, are illuminated by a passionate concern with performance, and a high standard of scholarship which confirms that this discipline is here to stay. This collection is a valuable resource for students and teachers of performance history in general, and Renaissance drama in particular.' Modern Language Review