scholarly journals Teatro Praga’s Omission of Shakespeare – An Intercultural Space

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (30) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Maria Sequeira Mendes
Keyword(s):  
Stage Design ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Henry Purcell ◽  
The Way

Teatro Praga’s (a Portuguese theatre company) adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest omit what is usually considered crucial to a Shakespearean adaptation by giving primacy to neither text nor plot, nor to a stage design that might highlight the skill and presence of the actors, a decision arguably related to what the company perceives as a type of imprisonment, that of the lines themselves and of the tradition in which these canonical plays have been staged. Such fatigue with a certain way of dealing with Shakespeare is deliberately portrayed and places each production in a space in-between, as it were, which might be described as intercultural. “Inter,” as the OED clarifies, means something “among, amid, in between, in the midst.” Each of Teatro Praga’s Shakespearean adaptations, seems to exist in this “in-between” space, in the sense that they are named after Shakespeare, but are mediated by a combination of subsequent innovations. Shakespeare then emerges, or exists, in the interval between his own plays and the way they have been discussed, quoted, and misquoted across time, shaping the identities of those trying to perform his works and those observing its re-enactments on stage while being shaped himself. The fact that these adaptations only use Shakespeare’s words from time to time leads critics to consider that Teatro Praga is working against Shakespeare (or, to admirers of Henry Purcell, against his compositions). This process, however, reframes Shakespeare’s intercultural legacy and, thus, reinforces its appeal.

Shakespeare Afoot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kerrigan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

That Shakespeare adds a limp to the received characterization of Richard III is only the most conspicuous instance of his interest in how actors walked, ran, danced, and wandered. His attention to actors’ footwork, as an originating condition of performance, can be traced from Richard III through A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It into Macbeth, which is preoccupied with the topic and activity all the way to the protagonist’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player | That struts and frets his hour upon the stage’. Drawing on classical and early modern accounts of how people walk and should walk, on ideas about time and prosody, and the experience of disability, this chapter cites episodes in the history of performance to show how actors, including Alleyn, Garrick, and Olivier, have worked with the opportunities to dramatize footwork that are provided by Shakespeare’s plays.

scholarly journals Making Amends: The Transformation of Theseus and the Feminization of Marriage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Charles Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Love ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Way

This study of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream asks why Theseus changes his mind about forbidding the marriage of Hermia and Lysander and what this change means for the view of marriage developed in the play and for the experience of art which the play engenders. By emphasizing the love of women for each other, the vows of sisterhood and the cult of Diana, the play prepares the way for Theseus’ change of mind and for the feminization of marriage and the celebration of imagination with which the play ends. We can observe these emphases in patterns of language and imagery (especially the flower motif), in metaphors and allusions and in descriptions of the union of opposites. The interplay of chaste love and desire delineates the art of metaphor and drama which the audience must grasp to fully appreciate the play. In Acts 4 and 5 Theseus’ resistance to romantic love melts away, along with his opposition to the imagination. Thus, during the wedding feast of Act 5, Theseus defends the amateur theatrics of the workmen as being excellent «if imagination amend them» (5.1.209); and he is associated in his language and ideas with Puck, the most fantastic and transformative character in the play. Theseus is himself transformed from the seducer and betrayer of women described in 2.1.77-80 into a worthy husband for Hippolyta, one who meets her halfway in her respect for the visions of lovers and poets. 

The Manifestation of Desire

2021 ◽  
pp. 120-147
Author(s):  
Kent Cartwright
Keyword(s):  
Causal Power ◽  
Faerie Queene ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Witch ◽  
The Faerie Queene ◽  
The Way

Chapter 4 conceptualizes the device of ‘manifestation,’ the term identifying the causal power of desires, thoughts, and words to call forth objects and even characters in Shakespeare’s comic world. In the spirit of critic Elena Zupančič, the device shows, among other things, the way that comedy can surface the amusing monstrousness and presumptuousness of human wishes. The concept of manifestation entails various literary and dramatic values that characterize Shakespearean comedy. Historically, it reflects interests and theories found in Renaissance treatises on magic, and it even parallels certain modern-day linguistic patters. The chapter formalizes and theorizes the device, drawing examples from a range of comedies. The Comedy of Errors (Dr. Pinch), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helana and the love potion), and The Merry Wives of Windsor (the Witch of Brainford) come in for special discussion. The chapter ends by situation manifestation in relation to entrance effects in medieval and Tudor drama and to allegorical effects in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.

Journey through light and darkness: a study of duplication in Shakespeare

1982 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Aimara Da Cunha Resende
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ideological Stance ◽  
Renaissance Poetics

As Shakespeare matures, his ideological stance changes from that of a writer believing in and backing up the establishment, to that of one who, though deeply aware of man in his human condition, doubts the validity of the status quo. His art then reflects the changes in his stance. At first it tends to present Renaissance poetics, becoming essentially Baroque, in its greatest phase, to move back to more firmly delineated forms and structures, in his last plays. This study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and The Tempest aims at presenting some characteristics both of the Renaissance elements in the structure, based on "mise en abyme," and of the Baroque poetics found within this structure. These aspects are viewed against the background of the ideology of Shakespeare's England at the same time that duplication, in Lacan's sense, is analysed and shows to coincide with the support and/or acceptance of the social cannons.

scholarly journals Shakespeare and the Demonization of Fairies

Text Matters ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 194-213
Author(s):  
Piotr Spyra
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Many ◽  
Historical Reflection

The article investigates the canonical plays of William Shakespeare - Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest - in an attempt to determine the nature of Shakespeare’s position on the early modern tendency to demonize fairy belief and to view fairies as merely a form of demonic manifestation. Fairy belief left its mark on all four plays, to a greater or lesser extent, and intertwined with the religious concerns of the period, it provides an important perspective on the problem of religion in Shakespeare’s works. The article will attempt to establish whether Shakespeare subscribed to the tendency of viewing fairies as demonic agents, as epitomized by the Daemonologie of King James, or opposed it. Special emphasis will also be put on the conflation of fairies and Catholicism that one finds best exemplified in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. The article draws on a wealth of recent scholarship on early modern fairies, bringing together historical reflection on the changing perception of the fairy figure, research into Shakespeare’s attitude towards Catholicism and analyses of the many facets of anti-Catholic polemic emerging from early modern Protestant discourse.

scholarly journals Remediating Global Media in Recent Shakespeare Productions on Romanian Stages

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mădălina Nicolaescu
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
New Type

Abstract The paper discusses recent Romanian Shakespeare productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Bucharest. It argues that global mass culture, in the form of TV sitcoms and musicals, YouTube clips and computer games, is re-circulated on Romanian stages with the result of re-mediating the older forms of Romanian Shakespeare performances. The paper interrogates the popular character of the new type of productions, which are largely unpolitical and motivated by commercial reasons. The last part of the paper presents a radical deconstruction of Shakespeare’s text in the form of a computer game, which, however, re-introduces the political orientation of older, pre- 1989 performances.

Victorian Fairies and Felix Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in England

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Wilson Kimber
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Musical Work ◽  
Incidental Music ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Theatrical Performances ◽  
Predominantly Female ◽  
To Receive ◽  
British Nationalism

In art, literature, theatre and music, Victorians demonstrated increased interest in the supernatural and nostalgia for a lost mythic time, a response to rapid technological change and increased urbanization. Romanticism generated a new regard for Shakespeare, also fuelled by British nationalism. The immortal bard's plays began to receive theatrical performances that more accurately presented their original texts, partially remedying the mutilations of the previous century. The so-called ‘fairy’ plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, were also popular subjects for fairy paintings, stemming from the establishment of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in 1789. In such a context, it is no wonder that Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream was so overwhelmingly popular in England and that his style became closely associated with the idea of fairies. This article explores how the Victorians’ understanding of fairies and how the depiction of fairies in the theatre and visual arts of the period influenced the reception of Mendelssohn's music, contributing to its construction as ‘feminine’. Victorian fairies, from the nude supernatural creatures cavorting in fairy paintings to the diaphanously gowned dancers treading lightly on the boards of the stage, were typically women. In his study of Chopin reception, Jeffrey Kallberg has interpreted fairies as androgynous, but Victorian fairies were predominantly female, so much so that Lewis Spence's 1948 study, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, includes an entire section on fairy gender intended to refute the long-standing notion that there were no male fairies. Thus, for Mendelssohn to have composed the leading musical work that depicted fairies contributed to his increasingly feminized reputation over the course of the nineteenth century.

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