Title: Double Shakespeares : emotional-realist acting and contemporary performance /
Authors: Mazer, Cary M.,
Year: 2015
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, Dramatic production.; Shakespeare, William,; Acting Philosophy; Shakespearean actors and actresses.; Acting Philosophy; Shakespearean actors and actresses; Theater
Abstract: "Double Shakespeares examines contemporary performances of Shakespeare plays that employ the 'emotional realist' traditions of acting that were codified by Stanislavski over a century ago. These performances recognize the inescapable doubleness of realism: that the actor may aspire to be the character but can never fully do so. This doubleness troubled the late-nineteenth-century actors and theorists who first formulated realist modes of acting; and it equally troubles theorists and theatre practitioners today. The book first looks at contemporary performances that foreground the doubleness of the actor's body, particularly through cross-dressing. It then examines narratives of Shakespearean rehearsal--both fictional representations of rehearsal in film and video, and eye-witness narratives of actual rehearsals--and how they show us the process by which the actor does or does not 'become' the character. And, finally, it looks at modern performances that 'frame' Shakespeare's play as a play-within-a-play, showing the audience both the character in the Shakespeare play-within and the actor in the frame-play acting that character."--Publisher description.
Contents: Introduction: The Anxiety of Identity -- Doubleness. Double Selves -- Undoubling and Redoubling -- Double Bodies -- Double Narratives. Double Fictions -- Double Memoirs -- Double Plays. Frames -- Three Scripts, Three Productions, Six Plays -- "Wounds Invisible": An Epilogue.