This book examines Commedia dell'Arte as a performative genre, and one that should be analysed through the framework of dramaturgy and dramaturgical practice. This volume examines the way Commedia has been explored in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and details its reinventors' dramaturgic approaches, both focusing in on specific examples such as Jacques Lecoq, Dario Fo and Antonio Fava, and also suggesting how modern discoveries may aid the study of historical performance practice. It also discusses how audiences read and receive masks; the relationship between the different masked and unmasked roles; the range of performance activities that come under the umbrella term 'improvisation'; the performative construction of a role performed 'live' from a scenario; the role of language and embodied locality in performance; and the performative relationship between performative commedia and literary tragicomedy. Its focus is dramaturgy, and so it may be read both as a text describing various theatrical practices from 1946 onwards and as a way of creating one's own contemporary Commedia practice. It is an important read for any student or scholar of Commedia dell'Arte and theatre historians grappling with the status of this unique and influential performance form.

Commedia dell'Arte Scenarios gathers together a collection of scenarios from some of the most important Commedia dell'Arte manuscripts, many of which have never been published in English before. Each script is accompanied by an editorial commentary that sets out its historical context and the backstory of its composition and dramaturgical strategies, as well as scene summaries, and character and properties lists. These supplementary materials not only create a comprehensive picture of each script's performance methods but also offer a blueprint for readers looking to perform the scenarios as part of their own study or professional practice. This collection offers scholars, performers and students a wealth of original performance texts that brig to life one of the most foundational performance genres in world theatre.

This book examines Commedia dell'Arte as a performative genre, and one that should be analysed through the framework of dramaturgy and dramaturgical practice. This volume examines the way Commedia has been explored in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and details its reinventors' dramaturgic approaches, both focusing in on specific examples such as Jacques Lecoq, Dario Fo and Antonio Fava, and also suggesting how modern discoveries may aid the study of historical performance practice. It also discusses how audiences read and receive masks; the relationship between the different masked and unmasked roles; the range of performance activities that come under the umbrella term 'improvisation'; the performative construction of a role performed 'live' from a scenario; the role of language and embodied locality in performance; and the performative relationship between performative commedia and literary tragicomedy. Its focus is dramaturgy, and so it may be read both as a text describing various theatrical practices from 1946 onwards and as a way of creating one's own contemporary Commedia practice. It is an important read for any student or scholar of Commedia dell'Arte and theatre historians grappling with the status of this unique and influential performance form.

Commedia dell'Arte Scenarios gathers together a collection of scenarios from some of the most important Commedia dell'Arte manuscripts, many of which have never been published in English before. Each script is accompanied by an editorial commentary that sets out its historical context and the backstory of its composition and dramaturgical strategies, as well as scene summaries, and character and properties lists. These supplementary materials not only create a comprehensive picture of each script's performance methods but also offer a blueprint for readers looking to perform the scenarios as part of their own study or professional practice. This collection offers scholars, performers and students a wealth of original performance texts that brig to life one of the most foundational performance genres in world theatre.

It may certainly be said that nothing can be assumed about Shakespeare: on the one hand, the Elizabethan poet seems to be thriving, with more editions, productions, studies, and translations appearing every year; on the other hand, in a time of global crisis and decolonization, the question of why Shakespeare is relevant at all is now more pertinent than ever. Shakespeare in Succession approaches the question of relevance by positioning Shakespeare as a participant as well as an object of adaptive translation, a labour that has always mediated between the foreign and the domestic, between the past and the present, between the arcane and the urgent. The volume situates Shakespeare on a continuum of transfers that can be understood from cultural, spatial, temporal, or linguistic points of view by studying how the text of Shakespeare is transformed into other languages and examining Shakespeare himself as a kind of translator of previous times, older stories, and prior theatrical and linguistic systems. Contending with the poet’s contemporary fate, Shakespeare in Succession asks how Shakespeare’s work can be offered to the multicultural present in which we live, and how we might relate our position to that of the iconic writer.