Category Books

Rescripting Shakespeare: The Text, the Director, and Modern Productions »

Authors: Alan C. Dessen
ISBN-13: 9780521810296, ISBN-10: 0521810299
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date Published: June 2002
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: Alan C. Dessen

ALAN C. DESSEN is Peter G. Phialas Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Book Synopsis

Alan Dessen examines the pluses and minuses of directors' rescripting or rewrighting of Shakespeare's playtexts.

Booknews

The treatment of references to swords in a production that uses handguns and grenades is one example of the adaptations made by modern directors that Dessen (English, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) explores. He fuses his earlier work on the first productions of Shakespeare's plays and productions since 1970, by comparing differences between them in the playtexts used, actual words spoken, scenes or segments omitted or transposed, and other elements. Some of the chapters have been published separately. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

	Acknowledgments
	Note on documentation
	List of abbreviations
1	"Let it be hid": price tags, trade-offs, and economies	1
2	Rescripting Shakespeare's contemporaries	38
3	Adjustments and improvements	64
4	Inserting an intermission/interval	94
5	What's in an ending? Rescripting final scenes	109
6	Rescripting stage directions and actions	136
7	Compressing Henry VI	166
8	The tamings of the shrews: rescripting the First Folio	185
9	The editor as rescripter	209
	Conclusion: what's not here	235
	App.: productions cited	241
	Notes	253
	Index	264

Subjects

« Previous Book Jacques Copeau

Next Book » Talking Shakespeare: Shakespeare into the Millennium