Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism (Oxford Shakespeare Topics) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198711778 ISBN 13: 9780198711773

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1997

Synopsis

Shakespeare in the Theatre offers a rich, varied, and wonderfully evocative collection of eye-witness accounts of Shakespearian performances over the centuries. Theatre generates an excitement that stimulates fine prose: here are Hazlitt's famous accounts of Edmund Kean as Richard III and Hamlet, Bernard Shaw on Forbes-Robertson's Hamlet and his hilarious descriptions of Augustin Daly's productions, Max Beerbohm on Gordon Craig, and Kenneth Tynan on Olivier and Wolfit. Here too are lesser-known pieces by great writers: the German novelist Theodor Fontane on Charles Kean, Evelyn Waugh on Olivier, Virginia Woolf on Twelfth Night at the Old Vic. Taken together these pieces represent an appreciation of the work of the finest Shakespearian interpreters, and a survey of changing styles of Shakespearian production - ranging right across the canon - from the seventeenth century to the present, in England, America, and further afield. The post-war period is amply represented, right up to the present day, with vivid accounts of landmark productions by directors such as Peter Brook, Peter Hall, John Barton, Deborah Warner, Trevor Nunn, and Declan Donnellan. Stanley Wells introduces the volume with an essay on `Shakespeare and the Theatre Critics', and supplies each review with a helpful headnote and explanatory references.

About this title

Review:

'Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly. (Ruth Morse, Times Literary Supplement)

From the Publisher:

Reviewd in, Plays International.
`wonderfully vivid descriptions of embodied Shakespeare from the early eighteenth-century ... to the present ... Wells's compilation inaugurates the 'Oxford Shakespeare Topics', a promising series of short, sharp studies.' Plays International, Sept/Oct. 2000.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0198711778
• ISBN 13: 9780198711773
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Wells Stanley