How was the experience of watching a play influenced by practices beyond the walls of the playhouse, and what were the broader social and historical implications of the culture of playgoing? This book sets out to answer such questions. Since the two authors have very different perspectives on the issues discussed, they have chosen a unique format: rather than submerging their opposition, they have highlighted it. Their attacks and counter-attacks, as they contest each other's views in paired chapters, result in a lively and illuminating debate.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Troilus and Cressida, a play that has long been considered difficult but is now popular both on the stage and in criticism, features an expanded and updated introduction and reading list. The first edition has been praised for its careful rethinking of the text, excellent annotation, lively attention to performance and extensive coverage of the play's major concerns. This updated edition retains these characteristics. In addition, Gretchen Minton and Anthony B. Dawson have provided a new account of the critical and theatrical treatment of Troilus and Cressida over the last fifteen years, showing how modern audiences have become attuned to the play's sardonic undercutting of both the medieval romance of the title characters and the Homeric tale of the Trojan War. Recent performance history is placed against a broader background of social change, including shifting attitudes towards war, political decision-making, gender politics, and fear of disease and contagion.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Troilus and Cressida, a play that has long been considered difficult but is now popular both on the stage and in criticism, features an expanded and updated introduction and reading list. The first edition has been praised for its careful rethinking of the text, excellent annotation, lively attention to performance and extensive coverage of the play's major concerns. This updated edition retains these characteristics. In addition, Gretchen Minton and Anthony B. Dawson have provided a new account of the critical and theatrical treatment of Troilus and Cressida over the last fifteen years, showing how modern audiences have become attuned to the play's sardonic undercutting of both the medieval romance of the title characters and the Homeric tale of the Trojan War. Recent performance history is placed against a broader background of social change, including shifting attitudes towards war, political decision-making, gender politics, and fear of disease and contagion.

How was the experience of watching a play influenced by practices beyond the walls of the playhouse, and what were the broader social and historical implications of the culture of playgoing? The book sets out to answer such questions. Interested first in what happened within the playhouse itself, the authors focus on the person of the actor, on stage props, visual pleasure and audience behaviour. At the same time, their discussion moves outward to consider a range of cultural assumptions and practices - such as eucharistic controversy, prostitution, social mobility, iconoclasm, Renaissance optics, the formation of national memory, and the dissemination of news. Since the two authors have very different perspectives on these issues, they have chosen a unique format: rather than submerging their opposition, they have highlighted it. Their attacks and counter-attacks, as they contest each other's views in paired chapters, result in a lively and illuminating debate.

Here is a book written primarily for playgoers. Looking closely at eighteen plays, Anthony Dawson examines key decisions that actors and directors have to make, and shows how different interpretations flow from these decisions. His aim is to make audiences more aware of the multiple possibilities that a Shakespearean text provides, and hence better able to assess particular productions. Using frequent and extensive illustration from the modern theatre, he argues that contradiction and creative inconsistency are marks of Shakespeare's plays and that productions usually work best when they embrace opposition and strive for balance, rather than when they adopt one-sided readings or suppress elements that don't fit a particular concept.

Written in 1595, Richard II occupies a significant place in the Shakespeare canon. It marks the transition from the earlier history plays dominated by civil war and stark power to a more nuanced representation of the political conflicts of England's past where character and politics are inextricably intertwined. Deftly combining history with tragedy, its tale of bad government and usurpation had great political immediacy for its first audiences in late Elizabethan England and continues to resonate today. This scholarly but student-friendly edition features a freshly edited version of the text based on the early quartos and first Folio of 1623. The thorough set of textual notes and full commentary are designed to aid the modern reader to better understand and appreciate the language, the characters, and the dramatic action. The introduction places the play squarely in its own time, describing its topical significance and its political perspectives, and showing how carefully Shakespeare positioned his play within an ongoing political conversation. Together with this historical perspective, the introduction focuses as well on the play's richly poetic language and its great success over the centuries as a play for the stage.

Written in 1595, Richard II occupies a significant place in the Shakespeare canon, marking the transition from the earlier history plays dominated by civil war and stark power to a more nuanced representation of the political conflicts of England's past where character and politics are inextricably intertwined. It is the first of four connected plays--including 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V--generally considered Shakespeare's finest history plays.
The drama of Richard II centers on the power struggle between the grandiloquent King Richard and the plain-spoken, blunt Henry Bolingbroke, who is banished from Britain at the beginning of the play. But when Henry's father John of Gaunt dies, Richard confiscates his property with no regard to his son's rights, and Bolingbroke returns to confront the king, who surrenders his crown and is imprisoned in Pomfret Castle, where he is soon murdered. This new edition in the acclaimed Oxford Shakespeare series features a freshly edited version of the text. The wide-ranging introduction describes the play's historical circumstances, both the period that it dramatizes (the start of the "wars of the roses") and the period in which it was written (late Elizabethan England), and the play's political significance in its own time and our own. It also focuses on the play's richly poetic language and its success over the centuries as a play for the stage. Extensive explanatory notes help readers at all levels understand and appreciate the language, characters, and dramatic action and the book's lively illustrations provide a sense of the historical background and performance of the play.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

One of the smash hits of the late 1580s and 90s, Tamburlaine
established blank verse as the poetic line of English Renaissance
drama, Edward Alleyn as the first English star actor and Marlowe as one
of the foremost playwrights of his time. The rise and fall of a
Scythian peasant-warrior who conquers the Middle East and is struck
down by illness after burning the books of the Koran is presented in
two parts crammed with theatrical splendour and equally spectacular
cruelty. Marlowe's original audiences were delighted with the
blasphemous and ruthlessly ambitious hero; the introduction to this
edition discusses the problems that such a character poses for modern
audiences and highlights the undercurrents of the play that lead
towards a more ironic interpretation.