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Hercules Performed explores the reception of the ancient Greek hero Herakles – the Roman Hercules – on the western stage from the sixteenth century to the present day, focusing on live theatre, including tragedy, comedy and musical drama. Each chapter considers a particular work or theme in detail, exploring the interplay between classical models and a wide variety of modern performance contexts. The volume is one of four to be published in the Metaforms series examining the extraordinarily persistent figuring of Herakles-Hercules in western culture, drawing together scholars from a range of disciplines to offer a unique insight into the hero’s perennial appeal.
This book offers a provocative and groundbreaking re-appraisal of the demands of acting ancient tragedy, informed by cutting-edge scholarship in the fields of actor training, theatre history, and classical reception. Its interdisciplinary reach means that it is uniquely positioned to identify, interrogate, and de-mystify the clichés which cluster around Greek tragedy, giving acting students, teachers, and theatre-makers the chance to access a vital range of current debates, and modelling ways in which an enhanced understanding of this material can serve as the stimulus for new experiments in the studio or rehearsal room. Two theoretical chapters contend that Aristotelian readings of tragedy, especially when combined with elements of Stanislavski’s (early) actor-training practice, can actually prevent actors from interacting productively with ancient plays and practices. The four chapters which follow (Acting Sound, Acting Myth, Acting Space, and Acting Chorus) examine specific challenges in detail, combining historical summaries with a survey of key modern practitioners, and a sequence of practical exercises.
This collection comprises a comprehensive overview of key themes, arguments, and practices central to the study and understanding of site-specific performance. Its collected essays, case studies, and practitioner accounts represent a must-have resource that engages with established and emergent ideas, themes, and practices central to this performance sub-discipline. Acknowledging the interdisciplinary nature of this field emergent through the creation and presentation of performance in non-theatre spaces, the companion includes writing from scholars whose work intersects with ideas from a range of related fields including dance, theatre, dramaturgy, human geography, architecture, walking stu...
Can theatre change the world? If so, how can it productively connect with social reality and foster spectatorial critique and engagement? This book examines the forms and functions of political drama in what has been described as a post-Marxist, post-ideological, even post-political moment. It argues that Bertolt Brecht's concept of dialectical theatre represents a privileged theoretical and dramaturgical method on the contemporary British stage as well as a valuable lens for understanding 21st-century theatre in Britain. Establishing a creative philosophical dialogue between Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno and Jacques Rancière, the study analyses seminal works by five influentia...
This is a book about falling as a means of reconfiguring our relationship with living and dying. Dancer, choreographer, educator and therapist Emilyn Claid draws inspiration from her personal and professional experiences to explore alternative approaches to being present in the world. Contemporary movement based performers ground their practices in understanding the interplay of gravity and the body. Somatic intentional falling provides them a creative resource for developing both self and environmental support. The physical, metaphorical and psychological impact of these practices informs the theories and perspectives presented in this book. As falling can be dangerous and painful, encourag...
Euripides' Bacchae is the magnum opus of the ancient world's most popular dramatist and the most modern, perhaps postmodern, of Greek tragedies. Twentieth-century poets and playwrights have often turned their hand to Bacchae, leaving the play with an especially rich and varied translation history. It has also been subjected to several fashions of criticism and interpretation over the years, all reflected in, influencing, and influenced by translation. The Gentle, Jealous God introduces the play and surveys its wider reception; examines a selection of English translations from the early 20th century to the early 21st, setting them in their social, intellectual, and cultural context; and argues, finally, that Dionysus and Bacchae remain potent cultural symbols even now. Simon Perris presents a fascinating cultural history of one of world theatre's landmark classics. He explores the reception of Dionysus, Bacchae, and the classical ideal in a violent and turmoil-ridden era. And he demonstrates by example that translation matters, or should matter, to readers, writers, actors, directors, students, and scholars of ancient drama.
"The book provides a compact theoretical account of the hidden functioning logic of the ideal of transparency. Transparency as a concept has become hugely popular in legal discourse and beyond. The book argues that there are underlying optical, conceptual, and social reasons why transparency makes sense to us: it promises immediate seeing and understanding. That is why it can form a powerful metaphor of controllability: in the state, for example, the governed are able to monitor the inner workings of the governor through transparency practices. The modern push for transparency is premised on the notion that the truth about governance is key to its legitimacy, and transparency can provide leg...
Shows how contemporary adaptations, on the stage and on the page, can breathe new life into Greek tragedy.
Paris and the Musical explores how the famous city has been portrayed on stage and screen, investigates why the city has been of such importance to the genre and tracks how it has developed as a trope over the 20th and 21st centuries. From global hits An American in Paris, Gigi, Les Misérables, Moulin Rouge! and The Phantom of the Opera to the less widely-known Bless the Bride, Can-Can, Irma la Douce and Marguerite, the French capital is a central character in an astounding number of Broadway, Hollywood and West End musicals. This collection of 18 essays combines cultural studies, sociology, musicology, art and adaptation theory, and gender studies to examine the envisioning and dramatisation of Paris, and its depiction as a place of romance, hedonism and libertinism or as ‘the capital of the arts’. The interdisciplinary nature of this collection renders it as a fascinating resource for a wide range of courses; it will be especially valuable for students and scholars of Musical Theatre and those interested in Theatre and Film History more generally.