This text proposes a new way to consider theatre and performance that claims a special relationship to reality, truth and authenticity. It documents innovations in devising and staging theatre and performance that takes reality as its subject, cultural shifts that have generated theatre of the real, some of its problems and some possibilities.

"This wise volume, written by a veteran director and observer of premodern plays, offers good advice for neophyte and experienced directors." Choice

This volume focuses on the theatre history of Asian countries, and discusses the specific context of theatre modernization in Asia. While Asian theatre is one of the primary interests within theatre scholarship in the world today, knowledge of Asian theatre history is very limited and often surprisingly incorrect. Therefore, this volume addresses a major gap in contemporary theatre studies. The volume discusses the conflict between tradition and modernity in theatre, suggesting that the problems of modernity are closely related to the idea of tradition. Although Asian countries preserved the traditional form and values of their respective theatres, they had to also confront the newly introduced values or mechanisms of European modernity. Several papers in this volume therefore provide critical surveys of the history of theatre modernization in Asian countries or regions-Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India Malaysia, Singapore, and Uyghur. Other papers focus on specific case studies of the history of modernization, discussing contemporary Taiwanese performances, translations of modern French comedy into Chinese, the modernization of Chinese Xiqu, modern Okinawan plays, Malaysian traditional performances, Korean national theatre, and Japanese plays during World War II. Renowned academics and theatre critics have contributed to this volume, making it a valuable resource for researchers and students of theatre studies, literature, and cultural studies.

The work of an acclaimed critic and director, this book breaks new ground by describing how the rehearsal process highlights the principal theatrical issues of Shakespeare's late plays: Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. Drawing on his extensive experience with the rehearsal and performance at Stratford, Ontario in 1986, and at the National Theatre in 1988, Warren demonstrates how rehearsal creates extreme contrasts of mood and action, places intense personal crises in a wider political framework, and inspires spiritual journeys in the actors. Addressing many aspects of production--acting, direction, design, lighting, music, and audience response--this work will be important to all those involved with Shakespearean drama and its performance.

This collection of scholarly essays offers a new understanding of local and global myths that have been constructed around Shakespeare in theatre, cinema, and television from the nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on a definition of myth as a powerful ideological narrative, Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance examines historical, political, and cultural conditions of Shakespearean performances in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The first part of this volume offers a theoretical introduction to Shakespeare as myth from a twenty-first century perspective. The second part critically evaluates myths of linguistic transcendence, authenticity, and universality within broader European, neo-liberal, and post-colonial contexts. The study of local identities and global icons in the third part uncovers dynamic relationships between regional, national, and transnational myths of Shakespeare. The fourth part revises persistent narratives concerning a political potential of Shakespeare's plays in communist and post-communist countries. Finally, part five explores the influence of commercial and popular culture on Shakespeare myths. Michael Dobson's Afterword concludes the volume by locating Shakespeare within classical mythology and contemporary concerns.

This book discusses Irish Passion plays (plays that rewrite or parody the story of the Passion of Christ) in modern Irish drama from the Irish Literary Revival to the present day. It offers innovative readings of such canonical plays as J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, W. B. Yeats's Calvary, Brendan Behan's The Hostage, Samuel Beckett's Endgame, Brian Friel's Faith Healer and Tom Murphy's Bailegangaire, as well as of less well-known plays by Padraic Pearse, Lady Gregory, G. B. Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Denis Johnston, Samuel Beckett and David Lloyd. Challenging revisionist readings of the rhetoric of "blood sacrifice" and martyrdom in the Irish Republican tradition, it argues that the Passion play is a powerful political genre which centres on the staged death of the (usually male) protagonist, and makes visible the usually invisible violence perpetrated both by colonial power and by the postcolonial state in the name of modernity.

Several famous playwrights of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, including Shakespeare, wrote for open-air public theaters and also for the private, indoor theaters at the palaces at which the Court resided. The author draws as full a picture as he can of the royal theaters used at courts, the physical and aesthetic conditions under which actors worked in them, and the composition and conduct of court audiences. The book includes an appendix that lists all known court performances of plays and masques between 1558 and 1642.

This book investigates the implications of technology on identity in embodied performance; the discussion within it forms a forum of debate exploring the interrelationship of and between identities in performance practices, informed by new technologies. This collection considers how identity is formed, de-formed, constructed, deconstructed, blurred and celebrated within diverse approaches to technological performance practices.Digital practices as experimental artworks and performances both serve as critique and have an indirect affect on the social and political. The discussions included in this collection highlight how a redefinition of the latter term comes about in as much as they question the very nature of our accepted ideas and belief systems regarding new technologies. These essays demonstrate how embodied technological practice, as with all avant-garde art, presents itself and any analysis applied to it as an experimental extension of the socio-political and cultural experience of an epoch.

Victorian women were exhilarated by the authoritative voice and the professional opportunity that, uniquely, the theatre offered them. Victorian men, anxious to preserve their dominance in this as in every other sphere of life, sought to limit the theatre as being distinctively, irrevocably masculine. Actresses were represented as inhuman monstrosities, not women at all. Furthermore, the executive functions of theatre-manager and playwright were carefully defined as requiring supposedly masculine qualities of mind and personality. A woman playwright came to be seen as an impossibility, although their number actually increased towards the close of the nineteenth century. In this book, Kerry Powell chronicles the development of women's participation in the theatre as playwrights, actresses and managers and explores the making of the Victorian actress, gender and playwriting of the period, and the contributions these made to developments in the following century.

Spanish Golden Age drama has resurfaced in recent years, however scholarly analysis has not kept pace with its popularity. This book problematizes and analyzes the approaches to staging reconstruction taken over the past few decades, including historical, semiotic, anthropological, cultural, structural, cognitive and phenomenological methods.

Sound experimentation by avant-garde theatre artists of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries is an important but largely ignored aspect of theatre history. In this book, Curtin shows how attention to this activity enhances our understanding of artistic practice (modernism) and historical circumstance (modernity) and considers how avant-gardists staged sonic modernity by exploring its conceptual and communicative possibilities as well as its experiential realities. He critically examines avant-garde theatre through a composite analysis of dramatic texts, historical productions, sound recordings, philosophical speculations, and social movements.

This book is the first study of popular theatre in France from left to right, exploring how theatre shapes political acts, ideals, and communities in the modern world. As the French found innovative ways of imagining culture and politics in the age of the masses, popular theatre became central to the republican project of using art to create citizens, using secular spaces for the experience of civic communion. But while state projects often faltered in finding playwrights, locations, and audiences, popular theatre flourished on the political and geographical peripheries. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book illuminates lost worlds of political conviviality, from anarchist communes and clandestine agit-prop drama to royalist street politics and right-wing mass spectacle. It reveals new connections between French initiatives and their European counterparts, and demonstrates the enduring strength of radical communities in shaping political ideals and engagement.

'Listen!' In this collection of new essays, the world-renowned director Peter Brook offers unique and personal insights into sound and music - from the surprising impact of Broadway musicals on his famous Midsummer Night's Dream, to the allure of applause, and on to the ultimate empty space: silence. It is studded throughout with episodes from the author's own life and career in opera, theatre and film - including working on many of his most notable productions, and intimate first-hand accounts of collaborating with leading figures including Truman Capote, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh - and ranges across musical styles and cultures from around the world. Playing by Ear is full of Brook's shafts of insight and perception, and written with his customary wit and wisdom. It is a rich companion to his earlier reflections on Shakespeare in The Quality of Mercy and on language and meaning in Tip of the Tongue.

Intimacy Across Visceral and Digital Performance is an edited collection designed to address a diverse set of critical responses to and practical interrogations of the notion of being intimate in emergent and hybrid performance practices, aiming to elicit connectivity and provoke debate about the potency, nature and agency of intimacy in contemporary performance.Lauren Berlant suggests that 'intimacy (...) involves an aspiration for a narrative about something shared' (2000, p. 1). Sensing intimacy in performance relocates registers of affect from the private experience to the public sphere. Within the current climate of intense global political, social and financial insecurity and unrest, at a time infused with both hope and fear, artists appear to be demonstrating a desire for intimacy and closeness with the Other. Those public figurings of intimacy - staged through contemporary performance, visual culture and digital art practices - become the cultural fuel which, when placed alongside political potentialities, can ignite debates and provocations such as those contained herein.

Following an outline history of the monologue as an independent genre in the theater of Latin America, this bibliography incorporates all published and unpublished, staged and unstaged monologue pieces written in Latin America. The bibliographical entries are grouped in three chronological periods reflecting the fundamentally distinct nature of the monolgue during each of its periods of development. Within each grouping, the plays are listed alphabetically by author under an alphabetical roster of country headings. Each playwright's years of birth and death are given, if known, as well as the country of origin if that differs from the geographical category into which the dramatist has been placed. All known editions of the monologues are included. For unpublished works, an abbreviated reference source is given. Each title is followed by the generic description applied to the work by the author or publisher, or by reviewers or historians in the case of unpublished pieces. The secondary bibliography lists works which deal with the monologue as a literary genre.

The theatre is an essential art form that is forever evolving. A well-written play can make us laugh, cry, cringe, or reflect. It can confirm what we already know, or it can introduce us to new worlds. It can relax us, or incite us to action. Writing for the Stage - A Playwright's Handbook is a step-by-step guide to dramatic writing. Drawing on proven methods and professional insights, this book explores the mechanics of playwriting and the skills needed to create a compelling story. It aims to help readers understand the art and craft of writing for the stage and avoid some of the pitfalls. Topics covered include defining a play; starting points; the importance of structure; the first draft and rewrites; placing the work and negotiating rehearsals and, finally, the playwright in a devising context.

What is the history of devised theatre? Why have theatre-makers, since the 1950s, chosen to devise performances? What different sorts of devising practices are there? What are the myths attached to devising, and what are the realities? First published in 2005, Devising Performance remains the only book to offer the reader a history of devising practice. Charting the development of collaboratively created performances from the 1950s to the early 21st century, it presents a range of case studies drawn from Britain, America and Australia. Companies discussed include The Living Theatre, Open Theatre, Australian Performing Group, People Show, Teatro Campesino, Theatre de Complicite, Legs on the Wall, Forced Entertainment, Goat Island and Graeae. Providing a history of devising practice, Deirdre Heddon and Jane Milling encourage us to look more carefully at the different modes of devising and to consider the implications of our use of these practices in the 21st century.

With a companion website that includes short online film episodes, this book proposes expansive ways of deconstructing and re-constituting sexuality and gender and thus more embodied and ethical ways of 'doing' life, and offers an understanding and critique of embodiment through an integration of performance, psychotherapy and feminist philosophy.

This book examines the influence of the early modern period on Antonin Artaud's seminal work The Theatre and Its Double, arguing that Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and their early modern context are an integral part of the Theatre of Cruelty and essential to its very understanding. The chapters draw links between the early modern theatrical obsession with plague and regeneration, and how it is mirrored in Artaud's concept of cruelty in the theatre. As a discussion of the influence of Shakespeare and his contemporaries on Artaud, and the reciprocal influence of Artaud on contemporary interpretations of early modern drama, this book is an original addition to both the fields of early modern theatre studies and modern drama.

This the first sustained study of the interest of John Ruskin in the theatre of his time. It examines Ruskin's active engagement with and influence on the Victorian popular theatre. Ruskin was an enthusiastic and catholic theatre-goer, enjoying pantomime as much as Shakespeare. Through the lens of Ruskin's discussions of pantomime, melodrama, Shakespearean tragedy, and painting and the stage, Newey and Richards offer a new view of the late Victorian stage focusing on London's West End in its heyday.

Theatre and Aural Attention investigates what it is to attend theatre by means of listening. Focusing on four core aural phenomena in theatre - noise, designed sound, silence, and immersion - George Home-Cook concludes that theatrical listening involves paying attention to atmospheres.