Rescripting Shakespeare: The Text, the Director, and Modern Productions / Edition 1

by Alan C. Dessen

Overview

Alan Dessen focuses on the playtexts used for staging Shakespeare's plays, from almost three hundred productions of the last twenty five years. Dessen examines the process of rescripting—when directors make cuts to streamline the playscript, save running time, etc., and rewriting—when more extensive changes are made. He assesses what is lost and gained by rescripting, and the demands of presenting to contemporary audiences words targeted at players, playgoers, and playhouses that no longer exist. The results are of interest to theatrical professionals and historians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521007986
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/20/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.79(d)
Lexile:	1600L (what's this?)

About the Author

Alan C. Dessen is Peter G. Phialas Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

1. 'Let it be hid': price tags, trade-offs, and economies; 2. Rescripting Shakespeare's contemporaries; 3. Adjustments and improvements; 4. Inserting an intermission-interval; 5. What's in an ending? Rescripting final scenes; 6. Rescripting stage directions and actions; 7. Compressing Henry VI; 8. The tamings of the shrews: rescripting the First Folio; 9. The editor as rescripter; 10. Conclusion: what's not here.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"An important study by one of the most astute critics of the performed text." Studies in English Literature

"A valuable resource for theatre practioners." Renaissance Quarterly

"The sheer scope of the project as well as its minute attention to particular production choices is astounding." Text and Performance

"In his current book, which draws so richly on his knowledge of choices made by directors and the opportunities lost or gained thereby, Dessen offers a fascinating history of nearly three decades of Anglo-American Shakespearean production and, in the process, makes a judicious case for not too blithely altering a script in the interest of clarification or contemporary relevance. In its appeal to examine afresh the received texts, Dessen's book couldn't be more timely." Essays in Theatre James C. Bulman, Allegheny College

Editorial Reviews

The treatment of references to swords in a production that uses handguns and grenades is one example of the adaptations made by modern directors that Dessen (English, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) explores. He fuses his earlier work on the first productions of Shakespeare's plays and productions since 1970, by comparing differences between them in the playtexts used, actual words spoken, scenes or segments omitted or transposed, and other elements. Some of the chapters have been published separately. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"An important study by one of the most astute critics of the performed text." Studies in English Literature

"A valuable resource for theatre practioners." Renaissance Quarterly

"The sheer scope of the project as well as its minute attention to particular production choices is astounding." Text and Performance

"In his current book, which draws so richly on his knowledge of choices made by directors and the opportunities lost or gained thereby, Dessen offers a fascinating history of nearly three decades of Anglo-American Shakespearean production and, in the process, makes a judicious case for not too blithely altering a script in the interest of clarification or contemporary relevance. In its appeal to examine afresh the received texts, Dessen's book couldn't be more timely." Essays in Theatre James C. Bulman, Allegheny College

From the Publisher