A truly groundbreaking collaboration of original theatre history with exciting literary criticism; Shakespeare in Parts is the first book fully to explore the original form in which Shakespeares drama overwhelmingly circulated. This was not the full play-text; it was not the public performance. It was the actors part; consisting of the bare cues and speeches of each individual role. With group rehearsals rare or non-existent; the cued part alone had tofurnish the actor with his character. But each such part-text was riddled with gaps and uncertainties. The actor knew what he was going to say; but not necessarily when; or why; or to whom; he may have known next to nothing of any other part. It demanded the most sensitive attention to the opportunitiesinscribed in the script; and to the ongoing dramatic moment. Here is where the young actor Shakespeare learnt his trade; here is where his imagination; verbal and technical; learnt to roam.This is the story of Shakespeare in Parts. As Shakespeare developed his playwriting; the apparent limitations of the medium get transformed into expressive opportunities. Both cue and speech become promise-crammed repositories of meaning and movement; and of individually discoverable space and time. Writing always for the same core group of players; Shakespeare could take - and insist upon - unprecedented risks. The result is onstage drama of astonishing immediacy.Starting with a comprehensive history of the part in early modern theatre; Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Sterns mould-altering work of historical and imaginative recovery provides a unique keyhole onto hitherto forgotten practices and techniques. It not only discovers a newly active; choice-ridden actor; but a new Shakespeare.
#2756082 in eBooks 2009-04-23 2009-04-23File Name: B006HD5DLK
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