A Source In Theatrical History

An annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed passages includes views by observers from ancient Greece to modern times on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, props, much more.

An annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed passages includes views by observers from ancient Greece to modern times on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, props, much more.

"From the University of Florida College of Fine Arts, Charlie Mitchell and distinguished colleagues form across America present an introductory text for theatre and theoretical production. This book seeks to give insight into the people and processes that create theater. It does not strip away the feeling of magic but to add wonder for the artistry that make a production work well." -- Open Textbook Library.

Providing a clear journey through centuries of European, North and South American, African and Asian forms of theatre and performance, this introduction helps the reader think critically about this exciting field through fascinating yet plain-speaking essays and case studies.

This major study reconstructs the vast history of European drama from Greek tragedy through to twentieth-century theatre, focusing on the subject of identity. Throughout history, drama has performed and represented political, religious, national, ethnic, class-related, gendered, and individual concepts of identity. Erika Fischer-Lichte's topics include: * ancient Greek theatre * Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre by Corneilli, Racine, Molière * the Italian commedia dell'arte and its transformations into eighteenth-century drama * the German Enlightenment - Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and Lenz * romanticism by Kleist, Byron, Shelley, Hugo, de Vigny, Musset, Büchner, and Nestroy * the turn of the century - Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Stanislavski * the twentieth century - Craig, Meyerhold, Artaud, O'Neill, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, Müller. Anyone interested in theatre throughout history and today will find this an invaluable source of information.

Table of contents