bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nicaragua: Theatre in a New Society
Authors: Kaiser-Lenoir Claudia
Published: January 2009

One of the most revealing traits of the Nicaraguan revolution is manifested in the profound changes registered in the realm of culture. If Sandinista ideology focuses not on the fate of an élite but on that of the vast majority of the Nicaraguan people, it follows that for people to become the true subject of politics they have to become the true subject of culture as well. The popular Sandinista victory of July 1979 brought about the immediate establishment of the Ministry of Culture (the first in the country's history). Its goal: to give shape and nourishment to the popular effervescence and creative energies awakened by the long struggle. Work began with the organization of theatre, poetry, music and dance workshops throughout all sectors of the Nicaraguan society (army and police included), with the inauguration of Centres of Popular Culture in all regions, the creation of cultural committees in all grass-roots organizations, the training of ‘cultural promoters’ to work with regional governments, and with the task of rescuing and revitalizing popular cultural traditions.
The Colombian New Theatre and Bertolt Brecht: A Dialectical Approach
Authors: Rizk Beatriz J.
Published: January 2009

The struggle to eradicate naturalism from the theatre (or its satiric counterpart, the comedy of manners strongly rooted in the Latin American dramatic tradition and still very much alive), led the Colombian New Theatre forerunners consciously to seek new approaches to reality in their work. At the same time, there was the need, from the very beginning, to turn their practice into a functional system flexible enough to adapt to the needs and challenges of every new play.
The Latin American Theatre of Exile
Authors: Pianca Marina
Published: January 2009

It is not surprising that the ancient republics allowed the condemned to escape death through flight. Exile did not seem to them a softer sentence than death. Roman jurisprudence also called it capital punishment.
Lord and Lady Northampton and Queen Henrietta's Men: An Approach to the Castle Ashby Plays
Authors: Wolf William D.
Published: January 2009

In 1699, James Wright's Historica Histrionica … In a Dialogue on Plays and Players chronicled the troubles of the London theatrical community after the Civil War, during which it had supported the Royalists almost to a man. Wright's character Trueman, in the spirit of Dryden's and Dennis' spokesmen, tells his compatriot Lovewit that

Afterwards in Oliver's time, they used to act privately, three or four Miles, or more, out of Town, now here, now there, sometimes Noblemens Houses, in particular Holland-house at Kensington, where Nobility and Gentry who met (but in no great Numbers) used to make a Sum for them, each giving a broad Peice, or the like.
James Lewis's Plans for an Opera House in the Haymarket (1778)
Authors: Milhous Judith , Hume Robert D.
Published: January 2009

In 1780 James Lewis published the first of two magnificent folios, entitledOriginal Designs in Architecture. The title page explains that it consists of ‘Plans, Elevations, and Sections, for Villas, Mansions, Town-Houses, &c. and a New Design for a Theatre. With Descriptions, and Explanations of the Plates, and an Introduction’. Plates XIX-XXII are for ‘a New Theatre, designed for the Opera’. In fact, the designs are for a new opera house intended to occupy the site on which John Vanbrugh's Queen's/King's Theatre in the Haymarket had stood since 1705. The building would consume all the existing site and much of the surrounding property. Lewis explains the origins of his plans: ‘Our Theatres being upon a very small scale, compared with those of other principal cities in Europe, about two years ago [that is, in 1778] a report prevailed that a New Theatre was intended to be built by subscription, which might serve as well for all Dramatick Performances, as Concerts, Assemblies, Masquerades, &c. And the proprietors of the Opera House intending to purchase several adjoining houses and ground, to render the theatre eligible for the various purposes mentioned, suggested the idea of making a design adapted to the situation of the present Opera House, with the principal front towards Pall Mall’ (p. 12). This grand edifice would be like no other theatre in London.
Genet, the Theatre and the Algerian War
Authors: Bradby David
Published: January 2009

In sharp contrast to the Americans' involvement in Vietnam, which has been endlessly dramatized in different forms, the realities of the Algerian war, which lasted from 1954 until 1962 and cost 100,000 dead or wounded, have been dealt with by very few French playwrights or film-makers. In fact Genet is the only one to have written a substantial work based on this subject matter while the war was taking place. The one other dramatist with whom he can be compared in this respect is the Algerian playwright Kateb Yacine, whose trilogy Le Cercle des représailles offers some intriguing similarities with Genet's three great plays written during the course of the war: Le Balcon, Les Nègres and Les Paravents.
Portugal's Geraçao de 70: Drama influenced by a Changing World
Authors: Pierson Colin M.
Published: January 2009

The ‘Generation of 1870’ produced some of Portugal's best writers. In the theatre, two plays effectively broke the mould of playwriting and ended an era of overly moralistic and simplistic drama. The two plays could not have been more different: Os Lazaristas was a virulent attack on the Church while Viagem à roda da Parvónia was a satire on the middle class.
Actors as Activists: The Theatre Arts Committee Cabaret, 1938–1941
Authors: Greenwald Michael L.
Published: January 2009

Given the omnipresence of performers of all political stripes speaking for a variety of causes and candidates, it is difficult to remember a time when artist-activists were not an integral part of America's theatrical landscape. Indeed, under David Douglass's leadership, the American Company (formerly the Hallam Company) assuaged Puritan fears about the presence of ‘theatricals’ in staid eighteenth-century New England by performing benefits for local causes, thereby injecting its work with a social purpose. Throughout its history the American theatre has used performance as a propaganda weapon for such causes as abolition (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852), temperance (Ten Nights in a Bar Room, 1858), civil rights (A Raisin in the Sun, 1959), and currently the AIDS crisis (Angels in America, 1993). Political activism in the American theatre flourished in the 1930s, largely through the work and ideology of such enterprises as the Group Theatre, the Theatre Union, even the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and similar left-wing movements that sought to produce plays that deal boldly with deep-going social conflicts, the economic, emotional, and cultural problems that confront the majority of people. The mission was realized mostly through traditional theatre means, i.e. plays or agit-prop dramas à la Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspapers. These have been chronicled in a number of useful surveys, most notably Gerald Rabkin's Drama and Commitment (1964), Sam Smiley's The Drama of Attack (1972), and especially Malcolm Goldstein's detailed look at the 1930s radical theatre, The Political Stage (1974).
Jean-Paul Sartre, playwright and scriptwriter: Huis clos and Les Jeux sont faits.
Authors: Malachy Thérèse
Published: January 2009

A play, a film; one author, one dénouement: the die is cast, there is nothing more to be done. Huis clos (No Exit) ends with Garcin's disillusioned surrender: ‘Eh bien, continuons.’ In Les Jeux sont faits (The Chips are down) ‘lentement [les bras des deux protagonistes] retombent, ils se détournent et ils s'en vont, chacun de son côté’. Against all odds, Garcin, Inès, Estelle — in the play —, Pierre and Ève — in the film — fight in vain for a new life, only to capitulate when their failure becomes evident.
The Dangers of the New Sensibilities in Eighteenth Century German Acting
Authors: Flaherty Gloria
Published: January 2009

Playacting in public has been considered suspect since the day Solon stepped backstage to ask whether Thespis felt ashamed to tell so many lies to such a great number of people. From the very beginning, there were recognizable dangers not only for the audience but also for the actors themselves. And every possible attempt was made to point out those dangers and to obviate them. In theRepublic, Plato warned against imitating anything except pure virtue. Especially dangerous, in his opinion, was the imitation of a woman, ‘old or young, railing against her husband, or boasting of a happiness which she imagines can rival the gods', or overwhelmed with grief and misfortune; much less a woman in love, or sick, or in labour.’ Plato, and a long line of writers who followed, condemned such imitation, contending that the imitator could all too easily become what he imitated. In theIon, Plato discussed the divine frenzy that overcame the actor and made him momentarily insane or unable to distinguish truth from illusion.
Modern Chinese Drama: Characteristics – Problems – Perspectives
Authors: Schlenker Wolfram , Tatlow Antony
Published: January 2009

In China, Western theatre-goers often have the feeling that they are sitting in a boulevard theatre. At most the higher moral level and a certain didactic quality, together, with political seriousness, seem to distinguish the melodramas, comedies and thrillers from the popular plays of the commercial theatre at home. Reflecting on the different character of Chinese theatre, the European viewer quickly falls back on adjectives like ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’, even if he or she would justifiably reject such eurocentric judgments in an economic or political context. I should like to try not just to describe modern Chinese drama but to suggest some historical and social reasons for its specific characteristics.
Malaysian Drama in English: Is there a Case for a Post-Mortem?
Authors: Yong Margaret
Published: January 2009

Malaysian drama in English (MDE) is an inelegant name, but it describes exactly a curious breed of theatre in Malaysia: Englishlanguage drama, which seeks to be locally appropriate, in a country whose polycultural history has resulted in the presence of a diverse mixture of languages including Malay (the National Language), the major dialects of Chinese, Hindi, Tamil and other Indian languages, as well as English. Malaysian drama in English has existed for some twentyfive years – not a long history, even measured by the standards of the New Literatures of post-colonial nations. Its quarter century of life has been short and turbulent. MDE has followed a course marked by race riots, language demonstrations, defections from its fold, institutional indifference, censorship, and the gradual withering of the English language itself as a medium viable within the national context. Much of the history of MDE has been affected by the major socio-political changes of the nation. It is not possible, then, to see MDE as an autonomous, selfenclosed entity. Its life cannot be extricated from the national history out of which it grows, and its story is inseparable from the political fortunes of the English language in Malaysia.
The Origins of the Actor Benefit in London
Authors: Hume Robert D.
Published: January 2009

The importance of the actor benefit in the eighteenth-century London theatre is manifest. An actor's benefit was a key part of his or her contract, and the income it produced was a crucial supplement to the performer's ordinary salary. A benefit for a single performer could easily yield more than £50 (after expenses) early in the century – a. sum which might double the annual income of a second or third rank member of a company. The long string of benefits at both Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn.Fields each spring soon after 1700 (visible as soon as daily newspaper advertisements become customary) often total twenty or more at each house, and the actor benefit was to remain a basic feature of financial arrangements in London theatres throughout the eighteenth century.
Traditional Themes and Techniques in African Theatre and ‘Francophonie’
Authors: Schipper Mineke
Published: January 2009

‘Francophonie’ arrived relatively recently in Africa; it has only been systematically nurtured since the colonial occupation. The French have often even believed that the French language was ‘the best solution’ for Africa. Was there not, after all, only one culture, the French culture? And therefore it must, as far as possible, be spread throughout the world. A commission set up to formulate France's aid policy to developing countries confirmed the necessity ever to extend the influence of the French language as follows:

La France désire, plus que toute autre nation, diffuser au loin sa langue et sa culture. Son besoin de rayonnement intellectuel trouve bon emploi auprès de peuples dont la langue convient mal aux idées et aux techniques modernes (…): elle leur apporte un mode d'expression et une méthode de pensée.
Theatre History, Methodology and Distinctive Features
Authors: Carlson Marvin
Published: January 2009

We are living at a time when we are particularly conscious of historical change and of the impermeability of institutions, political, social, intellectual, and educational. The old disciplinary structures that organized our Western educational system for so long seem to have accelerated from the slow and comfortable evolution which gave rise to, for example, the various social sciences and, indeed, our own discipline of theatre studies into a dizzying whirl of new inter and cross relationships that the stunning proliferation of centres, institutes, and special programmes reflects but by no means adequately represents. The world of intellectual discourse, within which theatre studies, historical studies, and for that matter the cognate fields toward which and from which analytical ideas of theatre and performance circulate, has become in the last quarter of a century extremely complex, and seems to offer an almost infinite variety of methodologies vying for critical attention. There are a number of concerns and assumptions that run consistently through a great deal of this varied discourse, however, and one of the most important of these has obviously also contributed significantly our sense of a conceptual world in flux. This is the wide circulation in modernist thought of historical and cultural relativism, the rejection of traditional essentialist beliefs in favour of an attitude that regards most human institutions as culturally generated and thus always changing or changeable through the continuing negotiations of cultural activity.
Concepts of Theatricality in Contemporary Art History
Authors: Quinn Michael
Published: January 2009

Theatre historians often turn to art history, not only for information about source images that can help with the speculative reconstruction of lost performances, but also for lessons in historiographic method. Historians from both disciplines have long shared the difficulties of ‘ekphrasis’, i.e. the translation of nondiscursive images into descriptions, and vice versa, as well as other vexing problems of general history like periodization, documentation of events, and so on. Unlike theatre history, art history has a recognized pantheon of interpreters, which has been subjected to overview studies like Michael Podro'sThe Critical Historians of Artas well as specific treatments of major critics and their influence, like Michael Ann Holly's work on Panofsky. Theoretical concerns about historiography, sometimes assumed by literary critics of ‘master narratives’ to be synonymous with postmodernism, developed somewhat earlier in art historical writing, which would appear to be an advantage.
A Message to the Moscow Conference Delegates
Authors: Černý František
Published: January 2009

I shall be thinking of you during the XIIth World Congress of the International Federation for Theatre Research. I am honoured by your invitation to attend, but regret that reasons of health prevent me from doing so. After almost twenty years of political darkness in the former Czechoslovakia, which prevented me from attending meetings organized by the Federation, finally, when I would have been able to go other complications (which I hope will be temporary) have made it impossible. I ask, therefore, that you accept my sincere apologies for my absence at what for me is such a significant moment. I greatly appreciate the honour which you have conferred upon me, although I am not sure whether I deserve it. Even though my period of office with the Federation was short, I have always been convinced of the importance of co-operation among theatre researchers from around the world, in order to develop their subject and its methodologies and for the mutual exchange of research findings.
Theatre on the Brink of 2000: Shifting Paradigms
Authors: Reinelt Janelle
Published: January 2009

When I accepted the invitation to address this World Congress and first devised my title, I was drawing on a strong conviction that as we approach the century's end, we are living through a period of profound local and global changes which touch every level of our intellectual and emotional lives. The location of this present moment of our inquiries, poised between the markers of termination and origin, the end and the beginning, the twentieth and the twenty first centuries, seemed to me a powerful and widely understandable trope for our shared contemporary situation, at this conference and in our respective countries. But of course, this is a World Congress, and not for all the cultures of the world is this trope of brinkmanship immediately compelling. Assuming the Roman calendar without initial reflection, I have performed in my title one of the very acts which I planned to criticize: I have assumed in language, imagination, and sociality a centredness and primacy for Western discourse which I no longer believe or support. Indeed, the major important revision of the theoretical, historical, and critical apparatus of our time has been to de centre such governing assumptions. The title, then, marks the limits and difficulties of moving beyond historically inherited and inscribed paradigms, even as I struggle to do so, and I offer this revision of the assumptions of this piece: while for many of us, this talk of the millennium may provide a meaningful context for inquiry, for others it may be perceived as a foreign and local concept, in need of translation.
The Open Book of Alchemy in/on the Mute Language of Theatre: ‘Theatricality’ as a Key for Current Theatre/Research
Authors: Schramm Helmar
Published: January 2009

Some 200 years ago Novalis jotted down the following strange reflection: ‘About theatricality in the market place and in experimenting—every glass observation plate is a stage—a laboratory—a cabinet of curiosities is a theatre.’ In a way, the considerations that follow may be understood as a single footnote to this remarkable text.
The Law of Writ and the Liberty
Authors: Anderson Michael
Published: January 2009

Our players are not as the players beyond the sea, a sort of squirting baudie Comedians, that have Whores and common Curtizans to playe womens partes, and forbeare no immodest speech, or unchast action that may procure laughter, but our Sceane is more stately furnisht than ever it was in the time of Roscius, our representations honourable and full of gallant resolution, not consisting like theirs of a Pantaloun, a Whore and a Zanie, but of Emperours, Kings and Princes, whose true tragedies they do vaunt.
Shakespeare's Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth
Authors: Fitzpatrick Tim
Published: January 2009

It is my contention that Shakespeare intended his plays to be performed using only two doors for entrances and exits. In the rapid repertory system of the Globe, stage-management was essential, but there is evidence that it was not based on the arbitrary, mechanical rule-of-thumb previously suggested. Analysis of the entrance and exit patterns in Macbeth shows that there was an organizing system in force, but that it depended on, and in turn reinforced, the spatial logic of the play.
The Playwright in an Institutionalized Theatre: France
Authors: Gore Keith
Published: January 2009

To write of the situation of the dramatic author in present-day France is no easy task, since, inevitably, it involves making a largely negative report. Traditionally, the text in the theatre has been king; in schools and in universities, plays are above all read, and it is often – though perhaps not often enough – a revelation to those who study them to discover that the texts written by, say, Racine or Shakespeare, take on a different kind of existence when they are made flesh in the theatre. One of the qualities of such theatre is, of course, that it can be read and appreciated without any form of mediation, such as that provided, for example, by actors or directors. And it is perhaps odd that we may arguably derive as much from reading the plays of a Giraudoux, for whom the critical collaboration of his director, Louis Jouvet was crucial, as from seeing them performed. Could it be that the partnership of such a self-conscious writer with so committed a practical man of the theatre represents some kind of golden age in the relationship between the author and the director?
‘A Question of Location’: Theatrical Space and Political Choice in The Plough and the Stars
Authors: Richards Shaun
Published: January 2009

Space is the essence of theatre, for while we may have theatre without text we can have none without space. This, however, is only to refer to the architectonic space itself, while the problematic concern is not with the space in which we have theatre, but with the space from which the dynamic of the drama itself is derived, particularly as it is located in the analysable dramatic text. This, of course, leads to the contentious question as to whether text or performance has primacy in determining understanding; an issue dismissed by Jiři Veltruský as ‘perfectly futile’ as, in his view, ‘Drama is a work of literature in its own right; it does not need anything but simple reading to enter the consciousness of the public.’ While Veltruský locates the essence of drama in the dialogue, and so argues for ‘Dramatic Literature’, he does acknowledge the dimension of performance in a highly significant qualification to the self-sufficiency of the text: ‘Consequently, the individual arts in their turn influence the development of dramatic literature through the intermediary of theatre. Indeed, when he writes a play, the dramatist is not unaware of the existing theatrical structure and of the various openings it presents to new developments. This is true even though the play is a self-sufficient work of literature which does not necessarily require theatrical performance; the creating subject usually feels, though often unconsciously, the possible applications of his work.’
Displacing the Hero in Modern Irish Drama
Authors: Doherty Francis
Published: January 2009

The values of a community are revealed in its tragedies, and it is increasingly clear that the classical form of tragedy has been unable to accommodate modern values. It is too aristocratic for a democratic age. Sometimes it has been felt that we no longer merit a hero, and sometimes that heroes are now very dangerous and delusive. This latter view was articulated eloquently by the German philosopher-theologian, Karl Jaspers, in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazism:

Tragedy becomes the privilege of the exalted few – all others must be content to be wiped out indifferently in disaster. Tragedy then becomes a characteristic not of man, but of a human aristocracy. As the code of privilege, this philosophy becomes arrogant and unloving; it gives us comfort by pandering to our self-esteem.
‘To Define Your Dissent’: The Plays and Polemics of the Field Day Theatre Company
Authors: Hughes Eamcnn
Published: January 2009

The Field Day Theatre Company was founded in 1980 by Stephen Rea, the actor, and Brian Friel, the playwright, at the former's suggestion. The combination of a playwright and an actor in the founding of a theatre in response to a crisis which is both cultural and political recalls the Irish National Theatre Society and the founders of Field Day were conscious that such parallels would be drawn. For both Friel and Rea, the only available models were the Irish Literary Theatre and the Ulster Literary Theatre. The differences between Field Day and other such ventures are however as instructive as the parallels. The Irish National Theatre Society and the Abbey were always Yeats's project; his plays, his theories on drama and speech, and his cultural politics were the informing elements in the development of the theatre. Field Day's founders, however, quickly took on four other fellow-directors – Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney, David Hammond and Tom Paulin – for just as the Abbey had had Beltaine, Samhain, and The Arrow so Field Day has had its pamphlets and other non-theatrical projects, although in the case of Field Day, these are once again open to contributors from outside the company. The purpose of the pamphlets has been to re-examine the various pieties of Irish cultural life in this past century. In its short history Field Day has already attracted widespread attention, but the time seems right for a stock-taking since by the end of 1988 the company will have reached a plateau of sorts in its development. Since 1980 it has produced eight plays, twelve pamphlets, and one volume of poetry, not to mention the work its directors have produced outside the confines of the company; this work places Field Day at the centre of Irish cultural debate. 1988 saw the production of a new play by Friel, Making History – his first for Field Day since The Communication Cord (1982) – the publication of another set of pamphlets, which for the first time were by non-Irish critics – Terry Eagleton, Frederic Jameson, and Edward Said – and preparations for its anthology of Irish writing. The completion of these three projects should consolidate the company's position.
Morton Tavares: Jamaican and International Actor
Authors: Hill Errol
Published: January 2009

It is not widely known that the Caribbean island of Jamaica enjoys a tradition of live theatre that may well be second to none in the English-speaking world, save only in England itself. Conquered from Spain in 1655, the island boasted an active theatre as early as 1682, not very long after public playgoing had returned to England following the Cromwellian interregnum. Records are silent about theatre for the next several decades, but by the 1730s troupers from England had begun regular visits which culminated in the two long residencies of the famed Hallam Company that came to Virginia from London in 1752. Under the senior Hallam the company journeyed to Jamaica in 1754 and remained there, after Hallam's death, until 1758 when they returned to America, led by David Douglass. Again from 1775 to 1785 the company sojourned in Jamaica, waiting out the War of Independence, this time under Lewis Hallam junior. The record of their performances in the island has been chronicled in Richardson Wright's book Revels in Jamaica (1937), which has recently been reissued.
‘A Wha Kind a Pen Dis?’: The Function of Ritual Frameworks in Sistren's Bellywoman Bangarang
Authors: Cobham Rhonda
Published: January 2009

The Sistren Theatre Collective came together in 1977 as the result of an initiative of the ruling People's National Party in Jamaica. As part of an extensive special employment programme in the 1970s, the Jamaican Government had created opportunities for women to receive basic job training. One group of women who had been involved in a training programme as Basic School aides decided to put on a play for Workers' Week. Through the good offices of the recently established Women's Bureau, the group was able to work on this project with Honor Ford-Smith who was a tutor at the Jamaica National School of Drama at the time. Their collaborative effort resulted in the creation of a sketch, Downpression Get a Blow (1977), based on the women's domestic and political experiences. In the months and years that followed, the group went from strength to strength, creating plays from their shared experiences; working with other groups to use dramatic scenarios as a way of problem-solving and ultimately establishing a permanent company with its own research unit, community workshops and silkscreen printing activities. At the time of writing in 1989, ten of the original thirteen members are still with the group and two new members have been added. Another ten to twelve women and men are employed by the collective as resource and support staff.
The Geometry of Culture: Urban Space and Theatre Buildings in Twentieth-Century Berlin
Authors: van den Berg Klaus
Published: January 2009

In her 1983 book, Semiotik des Theaters, Erika Fischer-Lichte referred to theatre as part of ‘die Geometrie der Kultur’, a network of relationships materialized in space that symbolizes cultural experience. The concept of the geometry of culture may enable us to show how, in an urban space, different strands of human activities find their expression in the outline of urban space. Lewis Mumford demonstrates in The City in History that political programmes, economic interests, and cultural concepts influence the city's organization as well as the functions which individual buildings take in the urban environment. Cultural historians and semioticians such as Mary Henderson, Monika Steinhauser, Michael Hays, and Marvin Carlson have adopted this perspective for their investigations of the history of theatre in various metropolitan areas. For example, Henderson studies the relationship between the theatres and the financial district in New York City; Michael Hays and Monika Steinhauser analyse particular urban monuments, such as the Lincoln Center in New York and the Paris Opera. Marvin Carlson analyses how theatre buildings have been integrated historically as public monuments in various urban settings. Within the context of such studies I will examine the spatial and aesthetic re-alignments that World War II forced upon the integration of theatre buildings in Berlin, taking as case studies four major theatres: the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, the Deutsches Theater, the Schillertheater and the Volksbühne.
The Passion Plays in Tegelen: An investigation into the function of a passion play
Authors: Erenstein Robert L.
Published: January 2009

Passion plays in Europe exhibit a great many similarities as far as general content and presentation are concerned. I do not really think it is relevant for the non-Dutch reader, therefore, to delve too deeply into the specifics of content and presentation with regard to the passion plays in Tegelen in Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands. However, a great deal of the external interference surrounding the passion plays in Tegelen, has also been experienced by the organisers of numerous passion plays in Europe. Therefore, rather than discuss their content, it is far more interesting to investigate these passion plays through their development from 1931 when they began. Through this we can gain insight into the manner in which a social and cultural phenomenon such as a passion play can play a role in the maintenance and even the imposition of a particular world view. For the quality of the text and performance of passion plays are less important than the manner in which a community, usually a small one, driven by a communal ideal, expresses religious feelings which tens of thousands of spectators share. In such a performance there is communal activity with a ritual character. Performers are frequently anonymous and spectators and critics set aside any criticism of individual acting or the text because a passion play entails more than merely a large-scale theatrical performance by enthusiastic amateurs.
The Dying of the Light: An Actor Investigates Krapp's Last Tape
Authors: Schotz Amiel
Published: January 2009

Samuel Beckett's monodrama, Krapp's Last Tape, presents great challenges to the actor. A short piece, it is complex, many-layered and laconic. As always, Beckett never uses even one word, where silence will do. I rehearsed and performed the play some years ago and have continued to reflect on the play and the role of Krapp.
The Beauty of the Resistible Tyrant: Tamerlan at the Théâtre de l'Épée de Bois
Authors: Singleton Brian
Published: January 2009

‘The Théâtre de l'Épée de Bois offers Free Training in Actor's Workshop’, reads the announcement each year in Libération. The response is minimal. Of the four thousand actors in Paris at any one time, few will apply. The workshop offers on-site training for ‘theatre apprentices’ and most students and experienced actors decline. Of those who attend, few will have the constitution necessary to withstand the mental and physical demands required of those subsequently engaged for production, let alone be prepared for a ten-month rehearsal period, twelve hours a day, unpaid. The Épée de Bois is more than just a theatre company, it is also a school, and a way of life.
Empathy and the Ethics of Entitlement
Authors: Pelias Ronald J.
Published: January 2009

With the increasing familiarity of reception theory, deconstruction, collective creation and performance art, it seems as if performers have assumed they should pursue their craft unencumbered by textual dictates. Actors appear to be privileging their own interests over the interests of characters or literary personae. Even when actors turn from fictive characters to real life personalities in their presentations of one-person shows, oral histories and performance ethnographies, it seems less fashionable to discuss the people that serve as a basis for such performances than to focus upon the actors' personal preferences and individual visions. The question is no longer how performers might put flesh on the textual and human ‘skeletons’ they encounter but how they might pull a bone from here and another one from there in order to create their own figures. In short, ‘the other’ serves performers.
Theatre Fever: The Olympic Festival of the Arts, Los Angeles 1984
Authors: Free Katharine B.
Published: January 2009

The sun was beginning to set in a muted pastel wash over Hollywood. In a nervous daze, I approached the ‘theatre’, Studio 9, a converted sound-stage which had never before been used as a space for live theatre. I had prepared assiduously for the performance by re-reading the play, Shakespeare'sRichard II, the night before, and practicing French conjugations on the long drive through heavy traffic to Hollywood. The idea of listening to Shakespeare in French for four hours threatened to be incredibly taxing. My first sensations on entering Studio 9 were tactile. A spongy beige carpet was beneath my feet, providing an unfamiliar but distinctly pleasant odour. This carpet extended throughout the theatre space – underneath the bleachers where the audience sat, continuing to the raised stage and the ramps thrusting to the walls right and left. Black bands ran vertically from the back wall of the studio across the immense carpet up to the top of the bleachers.
Reflections on Seventeenth-century Verse ‘Affiches’
Authors: Brooks William
Published: January 2009

In addition to those theatre posters which survive from the seventeenth century, five verse affiches were published. In Dorimond's La Comédie de la comédie (first performed in December 1660 or January 1661), two characters come across an affiche posted on a street corner, and one of them reads it out:
Historical Source Material for the Karagkiozis Performance
Authors: Myrsiades Linda Suny
Published: January 2009

Karagkiozis, or Greek shadow puppet theatre, is a theatrical form that reflects nineteenth-century Greek oral culture. It utilizes a variety of national and regional costumes, dialects, and manners. Having developed in Greece during the period of that nation's modern history, it expresses the continuity of Greek culture and carries its themes, scenes of daily life, and characters. It retains, moreover, vestiges, or perhaps more accurately resurgences, of the pagan as well as the Christian past. Folk characters and types from folk plays and tales – the quack doctor, old man, old woman, devil Jew, Vlach, Moor, Gypsy, swaggering soldier, old rustic, jesting servant, trickster, parasite, stuttering child, ogre, dragon, bald-chin, and the great beauty – are its types as well. Popular folk dances, regional songs, and heroic poetry and ballads appear throughout Karagkiozis performances.
A 1660s Promptbook of Shirley's Loves Crueltie
Authors: Milhous Judith , Hume Robert D.
Published: January 2009

The number of late seventeenth-century promptbooks known to scholars has increased astonishingly in the last thirty years, but further discoveries are always welcome. We are pleased to be able to report a new find: a very full prompt copy for what is clearly a 1660s production of James Shirley's Loves Crueltie by the King's Company at Bridges Street. The prompt notes are written in a copy of the 1640 edition held in the Brotherton Collection (University of Leeds). Cropping has cut away significant portions of the markings, but fortunately enough remains that we can reconstruct the original annotation in almost all instances.
The Hideous Progenies of Richard Brinsley Peake:Frankensteinon the Stage, 1823 to 1826
Authors: Forry Steven Earl
Published: January 2009

On 22 July 1823 William Godwin addressed the following in a letter to Mary Shelley, who was returning to London after five years on the Continent:

It is a curious circumstance that a play is just announced, to be performed at the English Opera House in the Strand next Monday, entitled, Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein. I know not whether it will succeed. If it does, it will be some sort of feather in the cap of the author of the novel, a recommendation in your future negociations with booksellers.
A Provincial Tragedian Abroad
Authors: Barker Kathleen
Published: January 2009

By the middle of the nineteenth century, it had become almostde rigueurfor aspiring British entertainers to include at least one tour abroad in their career. Exchange – albeit initially a somewhat one-sided exchange – with North America dated back to the beginning of the century; as white settlement of Australasia developed, so from the third decade did theatre, and Gustavus Vaughan Brooke's success, particularly in Sydney, between 1855 and 1861, revealed a new opening for the more adventurous.
Shakespeare's Rosalind and Her Public Image
Authors: Hamer Mary
Published: January 2009

When Adrian Noble directed Measure for Measure at the RSC in 1983–4, colour supplement coverage focused on the costumes: the exuberance of the production was indicated by the extravagance of the designs. On 25 April 1985, before the opening of the director's new As You Like It, the Sunday Times Magazine ran an interview with him and with his Rosalind, Juliet Stevenson. There was a sense, not merely to be put down to the artificial hype of the publicity machine, that a new production and above all a new Rosalind were matters of concern and interest to a wide range of consumers of life's good things. Noble's Measure for Measure had been covered almost as a design story but As You Like It was treated very differently. Noble's views on the significance of the retreat into Arden were sought and reported: there was an underlying assumption that the readership had a stake in the representation of this play, that what was being staged was a property held in common by the journal's readers and that the play had a place in the public imagination independently of what directors did with it.
Theatrical Irony
Authors: Rozik Eli
Published: January 2009

It is my intention to derive the concept of ‘theatrical irony’ from the general theory of theatrical communication.

The basic meaning of the term ‘irony’, from the Greek word ‘ειρωνεια’, was ‘dissimulation’. Over the centuries, this term has been extended to additional semantic fields and consequently acquired new meanings as in ‘Socratic irony’, ‘philosophical irony’, ‘romantic irony’, ‘dramatic irony’, ‘tragic irony’, and so on. At the same time, a number of more colloquial expressions were introduced as well, as in ‘ironic smile’, ‘irony of events’, ‘irony of fate’, and so on. I am of the opinion, however, that despite the diversity of such phrases and regardless of their partial overlap, it is still possible to unveil a common semantic core. Furthermore, it is my belief that our understanding of theatrical irony benefits from all these additional usages.
Staging at St James's Palace in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Astington John H.
Published: January 2009

St James's Palace, which was perhaps planned by Henry VIII to be the court of the heir to the throne, came into far more regular use under the prolific Stuarts than it had enjoyed under the Tudors. Under James, the various members of the royal family were assigned particular palaces and royal residences for their own households, and St James's became the London court of the Prince of Wales.
Ira Aldridge in Manchester
Authors: Cowhig Ruth M.
Published: January 2009

On Saturday, 10 February, 1827, the Manchester Guardian announced the coming appearance of ‘the African Roscius’ at the Theatre Royal, Manchester. After referring to ‘his success in New York and in all the principal theatres in the United States’ and to his performances ‘in the Theatres Royal, Bath, Bristol, Brighton, Plymouth, Exeter, and upwards of fifty nights at the Royal Coburg Theatre, London, with universal approbation’, the notice states that he will spend one night in Manchester on his way to Edinburgh and Glasgow. A note in the Manchester Courier the following week (17.2.1827) emphasizes the adventurous nature of the theatrical event, telling the public that ‘the spirited manager of this establishment seems determined to spare no pains to render the theatre as attractive as circumstances will permit’. The attitude behind this retains a protective ambiguity towards the experiment.
Convict Performances in a Penal Colony: New South Wales, 1789–1830
Authors: Jordan Robert
Published: January 2009

The craze for amateur theatricals among the higher orders in late Georgian England is notorious. It was a passion that was given vent not only in Britain itself, but throughout the Empire, where military officers and civilian gentlefolk trod the boards in centres as far apart as Montreal and Cape Town, Jamaica and Calcutta. One colony that conspicuously lacked such genteel pleasures was convict settlement in New South Wales. The rigours of the posting, the minute numbers constituting the social elite, their geographic dispersal, and the bitter factionalism of their community effectively killed off any possibility of such theatre for the first twenty-five years or so of the outpost's existence. For the next fifteen years the positive influence of a growing population was negated by the continuance of the factionalism, by the deep suspicions of a succession of governors, and by the growing influence of the clergy, most of whom were bitterly hostile to theatre.
Words as Diagnosis: The Plays of Konstantin Iliev
Authors: Pancheva Svetlana
Published: January 2009

The playwright Konstantin Iliev (b. 1937) states: ‘The theatre, in its origins, is an art form recreating human relationships and, certainly, the most human means of communication is language. The colour red, for example, influences both the bull and the spectator in a specific manner but the word “blood” leaves the animal indifferent.’ Indeed language in each of Iliev's plays has a special function, both constructive and opening up the richness of human characters into their multiple parts. Iliev's plays are exploring the tangle of human relations, almost with a scientific method of analysis, man's ‘disease’ and his life, man and his surrounding world.
A Melting Pot of Talents
Authors: Prunet Monique
Published: January 2009

Over the last forty years, Bulgarian drama has displayed a remarkable variety, reflecting recent political changes. Most playwrights write poetry as well as plays, which may account for the metaphorical quality of a great proportion of contemporary Bulgarian drama. Their talents have blossomed in a wealth of productions dealing with topical issues and concerns, deeply rooted in the country's cultural traditions and way of life. In the following, non-exhaustive, survey, we shall try to present that variety through brief vignettes of those playwrights most familiar to a Bulgarian audience.
New Bulgarian Drama: Imagery and Style
Authors: Pancheva Svetlana
Published: January 2009

Over the last few years—which for Bulgaria were years of great political, social and psychological change, related to the disintegration of ideological systems and conventions, and to the destruction of established social and theatrical structures—the very term ‘Bulgarian drama’ seemed entirely missing from the theatre practice of the country. In the new theatre system that emerged from this period of change there was a dearth of new Bulgarian plays.
‘A Kind of Woman’: The Elizabethan Boy-Actor and the Kabuki Onnagata
Authors: Hyland Peter
Published: January 2009

When in 1932 M. C. Bradbrook put forward the view that the Elizabethan style of acting was probably formalistic, she initiated a debate that has not yet ended, between those who accept her view and those who, like Marvin Rosenberg, believe that Elizabethan acting style was probably realistic, akin to modern style. She wrote: ‘There would be comparatively little business, and gesture would be formalised. Conventional movement and heightened delivery would be necessary to carry off dramatic illusion.’ There is no real conclusion to be drawn, and those who take a middle way, arguing for a more complex fusion of the formalistic and the naturalistic, are probably close to the truth. The reason why the argument cannot be resolved is that there is virtually no contemporary evidence about acting styles in general or about particular performances, so that discussion rests less on scholarship than on conjecture based upon the few hints that can be gleaned from the plays and elsewhere. In this paper I want to consider the ways in which female roles might have been acted by boys and young men, taking my perspective from the performance of the onnagata, or female impersonator, in the Japanese Kabuki theatre.
Child Actors on the Paris Stage in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Authors: Hemmings F. W. J.
Published: January 2009

Sicut infantes audi nos. This motto, which Nicolas Médard Audinot caused to be emblazoned on the proscenium curtain of his theatre on the Promenades des Remparts (the future Boulevard du Temple), tells us in the first place that, however primitive the shows he put on, he was bent from the start in attracting a rather more cultivated clientèle than the artisan families and small traders who are supposed to have made up the staple of his audience. Only men of some education could have been expected to appreciate the pun (audi nos = Audinot). And only such men could have interpreted the legend, which we may render, a little prolixly perhaps, as: Give us a hearing, remembering we are children. There is the additional point that the Latin word infans meant originally ‘one not yet capable of speech’.