Let’s Talk about Titus Andronicus
Posted by nstodard on September 11, 2010 · 2 Comments
I’ve just finished reading for the first time Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s first tragedy and one of his earliest plays–scholars date its composition to circa 1589-1592, and the first Quarto version of it was printed in 1594. The play’s style is very much in keeping with a subgenre of plays popular in the 1580′s, known as … Read more
Filed under Life of Drama · Tagged with Blasted, Cleansed, Dumb Show, Lavinia, Metadrama, Revenge Tragedy, Sarah Kane, Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, Titus Andronicus, Tragedy, Vice Figure
What does contemporary metadrama tell us about contemporary theatre?
Posted by nstodard on March 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
In a post few weeks back, readers helped me compile a list of contemporary plays that can be considered metadramatic or metatheatrical. I’d like to pick this topic up again and ask you to think about this post’s title question. What does contemporary metadrama tell us about contemporary theatre? Now, I recognize that it’s sometimes … Read more
Filed under Life of Drama · Tagged with Aphra Behn, Contemporary Theatre, Duke of Buckingham, Metadrama, Metatheatre, Oscar Wilde, Restoration Drama, Shakespeare
Spring Forward, Link Back
Posted by nstodard on March 14, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Thanks to Nick Mwaluko for bringing to my attention Desmond Tutu’s moving article about the situation in Uganda from Friday’s Washington Post. Given this blog’s interest in the history of metadrama, here are some reviews of Bill Cain’s play about Shakespeare, entitled Equivocation, by way of StageGrade. By way of The Wicked Stage blog, a video musing … Read more
Filed under Drama of Life, Life of Drama · Tagged with Bill Cain, Desmond Tutu, Metadrama, Ophelia, Shakespeare
Aphra in Antwerp
Posted by nstodard on February 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Very shortly I will be picking up where I left off before the holidays with reading the complete plays of Aphra Behn, the wonderfully witty Restoration dramatist whose contemporary recuperation began with Virginia Woolf’s praise of her financial success as a playwright in chapter four of A Room of One’s Own (1929). Please do join … Read more
Filed under Life of Drama · Tagged with Aphra Behn, Liz Duffy Adams, Metadrama
Metatheatre in the 21st Century
Posted by nstodard on November 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Metatheatre in the 21st Century In his 1963 work Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form, Lionel Abel coined the terms “metaplay” or “metatheatre” to classify plays with a philosophic self-consciousness, plays that depict life as “already theatricalized” with characters “aware of their own theatricality.” As his study and others since have pointed out, this … Read more
Filed under Life of Drama · Tagged with Lionel Abel, Metadrama, Metatheatre, Shakespeare, The Understudy, Theresa Rebeck, Tim Crouch
Aphra Behn’s The Amorous Prince, Or, The Curious Husband. A Comedy.
Posted by nstodard on November 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment
The Amorous Prince, Or, The Curious Husband. A Comedy. By Aphra Behn. 2 down. 16 to go. Join me in reading the 18 plays of Aphra Behn (1640-1689). If you don’t know who she is, click here for a biographical overview. Click here for information on the Aphra Behn Society. Aphra in Duffy’s Or More than … Read more
Take Drama, Daily’s First Official Poll: “Queen, King, Drag Queen, Drag King, Drama Queen”
Posted by nstodard on May 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment
As a preface to this, Drama, Daily’s First Official Poll, I would like to reiterate and add to some points made in my very first post about drama terms, their etymology, and the on- and off- stage performance of gender roles. In ancient Greece, the verb infinitive theatre meant to behold. A theatrum was a … Read more
Filed under Drama of Life, Life of Drama · Tagged with Gender, Language, Metadrama
Cleopatra: (Drama) Queen
Posted by nstodard on April 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Cleopatra: (Drama) Queen BBC reports that near a tomb west of Alexandria, a team of archeologists recently found 10 mummies, a bust of Cleopatra, coins bearing her image, and a mask thought to have been Antony’s. These discoveries have led experts to suspect that the lovers may be buried nearby; three hopeful … Read more
Filed under Life of Drama · Tagged with Feminism, Gender, Metadrama, Shakespeare, Tragedy
