Pageant (Forms of Drama) - Softcover

Joan FitzPatrick Dean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1350144517 ISBN 13: 9781350144514

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2021

Synopsis

Covering examples from the middle ages, early 20th century and the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, this is the first book to offer students a critical overview of pageantry as a dramatic form. Pageants are public spectacles that present highly choreographed, ritualized, or symbolic action to suit and, in turn, to shape local, religious, and national traditions. Over the centuries, pageants freely appropriated features of masques, tableaux vivants, processions, or liturgical drama. The documentation and scholarly analysis of pageantry have become increasingly popular, but this is the first authoritative account of its origin, characteristics and form. The reluctance of theatre historians to consider pageantry as a distinct theatrical idiom owes largely to the fact that pageants often left no published script. Outside the elitist prescriptions of realism, these paratheatrical events created community through what Erica Fischer-Lichte calls the re-theatricalization of theatre. Theatrical pageants are intimately connected with power. Usually they assert and celebrate it, but at other times they seek or demand power. Cecily Mary Hamiltons A Pageant of Great Women, for instance, advocated for womens suffrage. First performed (and published) in 1909, Hamiltons pageant depicted historical personages from the near and distant past as well as allegorical figures such as Justice and Prejudice. The vogue for pageantry that swept through the English-speaking world in the decade before WWI was closely tied to the expansion of the franchise. Pageants often aspired to self-perpetuate by asserting their status as traditional. The Olympic Games, for instance, now mandate the continuation of a century-old tradition that the opening ceremony details the country's history, culture, and overall importance for the global community. London served up just such a pageant in 2012. The book features a wide-ranging introduction that offers commentary on the cultural evolution of pageantry.

About this title

About the Author

Joan FitzPatrick Dean is Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor of English Emerita at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA. Her monographs include All Dressed Up: Modern Irish Historical Pageantry (2014), Riot and Great Anger: Stage Censorship in Twentieth-Century Ireland (2005), and the Cork/Irish Film Institute s Dancing at Lughnasa (2004). She was Fulbright Scholar at University College Galway (1992-93) and Fulbright Lecturer at Université de Nancy (1982-83).

Simon Shepherd is Fellow of the British Academy and Professor Emeritus of Theatre at The Central School of Speech and Drama, London, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350144517
• ISBN 13: 9781350144514
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168