David Maskell
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151616
- eISBN:
- 9780191672774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151616.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter analyses and explores the complex relationship between physical action and speech in Racine's plays and dramas. The chapter begins with the preliminary examination of stage directions, ...
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This chapter analyses and explores the complex relationship between physical action and speech in Racine's plays and dramas. The chapter begins with the preliminary examination of stage directions, both implicit and explicit, to show how physical actions are conveyed by words and how words and actions can have parallel theatrical functions. The chapter also includes discussion on how physical action is significant in Racine's visual language. Included is an accumulation of evidence of physical actions that are significant features of Racine's drama. This survey starts with the human body, which can be seen standing, sitting, kneeling, collapsing, or prostrate. The physical actions also include forms of bodily contact such as supporting, restraining, constraining, and embracing as well as the handling of stage properties. In addition to the evaluation of these actions, the chapter also includes the connotations of these visual languages.Less
This chapter analyses and explores the complex relationship between physical action and speech in Racine's plays and dramas. The chapter begins with the preliminary examination of stage directions, both implicit and explicit, to show how physical actions are conveyed by words and how words and actions can have parallel theatrical functions. The chapter also includes discussion on how physical action is significant in Racine's visual language. Included is an accumulation of evidence of physical actions that are significant features of Racine's drama. This survey starts with the human body, which can be seen standing, sitting, kneeling, collapsing, or prostrate. The physical actions also include forms of bodily contact such as supporting, restraining, constraining, and embracing as well as the handling of stage properties. In addition to the evaluation of these actions, the chapter also includes the connotations of these visual languages.
David Maskell
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151616
- eISBN:
- 9780191672774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151616.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
In the seventeenth century, plays were bounded heavily by the power of language and verbal effects. However, Racine provided stage directions so that even deaf spectators would see and understand his ...
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In the seventeenth century, plays were bounded heavily by the power of language and verbal effects. However, Racine provided stage directions so that even deaf spectators would see and understand his plays. In his plays, he introduced a theatrical language that is active in both the visual and verbal effects. The main argument of this study is that Racine's theatrical language has a more important visual component than is usually conceded. He exploited visual language throughout his career by highlighting decorations, by investing in the exits and entrances of his actors, by emphasizing physical actions, by investing in costumes and stage properties, and by endowing his characters with the skills of an orator through teaching them the proper display of passion, facial expressions, gesture, and tone of voice. In addition, Racine created a link in the speech and action as well as powerful interaction between the speaker and the listener. Theatrics in the seventeenth century conformed to and were constricted by the bounds of genre definition, but Racine unleashed and exploited theatrical language.Less
In the seventeenth century, plays were bounded heavily by the power of language and verbal effects. However, Racine provided stage directions so that even deaf spectators would see and understand his plays. In his plays, he introduced a theatrical language that is active in both the visual and verbal effects. The main argument of this study is that Racine's theatrical language has a more important visual component than is usually conceded. He exploited visual language throughout his career by highlighting decorations, by investing in the exits and entrances of his actors, by emphasizing physical actions, by investing in costumes and stage properties, and by endowing his characters with the skills of an orator through teaching them the proper display of passion, facial expressions, gesture, and tone of voice. In addition, Racine created a link in the speech and action as well as powerful interaction between the speaker and the listener. Theatrics in the seventeenth century conformed to and were constricted by the bounds of genre definition, but Racine unleashed and exploited theatrical language.
Stanley Wells
- Published in print:
- 1984
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129349
- eISBN:
- 9780191671777
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129349.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
An editor of plays faces problems deriving specifically from the fact that he is editing works written for the theatre. It is apparent that Shakespeare wrote not as a dramatist whose work would be ...
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An editor of plays faces problems deriving specifically from the fact that he is editing works written for the theatre. It is apparent that Shakespeare wrote not as a dramatist whose work would be completed at the moment that he delivered his script to the company for which it was written, but as one who knew that he would be involved in the production process. The data shows some idea of the scope of the editor's problem, and indicates that the problems are more acute for one who is supervising an edition of the complete works, in which some degree of consistency of approach may seem desirable, than for the editor of a single play. It is wished that, even in an edition of Shakespeare intended simply for someone who wanted to read the plays for pleasure, with no ulterior, academic motives, the directions should bear in mind the theatre for which the plays were written.Less
An editor of plays faces problems deriving specifically from the fact that he is editing works written for the theatre. It is apparent that Shakespeare wrote not as a dramatist whose work would be completed at the moment that he delivered his script to the company for which it was written, but as one who knew that he would be involved in the production process. The data shows some idea of the scope of the editor's problem, and indicates that the problems are more acute for one who is supervising an edition of the complete works, in which some degree of consistency of approach may seem desirable, than for the editor of a single play. It is wished that, even in an edition of Shakespeare intended simply for someone who wanted to read the plays for pleasure, with no ulterior, academic motives, the directions should bear in mind the theatre for which the plays were written.
Roger Warren
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128779
- eISBN:
- 9780191671692
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128779.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
One of the first problems encountered in portraying The Tempest involved a line from the First Folio text: ‘A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard’. Because of how this is conventionally ...
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One of the first problems encountered in portraying The Tempest involved a line from the First Folio text: ‘A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard’. Because of how this is conventionally perceived as a cue for noise that would hopefully resemble that from a storm at sea, this often obscures the dialogue and further leads to misinterpretation. Ralph Crane, who is probably the one who prepared the First Folio for its publication, was known to possess the habit of distorting stage directions in the hope that such would provide the reader with an improved literary account. What this chapter attempts to point out is that making of such revisions may be the cause of veering away from the real message that the scene, or even the play as a whole, intended to portray.Less
One of the first problems encountered in portraying The Tempest involved a line from the First Folio text: ‘A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard’. Because of how this is conventionally perceived as a cue for noise that would hopefully resemble that from a storm at sea, this often obscures the dialogue and further leads to misinterpretation. Ralph Crane, who is probably the one who prepared the First Folio for its publication, was known to possess the habit of distorting stage directions in the hope that such would provide the reader with an improved literary account. What this chapter attempts to point out is that making of such revisions may be the cause of veering away from the real message that the scene, or even the play as a whole, intended to portray.
David Maskell
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151616
- eISBN:
- 9780191672774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151616.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This study aims to redress the balance of those studies of Racine which focus entirely on the literary aspects of his play. It endeavours to shed new light on the spectacle offered by his plays, with ...
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This study aims to redress the balance of those studies of Racine which focus entirely on the literary aspects of his play. It endeavours to shed new light on the spectacle offered by his plays, with particular reference to the audiences for whom Racine wrote in seventeenth-century France. Because of the number of studies devoted to the literary reading of Racine's plays, this study of the theatrical reading of Racine's plays concentrates on the theatrical language of visual spectacle which embraces both verbal and visual effects. The primary source of this study is the text of Racine's plays which contain implicit and explicit stage directions. The method adopted in this study is the identification of the elements of Racine's theatrical language and his plays' recurrent theatrical features by closely examining his texts.Less
This study aims to redress the balance of those studies of Racine which focus entirely on the literary aspects of his play. It endeavours to shed new light on the spectacle offered by his plays, with particular reference to the audiences for whom Racine wrote in seventeenth-century France. Because of the number of studies devoted to the literary reading of Racine's plays, this study of the theatrical reading of Racine's plays concentrates on the theatrical language of visual spectacle which embraces both verbal and visual effects. The primary source of this study is the text of Racine's plays which contain implicit and explicit stage directions. The method adopted in this study is the identification of the elements of Racine's theatrical language and his plays' recurrent theatrical features by closely examining his texts.
Carrie J. Preston
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231166508
- eISBN:
- 9780231541541
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231166508.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Britten and Plomer put the noh play Sumidagawa through multiple stages of adaptation and revision over a period of years to create their queer drag “parable for church performance,” Curlew River. The ...
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Britten and Plomer put the noh play Sumidagawa through multiple stages of adaptation and revision over a period of years to create their queer drag “parable for church performance,” Curlew River. The conventional Christian renunciation in Curlew River has been unpalatable to some queer theorists just as feminists have critiqued Beckett’s authoritative directing practice and painful dramaturgy in late plays like Footfalls/Pas; Preston reads both as noh-influenced late-modernist dramas exploring submissive forms of being.Less
Britten and Plomer put the noh play Sumidagawa through multiple stages of adaptation and revision over a period of years to create their queer drag “parable for church performance,” Curlew River. The conventional Christian renunciation in Curlew River has been unpalatable to some queer theorists just as feminists have critiqued Beckett’s authoritative directing practice and painful dramaturgy in late plays like Footfalls/Pas; Preston reads both as noh-influenced late-modernist dramas exploring submissive forms of being.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226304823
- eISBN:
- 9780226304885
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226304885.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter discusses certain aspects of stage direction and set design. An important part of the audience for Italian opera in the United States and Italy tends to be exceptionally conservative ...
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This chapter discusses certain aspects of stage direction and set design. An important part of the audience for Italian opera in the United States and Italy tends to be exceptionally conservative when it comes to the staging of works they know and love. Neither Verdi nor any other nineteenth-century Italian composer could have imagined the emergence during the twentieth century of interventionist stage directors and so-called radical stagings. Resistance to this approach has been fierce, particularly in the United States and Italy. By the 1820s, opera librettos tended to incorporate a larger number of elaborate stage directions, indicating the increased importance of dramatic action throughout each work. The construction of these librettos was dependent upon ever more complex arrangements of the painted backdrops used for the settings and solid pieces of scenery, some purely decorative and some accommodating actors.Less
This chapter discusses certain aspects of stage direction and set design. An important part of the audience for Italian opera in the United States and Italy tends to be exceptionally conservative when it comes to the staging of works they know and love. Neither Verdi nor any other nineteenth-century Italian composer could have imagined the emergence during the twentieth century of interventionist stage directors and so-called radical stagings. Resistance to this approach has been fierce, particularly in the United States and Italy. By the 1820s, opera librettos tended to incorporate a larger number of elaborate stage directions, indicating the increased importance of dramatic action throughout each work. The construction of these librettos was dependent upon ever more complex arrangements of the painted backdrops used for the settings and solid pieces of scenery, some purely decorative and some accommodating actors.
David Lewin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182088
- eISBN:
- 9780199850594
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182088.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter proposes two linked ideas about classical music theater. First, it suggests that each analytical observation about the music-cum-text intends (inter alia) a point of dramatic direction. ...
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This chapter proposes two linked ideas about classical music theater. First, it suggests that each analytical observation about the music-cum-text intends (inter alia) a point of dramatic direction. Second, and conversely, it argues that each intuition we have about the behavior of characters on stage naturally seeks its validation (inter alia) through musical-textual analysis. To oversimplify the matter in a brief maxim: no analysis without direction; no directing without analysis. To demonstrate the relation between musical analysis and stage direction, the chapter examines a short passage from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. The passage, comprising a solo by Count Almaviva, and a subsequent solo by Basilio, opens the first act trio “Cosa sento!” Most people will observe that the Count has trouble making a firm cadence on the tonic, that the cadence on “sento” is somehow unconvincing, and that the Count must work hard—too hard—to achieve the eventual cadence at the end of his solo.Less
This chapter proposes two linked ideas about classical music theater. First, it suggests that each analytical observation about the music-cum-text intends (inter alia) a point of dramatic direction. Second, and conversely, it argues that each intuition we have about the behavior of characters on stage naturally seeks its validation (inter alia) through musical-textual analysis. To oversimplify the matter in a brief maxim: no analysis without direction; no directing without analysis. To demonstrate the relation between musical analysis and stage direction, the chapter examines a short passage from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. The passage, comprising a solo by Count Almaviva, and a subsequent solo by Basilio, opens the first act trio “Cosa sento!” Most people will observe that the Count has trouble making a firm cadence on the tonic, that the cadence on “sento” is somehow unconvincing, and that the Count must work hard—too hard—to achieve the eventual cadence at the end of his solo.
Tony Jason Stafford and R. F. Dietrich
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044989
- eISBN:
- 9780813046747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044989.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well ...
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By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well as an insight into the play’s deeper textual implications. Satorius, whose mother was a poor washerwoman, has pulled himself up from extreme poverty by making a fortune in slum dwellings and presently craves nothing more in the world than for him and his daughter to be accepted by upper class society, a desire which is dramatized by means of the garden and library. Widowers’ Houses also exposes the heartlessness and injustices of British society. It is a remarkable example of Shaw’s dramatic practice of integrating gardens and libraries into the revelation of characters (as well as the implications of their names), the delineation of conflict, the symbolic value of the settings, the establishment of atmosphere, and the development of the theme of pretense and hypocrisy.Less
By examining Shaw’s use of the garden and the library in Widowers’ Houses in meticulous detail, one gains an appreciation of the complexity, subtlety, and mastery which Shaw therein reveals, as well as an insight into the play’s deeper textual implications. Satorius, whose mother was a poor washerwoman, has pulled himself up from extreme poverty by making a fortune in slum dwellings and presently craves nothing more in the world than for him and his daughter to be accepted by upper class society, a desire which is dramatized by means of the garden and library. Widowers’ Houses also exposes the heartlessness and injustices of British society. It is a remarkable example of Shaw’s dramatic practice of integrating gardens and libraries into the revelation of characters (as well as the implications of their names), the delineation of conflict, the symbolic value of the settings, the establishment of atmosphere, and the development of the theme of pretense and hypocrisy.
Donald George and Lucy Mauro
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199324170
- eISBN:
- 9780199397280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199324170.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
In this chapter, the artists answer questions pertaining to performance on the operatic stage. Such topics as learning a new role, warming up before a performance, managing modern stage direction, ...
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In this chapter, the artists answer questions pertaining to performance on the operatic stage. Such topics as learning a new role, warming up before a performance, managing modern stage direction, pacing, integrating singing and acting, working with conductors, and projecting are included.Less
In this chapter, the artists answer questions pertaining to performance on the operatic stage. Such topics as learning a new role, warming up before a performance, managing modern stage direction, pacing, integrating singing and acting, working with conductors, and projecting are included.
Anthony Paraskeva
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748684892
- eISBN:
- 9780748695249
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748684892.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter looks at Beckett’s Nacht und Träume, revealing a complex referential structure by demonstrating how each minute gesture, taking its meaning by association with other hand gestures in ...
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This chapter looks at Beckett’s Nacht und Träume, revealing a complex referential structure by demonstrating how each minute gesture, taking its meaning by association with other hand gestures in Beckett, strives to achieve the symbolic properties of a micro-language. The chapter then reads the aesthetics and politics of Catastrophe as a critique of the modernist tendency to impose legibility on the body, and of naturalism’s mimesis of text and performance, its desire to induce identification in the mind of an audience. The chapter also reads the play as a self-critique of Beckett’s own tendency as a writer-director to formalise gestures within a self-enclosed and immanent structure. By foregrounding the partial opacity and double aspect of the stage directions, their sketch of gestures invisible to the eye, Beckett imputes an openness and indeterminacy to the text, leaving the central figure with choices to make, allowing him to be the author of himself in the play’s climactic moment.Less
This chapter looks at Beckett’s Nacht und Träume, revealing a complex referential structure by demonstrating how each minute gesture, taking its meaning by association with other hand gestures in Beckett, strives to achieve the symbolic properties of a micro-language. The chapter then reads the aesthetics and politics of Catastrophe as a critique of the modernist tendency to impose legibility on the body, and of naturalism’s mimesis of text and performance, its desire to induce identification in the mind of an audience. The chapter also reads the play as a self-critique of Beckett’s own tendency as a writer-director to formalise gestures within a self-enclosed and immanent structure. By foregrounding the partial opacity and double aspect of the stage directions, their sketch of gestures invisible to the eye, Beckett imputes an openness and indeterminacy to the text, leaving the central figure with choices to make, allowing him to be the author of himself in the play’s climactic moment.
Philip Gossett
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226304823
- eISBN:
- 9780226304885
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226304885.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This book is an account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with the author's personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances, and suffused with his passion for music. Writing as ...
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This book is an account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with the author's personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances, and suffused with his passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, the author brings to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our favorite operas. The book begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. It then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations between opera scholars, opera conductors, and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, the author also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design. Throughout this work, the text enlivens a personal history with reports personal own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro.Less
This book is an account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with the author's personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances, and suffused with his passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, the author brings to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our favorite operas. The book begins by tracing the social history of nineteenth-century Italian theaters in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. It then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations between opera scholars, opera conductors, and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, the author also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design. Throughout this work, the text enlivens a personal history with reports personal own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro.
Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Irina Reyfman, and Stephanie Sandler
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199663941
- eISBN:
- 9780191770463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199663941.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter focuses on the creation of court theater under the reign of Tsar Aleksei. It looks at the forms of dramatic entertainment and considers some of the better-known repertory pieces. The ...
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This chapter focuses on the creation of court theater under the reign of Tsar Aleksei. It looks at the forms of dramatic entertainment and considers some of the better-known repertory pieces. The creation of a theatrical vocabulary and stagecraft was a challenge that the Muscovite court met through the participation of a small and influential group of well-educated churchmen, including Polotsky, Rogovsky, and Prokopovich. Jesuit school theater, allegorical plots, and Biblical speeches were different ways of conveying messages sanctioned by the church and the tsar about moral behavior, conduct codes that prose tales more usually subverted. These modest steps toward creating a court theater fitted well into the assimilation of baroque techniques that featured stunning effect in poetry.Less
This chapter focuses on the creation of court theater under the reign of Tsar Aleksei. It looks at the forms of dramatic entertainment and considers some of the better-known repertory pieces. The creation of a theatrical vocabulary and stagecraft was a challenge that the Muscovite court met through the participation of a small and influential group of well-educated churchmen, including Polotsky, Rogovsky, and Prokopovich. Jesuit school theater, allegorical plots, and Biblical speeches were different ways of conveying messages sanctioned by the church and the tsar about moral behavior, conduct codes that prose tales more usually subverted. These modest steps toward creating a court theater fitted well into the assimilation of baroque techniques that featured stunning effect in poetry.
