Staging Conventions in Medieval English Theatre

Examines staging conventions in the medieval English theatre and ways in which they conditioned the reactions of the audience.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Outdoors and indoors; 2. Casting and doubling; 3. Rehearsing, memorising and cueing; 4. Coming and going; 5. Playing, feigning and counterfeiting; 6. Dressing and disguising; 7. Expounding and monitoring; 8. Effecting effects; 9. Timing and waiting; 10. Hearing, seeing and responding.

About the author

Philip Butterworth is Visiting Research Fellow in the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He was formerly Reader in Medieval Theatre and Dean for Research at the University of Leeds. In 2005 he took early retirement in order to concentrate on full-time research. His principal medieval publications are Theatre of Fire: Special Effects in Early English and Scottish Theatre (1998), Magic on the Early English Stage (Cambridge, 2005 and 2010, and winner of the David Bevington Prize, 2006) and The Narrator, the Expositor, and the Prompter in European Medieval Theatre (ed.) 2007. He also co-authored The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (with Joslin McKinney, Cambridge, 2009). He was a founder member of the renowned Octagon Theatre, Bolton and taught in the Drama Department at Bretton Hall for many years.

Summary

How was medieval English theatre performed? This book analyses dormant evidence of theatrical processes such as casting, doubling of parts, rehearsing, memorising, cueing, entering, exiting, playing, prompting, timing, hearing, seeing and responding. All these concerns point to a very different kind of theatre to the naturalistic theatre produced today.

Product details

• Authors: Philip Butterworth, Philip (University of Leeds) Butterworth
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.06.2014
• EAN: 9781107015487
• ISBN: 978-1-107-01548-7
• No. of pages: 283
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; England, English, LITERARY CRITICISM / Drama, LITERARY CRITICISM / Medieval, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, Theatre Studies, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, c 1000 CE to c 1500, Literary studies: plays & playwrights, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Literary studies: plays and playwrights