Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Signs of Race) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 023061633X ISBN 13: 9780230616332

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Synopsis

This volume of entirely new essays provides innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the various ways Shakespeare's Macbeth has been adapted and appropriated within the context of American racial constructions. Comprehensive in its scope, this collection addresses the enduringly fraught history of Macbeth in the United States, from its appearance as the first Shakespearean play documented in the American colonies to a proposed Hollywood film version with a black diasporic cast. Over two dozen contributions explore Macbeth's haunting presence in American drama, poetry, film, music, history, politics, acting, and directing-all through the intersections of race and performance.

About this title

Review:

"Timely . . . as with the best works of historical scholarship, Newstok and Thompson's collection merges detailed historiography with immediate relevancy, making this a valuable book indeed." - Dan Venning, Theatre History Studies
 
"There is something for everyone in this worthy volume." - CHOICE

"Remarkable." - Jonathan Gil Harris, Studies in English Literature

"Weyward Macbeth is an excellent companion piece for theatre educators looking to enrich classroom instruction or to further students' understanding of fully realized productions. Newstok and Thompson's diverse collection of provocative and enlightening articles serves as a valued addition to Shakespearean scholarship and as a complement to the study of Macbeth." - John Robert Moss, Theatre Topics

"A welcome addition to the scholarship on theatrical history and practice . . . most of the contributors do show the considerable charge that thinking differently, or highlighting and remembering race, can bring to the play . . . most of the authors at some point refer parenthetically to one or more of their fellow contributors, offering a sense of cogency, a wider arc of discussion, than many such collections manage." - Eric Mallin, College Literature
 
"In this remarkable and ground breaking book, the editors have put together essays that examine the text and spirit of Macbeth from different and, sometimes, startling perspectives." - The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies

"This rich and provocative collection of essays is a compilation of historical, theoretical and interdisciplinary viewpoints on ways in which performances of Macbeth have engaged issues of race . . . Weyward Macbeth leaves a reader strangely unsettled—as, of course, does Macbeth. I closed the volume with a new sense of Macbeth's importance to issues of race in the United States, more acutely aware of the ferment and potential of engaging with this intersectional study, and yet also conscious of the still fragmented state of this aptly named 'weyward' pursuit . . . Many diverse perspectives are at work in this volume, and not always towards the same ends. But in the last analysis, that diversity seems utterly appropriate: the move here is not to establish a new orthodoxy but to break down received ideas about race and Shakespeare . . . Newstok and Thompson's volume corroborates that vision of multiple Shakespeares and multiple Shakespeareans, both within 'the confines of the script' and beyond it." - Nicholas Jones, Shakespeare Bulletin

"This collection undoubtedly demonstrates the intractable diversity of American readings of Macbeth over time . . . Weyward Macbeth goes a long way in making the effort to tell that difficult history." - Robert Ormsby, Modern Drama

"Weyward Macbeth deserves reading - and re-reading - because, contrary to popular belief, Orson Welles's famous 'Voodoo' Macbeth (1936) was far from unique in re-casting Shakespeare in a non-traditional setting. With over 100 cross-racial productions recorded here, you are bound to ask: why have so many Americans been repeatedly drawn to this particular play in the context of racial discourses? Read this penetrating study to find out - it's an intellectual delight." - James V. Hatch, Professor Emeritus, The Graduate Theatre Program at the City University of New York and co-author of A History of African American Theatre

"Weyward Macbeth is an interesting and deeply thought-provoking book, which is well set out, and ideal to dip into when a fresh perspective is required about Macbeth." - Jane Wright, seriouslyshakespeare.com

Review:

“Weyward Macbeth is an astonishingly wide-ranging volume, taking in an impressive swath of theatrical and cultural history. From Frederick Douglass to Roman Polanski, Middleton to minstrelsy, Aldridge to Ellington, Verdi to hip-hop, the Scottish-Shogun-Voodoo-Tlingit play has sustained a surprising range of only apparently 'weyward' efforts to occupy the intersection of race and power through performance. This is a provocative collection, certain to animate discussion of Macbeth, and much more, for some time to come.” (W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 023061633X
• ISBN 13: 9780230616332
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 305
• Editor: Newstok S., Loparo Kenneth A.