This work explores Restoration theatre practice and staging. It covers questions of contemporary playhouse design, verse and language, staging and rehearsal practices, and acting styles. The author relates the characteristics of Restoration theatre to the issues involved in staging the plays today and examines the history of the plays on the English stage from the 17th century to the present day. The book explores questions arising from reconstructions, with particular reference to the new Globe theatre, and includes discussion of plays such as The Duchess of Malfi and Tis Pity She's a Whore...

This introductory guide to one Shakespeare's most read and performed plays offers a scene-by-scene theatrically aware commentary, a brief history of the text and first performances, case studies of key performances and productions, a survey of film and TV adaptations, and a wide sampling of critical opinion and annotated further reading.

The purpose of this book is to reveal the antique pedigree of a now commonplace term, "Inspiration," an essential creation-myth now propelling notions of "self-expression" in modern art-making. Knowledge of the ancient sources of such supposedly "modernist" fixations will make a significant contribution to historical-cultural thinking, particularly by showing in detail the facts of an unrecognized evolutionary continuity. In order to personify "Inspiration," this study initially focuses upon Michelangelo's Bacchus of 1496, so revealing now-forgotten meanings once typically to be attached in a...