We know that size matters in many areas of human endeavor, but
what about works of the imagination? Why do some dramatic creations
extend to five hours or more, and how does their extreme length
help them accomplish extraordinarily ambitious aims? In Great
Lengths, theater critic and scholar Jonathan Kalb addresses these
and other questions through a close look at seven internationally
prominent theater productions, including Tony Kushner's "Angels in
America," Robert Wilson's" Einstein on the Beach," the Royal
Shakespeare Company's "Nicholas Nickleby," and the "durational
works" of the British experimental company Forced Entertainment.
This is a book about extreme length, monumental scope, and
intensive immersion in the theater in general, written by a
passionate spectator reflecting on selected pinnacles of his
theatergoing over thirty years.
The book's examples, deliberately chosen for their diversity,
range from adapted novels and epics, to dramatic chronicles with
macrohistorical and macropolitical implications, to stagings of
super-size classic plays, to "postdramatic" works that negotiate
the border between life and art. Kalb reconstructs each of the
works, re-creating the experience of seeing it while at the same
time explaining how it maintained attention and interest over so
many hours, and then expanding the scope to embrace a wider view
and ask broader questions. The discussion of "Nicholas Nickleby,"
for example, considers melodrama as a basic tool of theatrical
communication, and the section on Peter Brook's" The Mahabharata"
explores the ethical problems surrounding theatrical exoticism. The
chapter on "Einstein on the Beach" grows into a reflection on the
media-age status of the much-debated "Gesamtkunstwerk "(or "total
artwork") and a reassessment of the long avant-gardist tradition of
challenging the primacy of rational language in theater. The essay
on Peter Stein's "Faust I + II" becomes a reflection on the
interpretive role of theater directors and the theatrical viability
of antitheatrical closet drama. Great Lengths thus offers a
remarkable panorama of the surprisingly broad field of contemporary
marathon theater--an art form that diverse audiences of savvy,
screen-weaned spectators continue to seek out, for the increasingly
rare experiences of awe, transcendence, and sustained immersion
that it provides.
Great Lengths will appeal to general readers as well as theater
specialists. It situates the chosen productions in various
historical and critical contexts and engages with the many lively
scholarly debates that have swirled around them. At the same time,
it uses the productions as springboards for wide-ranging
reflections on the basic purpose and enduring power of theater in
an attention-challenged, media-saturated era.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!