Michael Flachmann knows Shakespeare. Not only does he have 40 years experience teaching Shakespeare as an English professor at California State University, Bakersfield, but he spends his summers working at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah, and with other professional companies as dramaturg—a scholar-in-residence who helps actors, directors, and designers bring Shakespeare’s scripts to life on stage.
Flachmann’s unique and intimate acquaintance with the way plays are created and performed has given him unprecedented insider access to a wide range of fascinating information. In this collection, Flachmann brings the plays to life as he discusses their meanings and shares the challenges of performing them for a modern audience. Written in language that will engage scholars, directors, theatre-goers, and everyone who loves reading and watching the Bard’s plays, Shakespeare in Performance takes the reader inside design conversations, rehearsal halls, and actor discussions for a behind-the-scenes look at some of the mysteries of professional theatre usually shared only by those within this cloistered creative process.
Michael Flachmann is a professor of English at California State University, Bakersfield.
Table of Contents:Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
The Birth of a Festival
Part 1/Dramaturgy
Dream Making in Cedar City
The Merchant of Ashland
Rehearsing the Audience
Designing the Script
Cymbeline in the Wooden O
The Kindest Cut of All
Part 2/The Comedies
The Errors of Comedy
“Touches of Sweet Harmony”
The Forest of Arden
“Swear by Your Double Self”
Festive Comedy
The Sins of the Father
The Two Comic Plots of Verona
My Daughter, My Ducats
“This is Illyria, Lady”
Love’s Labor’s Won
The Taming of the Script
Much Ado about Something
Part 3/The Histories
Parrot, Parody, and Paronomasia
Historical Narratives
Richard III and the Theatricality of Evil
Poetic History
Part 4/The Tragedies
The Medieval Heritage of Iago
Family Matters
Lear’s Mythic Journey
Biological Finance
The Scottish Play
The Art of Dying Well
All “My Travels’ History”
The Rhythm of the Kiss
Part 5/The Romances
All Corners of the World
This Rough Magic
“It Is Required You Do Awake Your Faith”
Part 6/Shakespeare’s Contemporaries and Other Playwrights
Food for Thought
Awl’s Well That Ends Well
The Heart of the Matter
Invalids, Real and Imaginary
A Modern Jacobean Comedy
Part 7/Acting Shakespeare: Roundtable Discussions with Actors and Directors
Measure for Measure at the 2003 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Henry IV, Part 1 at the 2004 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Romeo and Juliet at the 2005 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Hamlet at the 2006 Utah Shakespeare Festival
King Lear at the 2007 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Othello at the 2008 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Henry V at the 2009 Utah Shakespeare Festival
Acknowledgments
Notes