1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910155087003321

Autore

Tribble Evelyn B.

Titolo

Early modern actors and Shakespeare's theatre : thinking with the body / / Evelyn Tribble

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London, England : , : Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, , 2020

London, England : , : Bloomsbury Publishing, , 2020

ISBN

1-4725-7606-3

1-4725-7605-5

1-4725-7604-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (238 pages)

Collana

The Arden Shakespeare

Disciplina

792.02/8094209031

Soggetti

Theater - England - History - 16th century

Theater - England - History - 17th century

Acting - History - 16th century

Acting - History - 17th century

Shakespeare studies & criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-215) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- The Moving Body -- 'Skill of Weapon' -- The Art of Dance -- The Skills behind the Skills: Variety and Overtopping -- Conclusions: Reconstructing Skill.

Sommario/riassunto

What skills did Shakespeare's actors bring to their craft? How do these skills differ from those of contemporary actors?" This volume "examines the 'toolkit' of the early modern player and suggests new readings of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries through the lens of their many skills.Theatre is an ephemeral medium. Little remains to us of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: some printed texts, scattered documents and records, and a few scraps of description, praise, and detraction. Because most of what survives are printed playbooks, students of English theatre find it easy to forget that much of what happened on the early modern stage took place within the gaps of written language: the implicit or explicit calls for fights, dances, military formations, feats of physical skill, song, and



clowning. Theatre historians and textual editors have often ignored or denigrated such moments, seeing them merely as extraneous amusements or signs that the text has been 'corrupted' by actors. This book argues that recapturing a positive account of the skills and expertise of the early modern players will result in a more capacious understanding of the nature of theatricality in the period.