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
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Page iv
... references and index . 1. Shakespeare , William , 1564-1616 - Knowledge - Performing arts . 2. Shakespeare , William , 1564 , 1616 - Characters - Actors . 3. Theater- England - History - 16th century . 4. Theater - England - History ...
... references and index . 1. Shakespeare , William , 1564-1616 - Knowledge - Performing arts . 2. Shakespeare , William , 1564 , 1616 - Characters - Actors . 3. Theater- England - History - 16th century . 4. Theater - England - History ...
Page 1
... reference to a professional theater , and recent studies of self - fashioning and social construction similarly make use of theatrical discourse without literal ref- erence to the stage . These studies are no more dependent on the ...
... reference to a professional theater , and recent studies of self - fashioning and social construction similarly make use of theatrical discourse without literal ref- erence to the stage . These studies are no more dependent on the ...
Page 2
... 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 that the modern actor's effort to create a character becomes ...
... 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 that the modern actor's effort to create a character becomes ...
Page 3
... reference , the discussion begins in chap- ter 1 by surveying modern perspectives on acting . Onstage , acting is not only a matter of playing roles but also of obsession with display and expo- sure , with power and humiliation . Both ...
... reference , the discussion begins in chap- ter 1 by surveying modern perspectives on acting . Onstage , acting is not only a matter of playing roles but also of obsession with display and expo- sure , with power and humiliation . Both ...
Page 7
... reference to the stage , but in the language used and the way in which the stage shifts unstably between figure to ground , peripheral yet central to the sonnets ' concerns . Much of this argument elaborates on the ways in which the ...
... reference to the stage , but in the language used and the way in which the stage shifts unstably between figure to ground , peripheral yet central to the sonnets ' concerns . Much of this argument elaborates on the ways in which the ...
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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