Drama Performance And Debate

Early modern theatre was a visual matter, even though the authors wrote plays which were mainly meant to be read. But whether they wrote their plays to have them performed or not, authors could use comedies, tragi-comedies or tragedies to influence public opinion, to make a statement in a debate, or to convey explicit or implicit lessons that they carried out or had carried out by linguistic, rhetorical and theatrical means. How explicit they were in expressing their views depended on the characters of the authors or the circumstances in which they wrote. Questions regarding the opinion-forming and opinion-following functions of theatre, the means by which authors and theatre makers expressed their ideas, and the role of theatre and plays in public debate are discussed from various angles. Such questions refer not only to ‘literary’ plays, but also to other forms of theatrical event, such as royal entrances. Contributors include: Imre Bésanger, Hartmut Beyer, Stijn Bussels, Jean-Frédéric Chevalier, Verena Demoed, Arjan van Dixhoorn, Ron Gruijters, Jelle Koopmans, Frans-Willem Korsten, Katell Lavéant, Hubert Meeus, Marco Prandoni, and Helmar Schramm.

In this volume, 15 contributions discuss the role or roles of early modern ('literacy' and non-literary) forms of theatre in the formation of public opinion or its use in making statements in public or private debates.

Canadian Performance Documents and Debates provides insight into performance activities from the seventeenth century to the early 1970s, and probes important yet vexing questions about Canada as a country and a concept. The volume collects playscripts and archival material to explore what these documents tell us about the values, debates, and priorities of artists and their audiences from the past 400 years. Analyses throughout rethink the significance of theatre, dance, opera, circus, and other performance genres and events. This landmark collection challenges readers to reconsider Canadian theatre and performance history. Contributors: Clarence S. Bayne, Kym Bird, Justin A. Blum, Amy Bowring, Jill Carter, Jenn Cole, Cynthia Cooper, Heather Davis-Fisch, Moira J. Day, Ray Ellenwood, Alan Filewod, Howard Fink, Liza Giffen, J. Paul Halferty, James Hoffman, Erin Hurley, John D. Jackson, Stephen Johnson, Sasha Kovacs, Sylvain Lavoie, Louis Patrick Leroux, Allana C. Lindgren, Denyse Lynde, Erin Joelle McCurdy, Wing Chung Ng, Glen F. Nichols, M. Cody Poulton, VK Preston, Daniel J. Ruppel, Jordan Stanger-Ross, Paul J. Stoesser, Christl Verduyn, Anthony J. Vickery, Anton Wagner

Recently in the field of theatre studies there has been an increasing amount of debate and dissonance regarding the borders of its territory, its methodologies, subject matter, and scholarly perspectives. The nature of this debate could be termed "political" and, in fact, concerns "the performance of power"—the struggle over power relations embedded in texts, methodologies, and the academy itself. This striking new collection of nineteen divergent essays represents this performance of power and the way in which the recent convergence of new critical theories with historical studies has politicized the study of the theatre. Neither play text, performance, nor scholarship and teaching can safely reside any longer in the "free," politically neutral, self-signifying realm of the aesthetic. Politicizing theatrical discourse means that both the hermeneutics and the histories of theatre reveal the role of ideology and power dynamics. New strategies and concepts—and a vital new phase of awareness—appear in these illuminating essays. A variety of historical periods, from the Renaissance through the Victorian and up to the most contemporary work of the Wooster group, illustrate the ways in which contemporary strategies do not require contemporary texts and performances but can combine with historical methods and subjects to produce new theatrical discourse.

Performing Arguments: Debate in Early English Poetry and Drama proposes a fresh performance-centered view of rhetoric by recovering, tracing, and analyzing the trope and tradition of aestheticized argumentation as a mode of performance across several early ludic genres: Middle English debate poetry, the fifteenth-century 'disguising' play, the Tudor Humanist debate interlude, and four Shakespearean works in which the dynamics of debate invite the plays' reconsideration under the new rubric of 'rhetorical problem plays.' Performing Arguments further establishes a distinction between instrumental argumentation, through which an arguer seeks to persuade an opponent or audience, and performative argumentation, through which the arguer provides an aesthetic display of verbal or intellectual skill with persuasion being of secondary concern, or of no concern at all. This study also examines rhetorical and performance theories and practices contemporary with the early texts and genres explored, and is further influenced by more recent critical perspectives on resonance and reception and theories of audience response and reconstruction.

The profound political, economic, and social changes in China in the second half of the twentieth century have produced a wealth of scholarship; less studied however is how cultural events, and theater reforms in particular, contributed to the dynamic landscape of contemporary Chinese society. Rethinking Chinese Socialist Theaters of Reform fills this gap by investigating the theories and practice of socialist theater and their effects on a diverse range of genres, including Western-style spoken drama, Chinese folk opera, dance drama, Shanghai opera, Beijing opera, and rural theater. Focusing on the 1950s and ’60s, when theater art occupied a prominent political and cultural role in Maoist China, this book examines the efforts to remake theater in a socialist image. It explores the unique dynamics between official discourse, local politics, performance practice, and audience reception that emerged under the pressures of highly politicized cultural reform as well as the off-stage, lived impact of rapid policy change on individuals and troupes obscured by the public record. This multidisciplinary collection by leading scholars covers a wide range of perspectives, geographical locations, specific research methods, genres of performance, and individual knowledge and experience. The richly diverse approach leads readers through a nuanced and complex cultural landscape as it contributes significantly to our understanding of a crucial period in the development of modern Chinese theater and performance.

"This is the first book to deal with the writing of literary and philosophical dialogues in Greek from the Roman empire to the end of Byzantium and beyond. Arranged in chronological order, 16 case studies combining theoretical approaches and in-depth analysis introduce a wide array of such dialogues, including consideration of the neighbouring Syriac, Georgian, and Armenian, as well as Latin traditions"--Provided by publisher

Geoffrey Chaucer has long been considered by the critics as the father of English poetry. However, this notion not only tends to forget a huge part of the history of Anglo-Saxon literature but also to ignore the specificities of Chaucer’s style. Indeed, Chaucer’s decision to write in Middle English, in a time when the hegemony of Latin and Old French was undisputed (especially at the court of Edward III and Richard II), was consistent with an intellectual movement that was trying to give back to European vernaculars the prestige necessary to a genuine cultural production, which eventually led to the emergence of romance and of the modern novel. As a result, if Chaucer cannot be thought of as the father of English poetry, he is, however, the father of English prose and one of the main artisans of what Mikhail Bakhtin called the polyphonic novel.