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  3. Shakespeare in Production

This series offers students and researchers from final year school level to postgraduate dissertation the fullest possible stage histories of individual Shakespearean texts. In each volume a substantial introduction presents a conceptual overview of the play, marking out the major stages of its representation and reception. The commentary, presented alongside the New Cambridge edition of the text itself, offers detailed, line-by-line evidence for the overview presented in the introduction, making the volume a flexible tool for further research. The editors have selected interesting and vivid evocations of settings, acting and stage presentation and range widely in time and space.The plays of Shakespeare are a particularly rich field for such treatment, having formed a central part of British theatrical culture for four hundred years. Major stage productions outside Britain are also included, as are adaptations, film and video versions.'Cambridge has come up with an excellent new series, Shakespeare in Production, which is going to be invaluable to anybody studying, acting, or producing his plays.'Plays and Players

  • General Editors: J. S. Bratton, Julie Hankey

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14 results in Shakespeare in Production

The Merchant of Venice
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Charles Edelman
  • Published online:
    21 August 2019
    Print publication:
    23 January 2003
  • For over four hundred years, in every country where Shakespeare's plays have been performed, The Merchant of Venice has aroused controversy and excitement. This edition is the first to offer a comprehensive account of the Merchant in performance. Charles Edelman's introduction challenges many of the myths and preconceptions associated with the play, and shows how historical events and cultural attitudes have shaped actors' interpretations and audience responses. The commentary, printed alongside the text, describes how different actors, directors and designers have approached each character and episode on stage, film and television, from the first performances in the 1590s to the present day. The extraordinary variety of The Merchant of Venice in production will give every reader new and different insights into one of Shakespeare's most powerful but troubling plays.

The Tempest
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Christine Dymkowski
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    17 August 2000
  • This edition of The Tempest is the first dedicated to its stage history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, it examines four centuries of mainstream, regional, and fringe productions in Britain (including Dryden and Davenant's Restoration adaptation), nineteenth- and twentieth-century American stagings, and recent Australian, Canadian, French, Italian, and Japanese productions. In a substantial, illustrated Introduction Dymkowski analyses the cultural significance of changes in the play's theatrical representation, for example, when and why Caliban began to be represented by a black actor, and Ariel became a man's role rather than a woman's. The commentary annotates each line of the play with details about acting, setting, textual alteration and cuts, and contemporary reception. With extensive quotation from contemporary commentators and detail from unpublished promptbooks, the edition offers both an accessible account of the play's changing meanings and a valuable resource for further research.

Hamlet
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Robert Hapgood
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    27 May 1999
  • This edition tells the story of Hamlet in production, from Burbage at the Globe to Branagh on film, relating stage interpretations to developments in the theatre, in literary criticism and in society at large. Hamlet is the most performed play of all time. The stage history records an ongoing process of discovery, as successive performers have found what it is in the play that will speak most powerfully to the audiences of their own times. The introduction focuses not only on star Hamlets, but on whole productions of the play including supporting players and, in this century, direction and design. Although the volume as a whole concentrates on stage performances in England and the US, outstanding film versions and European stage productions are also featured. Professor Hapgood makes extensive use of primary sources and his substantial commentary provides numerous details of line-readings, costuming and stage business culled from this research.

King Henry V
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Emma Smith
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    27 June 2002
  • This is the first stage history of Shakespeare's King Henry V to cover the play's theatrical life since its first performance in 1599. Staging this play has always been a political act, and the substantial introduction traces its theatrical interventions into conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to Vietnam and the Falklands crisis, offering a complete account of the play's fortunes: from its absence in the seventeenth century to its dominant position as historical spectacle in the Victorian period, through twentieth-century productions, which include the popular films by Olivier and Branagh. Together they raise vital interpretative questions: is Henry V an epic of English nationalism, a knowing and cynical piece of power politics, or an anti-war manifesto? The volume also includes the play text, illustrations and detailed footnotes about major performances.

The Taming of the Shrew
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Elizabeth Schafer
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    23 January 2003
  • The story of Katherina Minola and her marriage to Petruchio has been popular in the theatre for four centuries. The Taming of the Shrew's ongoing appeal is easy to understand - it offers almost production-proof farce, plus the perennially popular joke of the battle of the sexes - but Katherina's story, and the joke of taming an unruly woman have become increasingly controversial. This edition of The Taming of the Shrew examines how theatre directors and performers have explored the complexities of Katherina's story and that of Christopher Sly, the poor man whose story frames that of Katherine. The edition surveys a wide variety of theatrical interpretations of the play in the English-speaking world, particularly in the UK, North America, and Australia and New Zealand. It informs readers about precise details of the stage action in the context of contemporary theatrical, social and political conditions.

Twelfth Night
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Elizabeth Schafer
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    25 June 2009
  • For four centuries Twelfth Night has inspired theatre directors and performers: some have found class war; some have seen Malvolio as a tragic hero; some have found a passive Viola and others have found an action woman. Whether a production's emphasis is on gender bending, festivity, or trying to reinvent Shakespeare as Chekhov, the sheer variety of Twelfth Nights on offer over the centuries attests to the play's power as a stimulus to theatrical creativity. The dazzling range of the Twelfth Nights considered here includes the productively wayward as well as the conventionally respectable, productions which play to the contemporary market as well as those that seek to flout tradition. This indispensable stage history covers changing fashions in the fortunes of Twelfth Night, and includes a survey of a wide variety of theatrical interpretations of the play in the English-speaking world.

As You Like It
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Cynthia Marshall
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    31 May 2004
  • As You Like It has sometimes seemed a subversive play that exposes the instability of gender roles and traditional values. In other eras it has been prized - or derided - as a reliable celebration of conventional social mores. The play's ability to encompass these extremes tells an interesting story about changing cultural and theatrical practices. This edition provides a detailed history of the play in production, both on stage and on screen. The introduction examines how changing conceptions of gender roles have affected the portrayal of Rosalind, one of Shakespeare's greatest comic heroines. The striking differences between the British tradition and the freer treatment the play has received abroad are discussed, as well as the politics of court versus country. The commentary, printed alongside the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the text, draws on primary sources to illuminate how costuming, stage business, design, and directorial choices have shaped the play in performance.

Antony and Cleopatra
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Richard Madelaine
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    24 September 1998
  • Antony and Cleopatra has the strangest stage history of any of Shakespeare's major tragedies. Richard Madelaine explains how the play's challenging complexity has at different times inhibited or promoted its success on the stage, and accounts for the remarkable resurgence of performances in the last twenty years. Madelaine provides the only detailed, extensive and up-to-date history of the play on stage and screen, in and beyond Britain. His introduction and commentary examine the ways in which cultural factors have shaped the performance of the play, and how actors have tackled the main parts, in particular the exotic eroticism of Cleopatra. In the process he reveals not only the rich plurality of possible readings of the play, but also changing attitudes to Shakespeare.

Romeo and Juliet
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by James N. Loehlin
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    25 April 2002
  • Romeo and Juliet is not only one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays, it is one of the most popular stories in the world. Yet while the play has rarely been off the stage, it has undergone radical transformations in performance. It has been abridged, rewritten, given a happy ending, reset in other times and places, and adapted into other media. While retaining its appeal as a definitive love story, Romeo and Juliet has been a dynamic and unstable performance text, endlessly reinvented to suit differing cultural needs. This edition provides a detailed, thorough and readable account of the play in production. The introduction examines shifts in interpretation, textual adaptations and staging innovations over four centuries of theatrical production. The commentary gives detailed examples of how different performers, from Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, have brought life and death to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.

Macbeth
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by John Wilders
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    17 June 2004
  • This is a detailed account of the theatre history of Shakespeare's Macbeth from 1607 to the present day. The shortest of the tragedies, Macbeth is compressed, complex and ambiguous and has been variously interpreted. The Introduction describes major productions and performers including David Garrick, Sarah Siddons, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Laurence Olivier. Sarah Siddons, the greatest Lady Macbeth, portrayed her as a ruthlessly ambitious woman who dominated her husband. Irving, on the other hand, saw Macbeth as 'a bloody-minded villain', unlike his wife, played by Ellen Terry, who was gentle and devoted. Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, in the most successful production of the last century, were united in their ambition and pursuit of evil. A detailed commentary alongside the New Cambridge Shakespeare text of the play describes how specific episodes and passages have been interpreted in the theatre.

Much Ado about Nothing
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by John F. Cox
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    05 February 1998
  • This 1998 edition of Much Ado About Nothing focuses wholly on the play in performance. John Cox investigates major issues and trends in the production of this popular work, analysing successive reinterpretations of the play in relation to their cultural and ideological contexts. Gender issues are central to the study, which highlights in striking ways the changing constructions of womanhood in performances from Shakespeare's time to the present. A commentary alongside the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the text recreates in lively detail interpretations of each passage in a variety of British, American, Canadian and other productions, including film and television versions. A full introduction also examines the problematic relation of dark and comic elements in a wide range of performances. An essential resource for students, teachers, actors and directors, this is an illuminating book for all theatregoers.

Othello
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Julie Hankey
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    02 June 2005
  • This second edition of Othello updates the first (Bristol Classical Press, 1987), both chronologically and conceptually. It includes consideration of productions from the last seventeen years, and reconsiders earlier material in the light of more recent critical attitudes. Post-colonial and feminist studies have had an impact on the way Othello is perceived and interpreted. The question of blacked-up/black/colour-blind casting and the significance of white and/or black audiences in different political and racial contexts have recently become much more clearly articulated. In the process, Shakespeare himself has not escaped the charge of racism. Equally, the position of Desdemona has received more focussed attention, both as the forbidden object of desire within a racial framework, and as a woman in her own right. This edition takes account of these developments in criticism, in the theatre, on film, and in the adaptations which set out to interrogate Shakespeare's text.

A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Trevor R. Griffiths
  • Published online:
    13 August 2019
    Print publication:
    13 September 1996
  • This is a detailed account of the theatrical fortunes of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the British stage, from the 1590s to the 1990s. The substantial, illustrated introduction traces the rise of the play from theatrical neglect in the eighteenth century through the spectacular productions of the nineteenth century to its current high status. The authoritative New Cambridge Shakespeare text of the play is accompanied by notes on actors' interpretations, settings and textual alterations. The author considers the cultural changes which have affected the play's popularity as well as the conceptions of individual directors from David Garrick and George Colman, via Madame Vestris and Beerbohm Tree, Granville Barker and W. Bridges Adams to Peter Brook, Robert Lepage and Adrian Noble. The book shows theatre history as cultural history. It will be invaluable to students of Shakespeare in performance at graduate level, working in departments of English or drama/theatre and to those intrigued by the changing reputation of Shakespeare.

Troilus and Cressida
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Frances A. Shirley
  • Published online:
    02 August 2019
    Print publication:
    18 August 2005
  • This edition is the first to offer a detailed account of the theatrical treatment of Troilus and Cressida on the British and North American stages from its first revivals at the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. As social turmoil increased, audiences grew more in tune with the play's cynical undercutting of the Homeric tale of Greeks and Trojans, and less dismissive of Shakepeare's dark comedic treatment of the Medieval tale of Troilus and Cressida. This edition of this problematic and fascinating play traces its theatrical history, drawing upon critical responses, photographic archives, promptbooks, and video tapes of more recent productions to trace changes in production styles and emphases. Stage history is placed against a broader background of social change including shifting attitudes towards war, politics, sexual issues, and the rise of feminism that has increased understanding of Cressida's actions in a wartime man's world.