The Shakespeare Hut: A Story of Memory, Performance and Identity, 1916-1923 - Hardcover

Ailsa Grant Ferguson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474295843 ISBN 13: 9781474295840

Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare, 2018

Synopsis

This book tells the forgotten story of the Shakespeare Hut, a huge, mock-Tudor building for New Zealand Anzac soldiers built in Bloomsbury in 1916 to mark Shakespeares Tercentenary that year. With a purpose-built performance space, the stage of which hosted the biggest theatrical stars of the age, and as the only built memorial to Shakespeare in London that materialised that fateful year, the Hut is a unique case study in cultural memory and performance of Shakespeare. One extraordinary building brought together Shakespeares place in First World War theatre, emerging new post-colonial identities and, finally, the struggle for womens suffrage, as the stage was managed and largely populated by the leading lights of the Actresses Franchise League. This is a story of how cultural memories of Shakespeare are created, how the man and the text feature in the most fundamental struggles for identity. During the global upheaval of World War I, this unique space for soldiers, suffragettes and scholars placed Shakespeares name and work at the centre of defining what it meant to be English.

About this title

About the Author

Ailsa Grant Ferguson is Principal Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Brighton, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474295843
• ISBN 13: 9781474295840
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240