Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of PlayingFor the Renaissance, all the world may have been a stage and all its people players, but Shakespeare was also an actor on the literal stage. Meredith Anne Skura asks what it meant to be an actor in Shakespeare's England and shows why a knowledge of actual theatrical practices is essential for understanding both Shakespeare's plays and the theatricality of everyday life in early modern England. Despite the obvious differences between our theater and Shakespeare's, sixteenth-century testimony suggests that the experience of acting has not changed much over the centuries. Beginning with a psychoanalytically informed account of acting today, Skura shows how this intense and ambivalent experience appears not only in literal references to acting in Shakespearean drama but also in recurring narrative concerns, details of language, and dramatic strategies used to engage the audience. Looking at the plays in the context of both public and private worlds outside the theater, Skura rereads the canon to identify new configurations in the plays and new ways of understanding theatrical self-consciousness in Renaissance England. Rich in theatrical, psychoanalytic, biographical, and historical insight, this book will be invaluable to students of Shakespeare and instructive to all readers interested in the dynamics of performance. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 62
Page xii
... later draft and responded with wonderfully detailed comments to which I have re- turned many times in reshaping the material ; Anne Few read and discussed at least two versions of the entire manuscript , each time teaching me some ...
... later draft and responded with wonderfully detailed comments to which I have re- turned many times in reshaping the material ; Anne Few read and discussed at least two versions of the entire manuscript , each time teaching me some ...
Page 2
... later ) . But no account of theater can be complete without reference to the exchange between actor and audience which provides its occasion — and therefore no account can ignore the actor's point of view . Michael Goldman has argued ...
... later ) . But no account of theater can be complete without reference to the exchange between actor and audience which provides its occasion — and therefore no account can ignore the actor's point of view . Michael Goldman has argued ...
Page 5
... later players can be as revealing as Richard's stranglehold on his play . Some of the most important Shakespearean themes , rhetorical patterns , and dramatic strategies emerge first in the players ' scenes , then disperse and mature ...
... later players can be as revealing as Richard's stranglehold on his play . Some of the most important Shakespearean themes , rhetorical patterns , and dramatic strategies emerge first in the players ' scenes , then disperse and mature ...
Page 20
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 22
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Actaeon acting Anne Antony Arden Armado attack audience audience's baiting Barber and Wheeler bearbaiting beggar Bottom Brutus Caesar called Callow chapter character child cited in Chambers clown Comedy Coriolanus crowd crown death deer describes Drama dream Elizabethan Stage English Epilogue Fairy Falstaff fantasies father fawning fear flattering fool Hal's Hamlet Henriad Henry Henry IV Henry VI Histriomastix histrionic hunt identified inner plays italics added John John Marston Jonson King King Lear kneel Launce Lear literally London Lord Love's Labour's Lost male Midsummer Night's Dream mirror mother murder narcissistic offstage onstage performance play's players poet Queen Renaissance Richard Richard III role says scene Shake Shakespeare shame Shrew Sly's social sonnet speare's stage fright story suggests Tarlton tells theater theatrical thee Thomas thou Timon Timon of Athens Titus Titus Andronicus University Press Wives wounds York