Plays in Review, 1956-1980

Plays in Review, 1956-1980 PDF Author: Gareth Lloyd Evans
Publisher: London : Batsford Academic and Educational
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Plays in Review, 1956-1980

Plays in Review, 1956-1980 PDF Author: Gareth Lloyd Evans
Publisher: London : Batsford Academic and Educational
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description


Plays in Review, 1956-1980

Plays in Review, 1956-1980 PDF Author: Gareth Lloyd Evans
Publisher: Methuen Publishing
ISBN: 9780416011715
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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1956 and All That

1956 and All That PDF Author: Dan Rebellato
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113465782X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
It is said that British Drama was shockingly lifted out of the doldrums by the 'revolutionary' appearance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court in May 1956. But had the theatre been as ephemeral and effeminate as the Angry Young Men claimed? Was the era of Terence Rattigan and 'Binkie' Beaumont as repressed and closeted as it seems? In this bold and fascinating challenge to the received wisdom of the last forty years of theatrical history, Dan Rebellato uncovers a different story altogether. It is one where Britain's declining Empire and increasing panic over the 'problem' of homosexuality played a crucial role in the construction of an enduring myth of the theatre. By going back to primary sources and rigorously questioning all assumptions, Rebellato has rewritten the history of the Making of Modern British Drama.

A Politic Theatre: The Drama of David Hare

A Politic Theatre: The Drama of David Hare PDF Author: Scott Fraser
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004484973
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This analysis of twenty published texts by David Hare employs definitions from contemporary semiotic literary theory as a means of describing typologies of political drama. By tracing the incorporation of stylistic devices from agitational propaganda (caricature, self-referentiality, the frisson between oral and visual signification) throughout the typologies, the study illustrates how each text subverts audience expectation based on established dramatic genres. The collection of texts is seen as inherently self-referential and politically subversive. At the centre of each typology is a protagonist who functions as a martyr to or parodic emblem of contemporary society. Consistently, the hermeticism of public institutions which represent the political status quo makes them immune from any form of individual protest from the Left or Right. In the satirical anatomy, the emblem of political dissent is coopted by involvement within the institution, or the stage is dominated by a conservative who controls the action. In the demythology, private individuals are seen as incapable of altering the public frame of history; but here private suffering subverts the collective mythology of the historical construct. In the martyrology, the emblem of dissent is associated with a moral virtue which is inimical to contemporary society, the audience's expectation of the triumph of the individual being subverted when he/she is expelled from the onstage world on the grounds of political ideology. It is only in the final typology, the conversion, that a conservative emblem is seen as directly influenced by such martyrdom, and the audience is provided with an actual example of political change. Thus, the study describes how each typology builds on the construction of the previous, and all generate from agitational propaganda.

British Playwrights, 1956-1995

British Playwrights, 1956-1995 PDF Author: William W. Demastes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1567507433
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
The year 1956 marked a point when British drama and theater fell into the hands of a group of young playwrights who revolutionized the stage. During that time, playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter made the British theater as rich, varied, and vital as any national theater in history. This reference chronicles the history of British theater from 1956 to 1995 by providing detailed information about the playwrights of that period. Included are entries for some three dozen British playwrights active between 1956 and 1995. Entries are arranged alphabetically to facilitate use. Each entry supplies biographical information, the production history for particular plays, a survey of the playwright's critical reception, an assessment of the dramatist's work, and primary and secondary bibliographies. A selected, general bibliography at the end of the volume directs the reader to important sources of additional information about this period in theater history.

Reviewing Shakespeare

Reviewing Shakespeare PDF Author: Paul Prescott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107021499
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Paul Prescott presents an engaging account of the ways in which theatre critics have responded to Shakespeare over four centuries.

Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s

Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s PDF Author: Jane Milling
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408157101
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s equips readers with a fresh assessment of the theatre and principle playwrights and plays from a decade when political and economic forces were changing society dramatically. It offers a broad survey of the context and of the playwrights and companies such as Complicité and DV8 that rose to prominence at this time. Alongside this it provides a detailed examination based on fresh research of four of the most significant playwrights of the era and considers the influence they had on later work. The 1980s volume features a detailed study by four scholars of the work of four of the major playwrights who came to prominence: Howard Barker (by Sarah Goldingay), Jim Cartwright (David Lane), Sarah Daniels (Jane Milling) and Timberlake Wertenbaker (Sara Freeman). Essential for students of Theatre Studies, the series of six decadal volumes provides a critical survey and study of the theatre produced from the 1950s to 2009. Each volume features a critical analysis of the work of four key playwrights besides other theatre work from that decade, together with an extensive commentary on the period. Readers will understand the works in their contexts and be presented with fresh research material and a reassessment from the perspective of the twenty-first century. This is an authoritative and stimulating reassessment of British playwriting in the 1980s.

The Play Out of Context

The Play Out of Context PDF Author: Hanna Scolnicov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521344333
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This is a volume of essays, which examines the relationship between the play and its historical and cultural contexts. Transferring plays from one period or one culture to another is so much more than translating the words from one language into another. The contributors vary their approaches to this problem from the theoretical to the practical, from the literary to the theatrical, with plays examined both historically and synchronically. The articles interact with each other, presenting a diversity of views of the central theme and establishing a dialogue between scholars of different cultures. With play texts quoted in English, the range of themes stretches from a Japanese interpretation of Chekhov to Shakespeare in Nazi Germany, and Racine borrowing from Sophocles. Most of the essays are based on papers presented at the Jerusalem Theatre Conference in 1986. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of the theatre and of literature and literary theory as well as to theatregoers.

World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre

World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre PDF Author: Irving Brown (Consulting Bibliographer)
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136119086
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 1344

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Book Description
An annotated world theatre bibliography documenting significant theatre materials published world wide since 1945, plus an index to key names throughout the six volumes of the series.

The Making of Theatrical Reputations

The Making of Theatrical Reputations PDF Author: Yael Zarhy-Levo
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587297795
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Today's successful plays and playwrights achieve their prominence not simply because of their intrinsic merit but because of the work of mediators, who influence the whole trajectory of a playwright's or a theatre company's career. Critics and academic writers are primarily considered the makers of reputations, but funding organizations and various media agents as well as artistic directors, producers, and directors also pursue separate agendas in shaping the reputations of theatrical works. In The Making of Theatrical Reputations Yael Zarhy-Levo demonstrates the processes through which these mediatory practices by key authority figures situate theatrical companies and playwrights within cultural and historical memory. To reveal how these authorizing powers-that-be promote theatrical events, companies, and playwrights, Zarhy-Levo presents four detailed case studies that reflect various angles of the modern London theatre. In the case of the English Stage Company's production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, she centers on a specific event. She then focuses on the trajectory of a single company, the Theatre Workshop, particularly through its first decade at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London. Next, she explores the career of the dramatist John Arden, especially its first ten years, in part drawing upon an interview with Arden and his wife, actress and playwright Margaretta D'Arcy, before turning to her fourth study: the playwright Harold Pinter's shifting reputation throughout the different phases of his career. Zarhy-Levo's accounts of these theatrical events, companies, and playwrights through the prism of mediation bring fresh insights to these landmark productions and their creators.