Ancient Greek and Contemporary Performance: Collected Essays (Exeter Performance Studies) - Hardcover

Graham Ley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0859898911 ISBN 13: 9780859898911

Publisher: University of Exeter Press, 2014

Synopsis

This collection of published and unpublished essays connects antiquity with the present by debating the current prohibiting conceptions of performance theory and the insistence on a limited version of 'the contemporary'. The theatre is attractive for its history and also for its lively present. These essays explore aspects of historical performance in ancient Greece, and link thoughts on its significance to wider reflections on cultural theory from around the world and performance in the contemporary postmodern era, concluding with ideas on the new theatre of the diaspora. Each section of the book includes a short introduction; the essays and shorter interventions take various forms, but all are concerned with theatre, with practical aspects of theatre and theoretical dimensions of its study. The subjects range from ancient Greece to the present day, and include speculations on the origin of ancient tragic acting, the kinds of festival performance in ancient Athens, how performance is reflected in the tragic scripts, the significance of the presence of the chorus, technology and the ancient theatre, comparative thinking on Greek, Indian and Japanese theory, a critique of the rhetoric of performance theory and of postmodernism, reflections on modernism and theatre, and on the importance of adaptation to theatre, studies of the theatre and diaspora in Britain. Each section of the book includes a short introduction; the essays and shorter interventions take various forms, but all are concerned with theatre, with practical aspects of theatre and theoretical dimensions of its study. The subjects range from ancient Greece to the present day, and include speculations on the origin of ancient tragic acting, the kinds of festival performance in ancient Athens, how performance is reflected in the tragic scripts, the significance of the presence of the chorus, technology and the ancient theatre, comparative thinking on Greek, Indian and Japanese theory, a critique of the rhetoric of performance theory and of postmodernism, reflections on modernism and theatre, and on the importance of adaptation to theatre, studies of the theatre and diaspora in Britain.

About this title

About the Author

Graham Ley is professor emeritus of drama and theory at the University of Exeter. His books include British South Asian Theatres, also published by the University of Exeter Press, and The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Exeter Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0859898911
• ISBN 13: 9780859898911
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 284