Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage

Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage

Author: David Gram

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-09

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1040014356

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Contemporary Farce on the Global Stage provides audiences and practitioners a detailed survey of how the genre of farce has evolved in the 21st century. Often dismissed as frivolous, farce speaks a universal language, with the power to incisively interrogate our world through laughter. Unlike farces of the past, where a successful resolution was a given and we could laugh uproariously at adulterous behaviour, farce no longer guarantees an audience a happy ending where everything works out. Contemporary farce is no longer ‘diverting us’ with laughter. It is reflecting the fractured world around us. With a foreword by award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig, the book introduces readers to the Mechanics of Farce, and the ‘Four Ps,’ which are key elements for understanding, appreciating, and exploring the form. The Five Doors to Contemporary Farce identify five major categories into which farces fall. Behind each door are a wide selection of plays, modern and contemporary examples from all over the world, written by a diverse group of playwrights who traverse gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Supplementing each section are comments, observations, and reflections from award-winning playwrights, directors, actors, designers, dramaturgs, and scholars. Designed specifically to give theatre-makers a rounded understanding that will underpin their own productions, this book will also be of use to theatre and performance studies students.


Medieval and Early Modern England on the Contemporary Stage

Medieval and Early Modern England on the Contemporary Stage

Author: Marianne Drugeon

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2021-09-20

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1527574997

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This volume explores the multiple connections between contemporary British theatre and the medieval and early modern periods. Involving both French and British scholars, as well as playwrights, adapters and stage directors, its scope is political, as it assesses the power of adaptations and history plays to offer a new perspective not only on the past and present, but also on the future. Along the way, burning contemporary social and political issues are explored, such as the place and role of women and ethnic minorities in today’s post-Brexit Britain. The volume builds into a dialogue between the ghosts of the past and their contemporary spectators. Starting with a focus on contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, then concentrating on contemporary history plays set in the distant past, and ending with the contributions of famous playwrights sharing their experience, the book will be of interest to practitioners, as well as students and researchers in drama and performance studies.


Greeks and Romans on the Latin American Stage

Greeks and Romans on the Latin American Stage

Author: Rosa Andújar

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-09

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1350125628

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The first comprehensive treatment in English of the rich and varied afterlife of classical drama across Latin America, this volume explores the myriad ways in which ancient Greek and Roman texts have been adapted, invoked and re-worked in notable modern theatrical works across North and South America and the Caribbean, while also paying particular attention to the national and local context of each play. A comprehensive introduction provides a critical overview of the varying issues and complexities that arise when studying the afterlife of the European classics in the theatrical stages across this diverse and vast region. Fourteen chapters, divided into three general geographical sub-regions (Southern Cone, Brazil and the Caribbean and North America) present a strong connection to an ancient dramatic source text as well as comment upon important socio-political crises in the modern history of Latin America. The diversity and expertise of the voices in this volume translate into a multi-ranging approach to the topic that encompasses a variety of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives from classics, Latin American studies and theatre and performance studies.


Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare

Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare

Author: Alexa Alice Joubin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-10-03

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1350410837

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A concise guide to global performances of Shakespeare, this volume combines methodologies of dramaturgy, film and performance studies, critical race and gender studies and anthropological thick description. This companion guides students from critical methodologies through big pictures of global Shakespeare to case studies that employ these methodologies. It uses a site-specific lens to examine global performances of Shakespeare on stage, on radio and on screen. As well as featuring methodological chapters on modernist adaptations, global cinema, multilingual productions and Shakespeare in translation, the volume includes short histories of adaptations of Shakespeare in Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Arab world, India, the Slavic world, Iran, Afghanistan and the Farsi-speaking diaspora. It uses these micro-historical narratives to demonstrate the value of local knowledge by analysing the relationships between Shakespeare and his modern interlocutors. Finally, thematically organized case studies apply the methodologies to analyse key productions in Brazil, Korea, Yemen, Kuwait, China and elsewhere. The final chapter considers pedagogical strategies in a global setting. These chapters showcase the how of global Shakespeare studies: how do minoritized artists and audiences engage with Shakespeare? And how do we analyse the diverse and polyphonic performances with an eye towards equity and social justice?


Flamenco on the Global Stage

Flamenco on the Global Stage

Author: K. Meira Goldberg

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1476621020

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The language of the body is central to the study of flamenco. From the records of the Inquisition, to 16th century literature, to European travel diaries, the Spanish dancer beguiles and fascinates. The word flamenco evokes the image of a sensuous and rebellious woman--the bailaora --whose movements seduce the audience, only to reject their attention with a stomp of defiance. The dancer's body is an agent of ideological resistance, conveying a conflicting desire for subjectivity and autonomy and implying deeply held ideas about history, national identity, femininity and masculinity. This collection of new essays provides an overview of flamenco scholarship, illuminating flamenco's narrative and chronology and addressing some common misconceptions. The contributors offer fresh perspectives on age-old themes and suggest new paradigms for flamenco as a cultural practice. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.


The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre

The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre

Author: Nicholas Grene

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-07-28

Total Pages: 952

ISBN-13: 0191016349

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The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre provides the single most comprehensive survey of the field to be found in a single volume. Drawing on more than forty contributors from around the world, the book addresses a full range of topics relating to modern Irish theatre from the late nineteenth-century to the most recent works of postdramatic devised theatre. Ireland has long had an importance in the world of theatre out of all proportion to the size of the country, and has been home to four Nobel Laureates (Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett; Seamus Heaney, while primarily a poet, also wrote for the stage). This collection begins with the influence of melodrama, and looks at arguably the first modern Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, before moving into a series of considerations of the Abbey Theatre, and Irish modernism. Arranged chronologically, it explores areas such as women in theatre, Irish-language theatre, and alternative theatres, before reaching the major writers of more recent Irish theatre, including Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, and their successors. There are also individual chapters focusing on Beckett and Shaw, as well as a series of chapters looking at design, acting, and theatre architecture. The book concludes with an extended survey of the critical literature on the field. In each chapter, the author does not simply rehearse accepted wisdom; all of the contributors push the boundaries of their respective fields, so that each chapter is a significant contribution to scholarship in its own right.


Study in Black and White

Study in Black and White

Author: Tanya Sheehan

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2018-11-26

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0271082488

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In this volume, Tanya Sheehan takes humor seriously in order to trace how photographic comedy was used in America and transnationally to express evolving ideas about race, black emancipation, and civil rights in the mid-1800s and into the twentieth century. Sheehan employs a trove of understudied materials to write a new history of photography, one that encompasses the rise of the commercial portrait studio in the 1840s, the popularization of amateur photography around 1900, and the mass circulation of postcards and other photographic ephemera in the twentieth century. She examines the racial politics that shaped some of the most essential elements of the medium, from the negative-positive process to the convention of the photographic smile. The book also places historical discourses in relation to contemporary art that critiques racism through humor, including the work of Genevieve Grieves, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, and Fred Wilson. By treating racial humor about and within the photographic medium as complex social commentary, rather than a collectible curiosity, Study in Black and White enriches our understanding of photography in popular culture. Transhistorical and interdisciplinary, this book will be of vital interest to scholars of art history and visual studies, critical race studies, U.S. history, and African American studies.


Contemporary British Drama

Contemporary British Drama

Author: Catherine Rees

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-13

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1137610298

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This guide offers a comprehensive account of British theatre from the 1960s to the present day. Placing critical commentary at the heart of its analysis, it explores how theatre critics and scholars have sought to understand and write about modern theatre, from the earliest reviews to revivals appearing decades later. With studies of contemporary reviews and archival material, Contemporary British Drama offers readers the opportunity to learn about British theatre in its original context and to chart shifting critical perceptions over the decades. It provides a crucial juxtaposition between the development of British theatre and its contemporaneous critical response, supplying an invaluable insight into the critical climate of recent decades. From feminist playwrighting to In-Yer-Face theatre, this is the ideal companion for undergraduate students of literature and theatre in need of an introduction to the debates surrounding contemporary British drama.


The Literature of Lashkar-E-Tayyaba

The Literature of Lashkar-E-Tayyaba

Author: FAIR.

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 0198883935

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Since its inception in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), also known as the Jamaat-ul-Dawa (JuD), has arguably been the most threatening and disruptive terrorist organization in South Asia and beyond. While there is considerable scholarship on its history and operations, few scholars have exploited the organization's vast publications. This volume is the first scholarly effort to curate a sample of LeT's Urdu-language publications and then translate them into English for the scholarly community studying this group and related organizations. While the original texts were written and published by Dar al Andalus, which exclusively publishes LeT's books, pamphlets, posters, speeches, and other materials with the explicit intention of diffusing the group's ideology, raising funds, and cultivating volunteers for the organization, the authors hope that by rendering the group's materials more accessible, this book can contribute to the myriad efforts to combat such groups and the violence they perpetrate.


Romanian Contemporary Art 2010–2020

Romanian Contemporary Art 2010–2020

Author: Adrian Bojenoiu

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13: 377574651X

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Gegenwartskunst ist mehr als schlichte Zeitgenossenschaft. Es ist eine neue Weise des Sehens und des Sichtbarmachens. Diesem Gedanken ist der radikale Wandel verpflichtet, mit dem die rumänische Kunst sich im vergangenen Jahrzehnt neu erfunden hat. Zu verdanken ist dies nicht nur etablierten Künstlern, die sich neue Ausdrucksmittel erschließen. Antrieb ist vor allem eine junge Generation rumänischer Künstler, die nicht mehr die direkte Erfahrung des Lebens und Arbeitens im Kommunismus gemacht hat. Ihre Werke artikulieren ein aktuelles Lebensgefühl samt seiner eigenen Wahrnehmung und Diskurse. Ein Hauptthema ihrer künstlerischen Produktion ist die Macht technisch vermittelter Bilder zur Kontrolle und Konstruktion von Realität und sozialer Erfahrung. Der prächtige Bildband nimmt diesen Schwerpunkt auf, um 29 der innovativsten Künstler und ihre eindringlichen wie faszinierenden Werke vorzustellen.