Dramatic Apparitions and Theatrical Ghosts - The Staging of Illusion across Time and Cultures

Ghosts haunt the stages of world theatre, appearing in classical Greek drama through to the plays of 21st-century dramatists. Tracing the phenomenon across time and in different cultures, the chapters collected here examine their representation, dramatic function, and what they may tell us about the belief systems of their original audiences and the conditions of theatrical production. As illusions of illusions, they foreground many dramatic themes common to a wide variety of periods and cultures. Arranged chronologically, this collection examines how ghosts represent political change in Athenian culture in three plays by Aeschylus; their function in traditional Japanese drama; the staging of the supernatural in the dramatic liturgy of the early Middle Ages; ghosts within the dramatic works of Middleton, George Peele, and Christopher Marlowe, and the technologies employed in the 18th and 19th centuries to represent the supernatural on stage. Coverage of the dramatic representation of ghosts in the 20th and 21st centuries includes studies of Noel Coward''s the Spirit , August Wilson''s Pittsburgh Cycle, plays by Sam Shepard, David Mamet, and Sarah Ruhl, Paddy Chayefsky''s The Tenth Man, Suzan-Lori Parks'' Topdog/Underdog , and the spectral imprint of Shakespeare''s ghosts in the Irish drama of Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, William Butler Yeats, and Samuel Beckett. The volume closes by examining three contemporary American indigenous plays by Anishinaabe author, Alanis King.>

Product details

• Authors: Ann C Hall, Alan Nadel
• Assisted by: Ann C Hall (Editor), Ann C. Hall (Editor), Hall Ann C. (Editor), Alan Nadel (Editor), Nadel Alan (Editor)
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.03.2025
• EAN: 9781350371736
• ISBN: 978-1-350-37173-6
• No. of pages: 248
• Dimensions: 138 mm x 214 mm x 16 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Japan, LITERARY CRITICISM / Drama, DRAMA / American / General, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / History & Criticism, Theatre Studies, c 1500 onwards to present day, Western Europe, North America (USA and Canada), Literary studies: plays & playwrights, Literary studies: plays and playwrights