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Editing, Performance, Texts
by Jacqueline Jenkins Julie SandersThe essays in this volume challenge current 'givens' in medieval and early modern research around periodization and editorial practice. They showcase cutting-edge research practices and approaches in textual editing, and in manuscript and performance studies to produce new ways of reading and working for students and scholars.
Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost
by Satoko ShimazakiSatoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater and its dynamic representations of medieval Japanese tales and tradition, boldly reframing Edo kabuki as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity. Challenging the common understanding of kabuki as a subversive entertainment and a threat to shogunal authority, Shimazaki argues that kabuki actually instilled a sense of shared history in Edo's inhabitants, regardless of their class. It did this, she shows, by constantly invoking "worlds," or sekai, largely derived from medieval military chronicles, and overlaying them onto the present. Shimazaki explores the process by which, as the early modern period drew to a close, nineteenth-century playwrights began dismantling the Edo tradition of "presenting the past" by abandoning their long-standing reliance on the sekai. She then reveals how, in the 1920s, a new generation of kabuki playwrights, critics, and scholars reinvented the form yet again, "textualizing" kabuki so that it could be pressed into service as a guarantor of national identity, in keeping with the role that the West assigned to theater. Shimazaki's vivid and engaging reinterpretation of kabuki history centers on the popular and widely celebrated ghost play Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825) by Tsuruya Nanboku. Along the way, she sheds fresh light on the emergence and development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost, linking it to the need to explore new themes at a time when the old samurai worlds were rapidly losing their relevance.
Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost
by Satoko ShimazakiSatoko Shimazaki revisits three centuries of kabuki theater, reframing it as a key player in the formation of an early modern urban identity in Edo Japan and exploring the process that resulted in its re-creation in Tokyo as a national theatrical tradition. Challenging the prevailing understanding of early modern kabuki as a subversive entertainment and a threat to shogunal authority, Shimazaki argues that kabuki instilled a sense of shared history in the inhabitants of Edo (present-day Tokyo) by invoking "worlds," or sekai, derived from earlier military tales, and overlaying them onto the present. She then analyzes the profound changes that took place in Edo kabuki toward the end of the early modern period, which witnessed the rise of a new type of character: the vengeful female ghost.Shimazaki's bold reinterpretation of the history of kabuki centers on the popular ghost play Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (The Eastern Seaboard Highway Ghost Stories at Yotsuya, 1825) by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Drawing not only on kabuki scripts but also on a wide range of other sources, from theatrical ephemera and popular fiction to medical and religious texts, she sheds light on the development of the ubiquitous trope of the vengeful female ghost and its illumination of new themes at a time when the samurai world was losing its relevance. She explores in detail the process by which nineteenth-century playwrights began dismantling the Edo tradition of "presenting the past" by abandoning their long-standing reliance on the sekai. She then reveals how, in the 1920s, a new generation of kabuki playwrights, critics, and scholars reinvented the form again, "textualizing" kabuki so that it could be pressed into service as a guarantor of national identity.
Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy
by Daniela CavallaroThis book explores an important moment in Italian women's theatre and cultural history: plays written for all-women casts between 1946 and the mid-1960s, authored for the most part by women and performed exclusively by women. Because they featured only female roles, they concentrated on aspects of specifically women's experience, be it their spirituality, their future lives as wives and mothers, their present lives as workers or students, or their relationships with friends, sisters and mothers. Most often performed in a Catholic environment, they were meant to both entertain and educate, reflecting the specific issues that both performers and spectators had to confront in the years between the end of the war and the beginning of the economic miracle. Drawing on material never before researched, Educational Theatre for Women in Post-World War II Italy: A Stage of Their Own recovers the life and works of forgotten women playwrights while also discussing the role models that educational theatre offered to the young Italian women coming of age in the post-war years.
Edward Albee: A Singular Journey
by Mel GussowIn 1960, Edward Albee electrified the theater world with the American premiere of The Zoo Story, and followed it two years later with his extraordinary first Broadway play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Proclaimed as the playwright of his generation, he went on to win three Pulitzer Prizes for his searing and innovative plays. Mel Gussow, author, critic, and cultural writer for The New York Times, has known Albee and followed his career since its inception, and in this fascinating biography he creates a compelling firsthand portrait of a complex genius.The book describes Albee's life as the adopted child of rich, unloving parents and covers the highs and lows of his career. A core myth of Albee's life, perpetuated by the playwright, is that The Zoo Story was his first play, written as a thirtieth birthday present to himself. As Gussow relates, Albee has been writing since adolescence, and through close analysis the author traces the genesis of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, and other plays. After his early triumphs, Albee endured years of critical neglect and public disfavor. Overcoming artistic and personal difficulties, he returned in 1994 with Three Tall Women. In this prizewinning play he came to terms with the towering figure of his mother, the woman who dominated so much of his early life.With frankness and critical acumen, and drawing on extensive conversations with the playwright, Gussow offers fresh insights into Albee's life. At the same time he provides vivid portraits of Albee's relationships with the people who have been closest to him, including William Flanagan (his first mentor), Thornton Wilder, Richard Barr, John Steinbeck, Alan Schneider, John Gielgud, and his leading ladies, Uta Hagen, Colleen Dewhurst, Irene Worth, Myra Carter, Elaine Stritch, Marian Seldes, and Maggie Smith. And then there are, most famously, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who starred in Mike Nichols's acclaimed film version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The book places Albee in context as a playwright who inspired writers as diverse as John Guare and Sam Shepard, and as a teacher and champion of human rights.Edward Albee: A Singular Journey is rich with colorful details about this uniquely American life. It also contains previously unpublished photographs and letters from and to Albee. It is the essential book about one of the major artists of the American theater.
Edward Albee: A Casebook (Casebooks on Modern Dramatists #Vol. 29)
by Bruce MannFrom the "angry young man" who wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 1962, determined to expose the emptiness of American experience to Tiny Alice which reveals his indebtedness to Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco's Theatre of the Absurd, Edward Albee's varied work makes it difficult to label him precisely. Bruce Mann and his contributors approach Albee as an innovator in theatrical form, filling a critical gap in theatrical scholarship.
Edward Albee: A Critical Introduction
by Matthew RoudanéEdward Albee (1928–2016) was a central figure in modern American theatre, and his bold and often experimental theatrical style won him wide acclaim. This book explores the issues, public and private, that so influenced Albee's vision over five decades, from his first great success, The Zoo Story (1959), to his last play, Me, Myself, & I (2008). Matthew Roudané covers all of Albee's original works in this comprehensive, clearly structured, and up-to-date study of the playwright's life and career: in Part I, the volume explores Albee's background and the historical contexts of his work; Part II concentrates on twenty-four of his plays, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962); and Part III investigates his critical reception. Surveying Albee's relationship with Broadway, and including interviews conducted with Albee himself, this book will be of great importance for theatregoers and students seeking an accessible yet incisive introduction to this extraordinary American playwright. The only book to cover all of Albee's plays, making this the most thorough and up-to-date study of the playwright's work Contains material from personal interviews conducted with Albee, presenting unique insights from the man himself Accessibly written and chronologically ordered, it allows readers to easily follow the development of Albee's style and theatrical vision over the course of his career
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (The Fourth Wall)
by Michael Y. BennettEdward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? shocked audiences and critics alike with its assault on decorum. At base though, the play is simply a love story: an examination of a long-wedded life, filled with the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and pain that accompany the passing of many years together. While the ethos of the play is tragicomic, it is the anachronistic, melodramatic secret object—the nonexistent "son"—that upends the audience’s sense of theatrical normalcy. The mean and vulgar bile spewed among the characters hides these elements, making it feel like something entirely "new." As Michael Y. Bennett reveals, the play is the same emperor, just wearing new clothes. In short, it is straight out of the grand tradition of living room drama: Ibsen, Chekhov, Glaspell, Hellmann, O’Neill, Wilder, Miller, Williams, and Albee.
Edward Bond: A Critical Study
by Peter BillinghamThis new study of one of Britain's greatest modern playwrights represents the first major, extended discussion of Edward Bond's work in over twenty years. The book combines rigorous and stimulating analysis and discussion of Bond's plays and ideas about drama and society. For the first time, there is also discussion of selected plays from his later, post-2000 period, including Innocence and Have I None, alongside explorations of widely studied plays such as Saved.
Edward Bond: Letters 2
by Ian StuartFirst Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Edward Bond: Letters 3
by Ian StuartFirst Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Edward Bond: Letters 4 (Contemporary Theatre Studies #Vol. 14.)
by Ian StuartEdward Bond Letters, Volume IV, focuses on four significant areas of Edward Bond's work: education, imagination and the child; theatre-in-education; At the Inland Sea; language and imagery. The letters represent a coruscating attack on our present society, as well as offering insights into how the situation might be improved. Bond's letters attack modern education, arguing that "children are being educated to sell themselves" and suggesting that social problems are caused by an oppression of the imagination. Many letters refer directly to a play - for instance Tuesday, which presents an assessment of the many difficulties faced by contemporary society. The language and imagery of one of Bond's most recent plays, In the Company of Men, is animatedly discussed, and Bond reminds us in a final description that "the good image is always absent, because it is present in the mind.
Edward Bond Letters: Volume 5 (Contemporary Theatre Studies #Vol. 14.)
by Ian StuartFirst Published in 1994. Edward Bond Letters, Volume V, contains over thirty letters and papers covering Bond's controversial views on violence and justice, plays, writers and directors, and a postscript that is Bond's discussion of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. The explosive content of these letters applies to Bond's plays and society as a whole; Bond believes that all violence is the manifestation of an unbalanced and dangerous society. As with the four preceding volumes in this collection, Edward Bond is critical of present theatre, but at the same time his observations are useful in indicating how theatre can be changed. Bond's illustrations provide accompaniment to the letters.
Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of Theatre
by Christopher InnesEdward Gordon Craig's ideas regarding set and lighting have had an enormous impact on the development of the theatre we know today. In this new and updated edition of his well-known study of Edward Gordon Craig, Professor Christopher Innes shows how Craig's stage work and theoretical writings were crucial to the development of modern theatre. This book contains extensive documentation and re-evaluates his significance as an artist, actor, director and writer. Craig is placed in historical context, and his productions are reconstituted from unpublished prompt-books, sketches, journals and correspondence. Most of the designs and photographs, and many of Craig's writings cited, are not available elsewhere in print. Readers will gain insight into a key period of theatrical history, the life of one of its most fascinating individuals, the nature of stage performance, and into revolutionary ideas that are still challenging today.
The Edward Tales
by Elizabeth SpencerIn conferring upon Mississippi native Elizabeth Spencer (1921–2019) the 2013 Rea Award for the Short Story, the jury said that at the then age of ninety-two, she “has thrived at the height of her powers to a degree that is unparalleled in modern letters.” Over a celebrated six-decade career, Spencer published every type of literary fiction: novels and short stories, a memoir, and a play. Like her best-known work, The Light in the Piazza, most of her narratives explore the inner lives of restless, searching southern women. Yet one mercurial male character, Edward Glenn, deserves attention for the way he insists on returning to her pages. Speaking of Edward in unusually personal terms, Spencer admitted a strong attraction to his type: the elusive, intelligent southern man, “maybe an unresolved part of my psyche.” In The Edward Tales, Sally Greene brings together the four narratives in which Edward figures: the play For Lease or Sale (1989) and three short stories, “The Runaways” (1994), “Master of Shongalo” (1996), and “Return Trip” (2009). The collection allows readers to observe Spencer’s evolving style while offering glimpses of the moral reasoning that lies at the heart of all her work. Greene’s critical introduction helpfully places these narratives within the context of Spencer’s entire body of writing. The Edward Tales confirms Spencer’s place as one of our most beloved and accomplished writers.
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds: A Drama in Two Acts
by Paul ZindelBeatrice was a mother...and the embittered ringmaster of the circus Hunsdorfer featuring three generations of crazy ladies living under the sloppiest big top on earth. Nanny was no problem. She sat and stared and stayed silent as a venerable vegetable should. Ruth was half-mad and easily bought with an occasional cigarette. But how is the world would Beatrice control Tillie--keeper of rabbits, dreamer of atoms, true believer in life, hope, and the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds...<P><P> Pulitzer Prize Winner
Egad, the Woman In White (Sealed in a Madhouse)
by Tim KellyMelodrama / 4m, 6f or 3m, 7f / This laugh oriented, old fashioned melodrama is based on Wilkie Collins' classic and it's wild, fast and funny. It features a disreputable (and hilarious) villain who dispatches his adversaries with nefarious ease and even seals his wife in a madhouse to steal her vast fortune! He battles a wicked countess in one of the most uproarious fight scenes ever staged! When all else fails, he engineers mock funerals. But he's scared of the mysterious "woman in white" who's escaped from the asylum to seek him out. Abandoned wives, insolent servants, lawyers, hypochondriacs and manly drawing masters parade across the stage in gales of comedy terminating only when the villain is brought to justice in an audience cheering, outrageous and spectacular finale. Designed for an easy rehearsal schedule and simple production, this delight is suitable for all groups looking for a play that's fun to perform.
Egmont
by Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheEgmont is a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which he completed in 1788. Its dramaturgical structure, like that of his earlier 'Storm and Stress' play Götz von Berlichingen, is heavily influenced by Shakespearean tragedy.
Eight Great Comedies
by Sylvan Barnet Morton Berman William BurtonThe complete text of the world's great comedies from ancient times to the twentieth century.
Eight Great Tragedies
by Sylvan Barnet Morton Berman William BurtonEight Great Tragedies by Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, and William Burto
Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon
by Jules VerneSouth American rancher Joam Garral is wanted in Brazil for a crime he did not commit. The sinister Torres can prove him innocent--but Torres's price is to marry Joam's beautiful daughter, already promised to another. Verne's exotic 1881 adventure takes Joam's family by raft through danger, treachery, and vivid flora and fauna.
Eight Men Speak: A Play by Oscar Ryan et al. (Canadian Literature Collection)
by Oscar Ryan Edward Cecil-Smith Frank Love Mildred GoldbergThis volume comprises a reprinting and gloss of the original text of the 1933 Communist play Eight Men Speak. The play was banned by the Toronto police after its first performance, banned by the Winnipeg police shortly thereafter and subsequently banned by the Canadian Post Office. The play can be considered as one stage–the published text–of a meta-text that culminated in 1934 at Maple Leaf Gardens when the (then illegal) Communist Party of Canada celebrated the release of its leader, Tim Buck, from prison. Eight Men Speak had been written and staged on behalf of the campaign to free Buck by the Canadian Labour Defence League, the public advocacy group of the CPC. In its theatrical techniques, incorporating avant-garde expressionist staging, mass chant, agitprop and modernist dramaturgy, Eight Men Speak exemplified the vanguardist aesthetics of the Communist left in the years before the Popular Front. It is the first instance of the collective theatrical techniques that would become widespread in subsequent decades and formative in the development of modern Canadian drama. These include a decentred narrative, collaborative authorship and a refusal of dramaturgical linearity in favour of theatricalist demonstration. As such it is one of the most significant Canadian plays of the first half of the century, and, on the evidence of the surviving photograph of the mise-en-scene, one of the earliest examples of modernist staging in Canada. - This book is published in English.
Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists (World's Classics)
by Mary Pix Susanna Centlivre Elizabeth Griffith Hannah Cowley Melinda C. FinbergThese four plays, written by women dramatists during the Restoration, are now available in a single edition. This volume includes Mary Pix's The Innocent Mistress, Susanna Centlivre's The Busy-Body, Elizabeth Griffith's The Times, and Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem; thereby introducing readers to some of the earliest published women dramatists. The text is freshly edited using modern spelling. The critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and informative bibliography illuminate the plays' cultural context and theatrical potential for reader and performer alike. <p><p> 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.
Einstein's Gift
by Vern ThiessenEinstein’s Gift follows the life and work of Nobel laureate Dr. Fritz Haber, a man who risked everything for a country that never accepted him. Haber, a chemist who worked hard to enhance life, discovered too late that when his knowledge was put in the hands of the wrong people, millions would die and that his efforts to serve humanity were futile against political will, nationalism, and war. This updated edition of Vern Thiessen’s compelling play about the collision of power and pride still resonates with verve and vigour.
El Grande de Coca-Cola
by Alan ShearmanA simple show that is a laughable a minute and ridiculously wonderful! The action takes place in a terrible part of Trujillo, in a nightclub, which isn't too far from terrible itself. A local impresario, Senor Don Pepe Hernandez, has announced in the local newspapers that he is going to bring international cabaret to Trujillo. Eventually he succeeds, and we see the cabaret within the cabaret as it unfolds. A company known as the "Low Moan Spectacular' causes all the laughs, as conjuring tricks don't work, people trip up, a blind American folk singer falls off the stage, chorus girls collide, etc.