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This book examines the conditions of the original performances in seventeenth-century indoor theatres.
List of contents
Introduction Andrew Gurr and Farah Karim-Cooper; Part I. The Context of Hard Evidence: 1. Why the theatres changed John H. Astington; 2. Practical evidence for a re-imagined indoor Jacobean theatre Jon Greenfield and Peter McCurdy; 3. Documentary evidence for an indoor Jacobean theatre Oliver Jones; 4. Continuities and innovations in staging Mariko Ichikawa; Part II. Materiality Indoors: 5. 'A ruinous monastery': the Second Blackfriars playhouse as a place of nostalgia Tiffany Stern; 6. 'When torchlight made an artificial noon': light and darkness in the indoor Jacobean theatre Martin White; 7. Acoustic and visual practices indoors Sarah Dustagheer; 8. The audience of the indoor theatre Penelope Woods; 9. In the event of fire Paul Menzer; 10. To glisten in a playhouse: cosmetic beauty indoors Farah Karim-Cooper; Part III. The New Fashions for Indoors: 11. The new fashion for indoor plays Andrew Gurr; 12. Changing fashions: tragicomedy, romance and heroic women in the 1630s hall-playhouses Eleanor Collins; 13. Reviving the legacy of indoor performance Bart van Es; Appendix: list of plays performed at indoor playhouses, 1575-1642 Sarah Dustagheer.
About the author
Andrew Gurr has taught at universities in New Zealand, England, Kenya and the USA. He spent twenty years as Director of Research at the Shakespeare Globe Centre, London. His academic books include Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (Cambridge, 1987), The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642 (Cambridge, 1992), The Shakespearian Playing Companies (1996), The Shakespeare Company 1594–1642 (2004), and Shakespeare's Opposites (Cambridge, 2009).Farah Karim-Cooper is Head of Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare's Globe and Visiting Research Fellow of King's College London. At the Globe, she is leading the research into the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the new indoor Jacobean theatre. She is the author of Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama (2006), Shakespeare's Globe: A Theatrical Experiment (co-edited with Christie Carson, Cambridge, 2008), Shakespeare's Theatres and the Effects of Performance (co-edited with Tiffany Stern, 2013); and The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage (2016).
Summary
The year 2014 witnessed the opening of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, based on seventeenth-century designs. This volume considers the effects that more intimate staging, lighting and music had on performance and repertory. It will find a substantial readership among scholars of Shakespeare and Jacobean theatre history.
