Stages and Playgoers: From Guild Plays to ShakespeareThe tradition of direct address has little to do with the frequently touted notion of the "fluidity of the Renaissance stage": the point is not that stage characters can talk to the audience but that they actually do reach out to the playgoers and in so doing import aspects of the audience world to the stage. These exchanges appear frequently in late-medieval drama and continue to be crucial stage strategies for Shakespeare, in whose work they grow and change. By examining a native dramatic tradition not fully explored before, Hill proposes new ways to imagine historical and contemporary performances. Stages and Playgoers will be invaluable for students of cultural studies, medieval and Renaissance studies, theatre history, and stagecraft. |
Contents
Oure Play | 15 |
Nonce Plays | 76 |
I Know You All | 109 |
Open Address in the Romances | 161 |
Notes | 185 |
221 | |
235 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham action actors audi audience audience's Bevington biblical Blackfriars Cain Cambridge University Press characters Chester Christ close comic companies contemporary Corpus Christi costumes court Coventry crowds Cymbeline David Bevington devil early Elizabethan ence England English Drama episode Falstaff figure fool Fulgens and Lucrece galleries goers Gower guild drama guild plays Gurr Hamlet Hattaway heaven Hell Henry Herod Imogen impresario Interludes Jachimo James Burbage John kill king King Lear Lear listeners lives loca London look Lord medieval drama Medieval Theatre modern morality plays N-Town never no-one Noah nonce plays open address openly Pandarus performance platea play's players playgoers Playgoing playing space playworld playwrights Posthumus present Prologue Prospero public playhouses Renaissance Drama Richard romance scaffold servant Shakespeare shepherds soliloquies speaks spectators speech story strategies talk tapster tell theatre theatrical thou tion Towneley Towneley's towns tradition Tudor Twycross Tydeman watching Weimann words York York's þat