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 | | Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare in Production) by William Shakespeare, James N. Loehlin (Editor) ISBN-10: 9780521661157 ISBN-10: 0-521-66115-3 ISBN-13: 9780521661157 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-66115-7 Hardcover 2002-06-03 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Romeo and Juliet has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on stage and film. This edition provides the full text of the play as well as a thorough account of its production history, equally useful for the scholar, actor and director. The introduction examines major changes over four centuries of theatrical production. The commentary provides detailed examples of how different performers, from Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, have brought life and death to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. | ||
Book Description Romeo and Juliet has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on stage and film. This edition provides the full text of the play as well as a thorough account of its production history, equally useful for the scholar, actor and director. The introduction examines major changes over four centuri es of theatrical production. The commentary gives detailed examples of how different performers, from Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, have brought life and death to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. | ||
Reviews | ||
Romeo & Juliet on stage, not just on page Whereas standard editions of Romeo and Juliet focus primarily on thematic issues, textual variants, patterns of imagery, literary sources, biographical issues, etc., this volume (like the others in this series) examines its history in performance. Its amazingly thorough, 85-page, nicely illustrated introduction traces the play's long, fascinating, often bizarre stage history with details that are little-known and hard to find elsewhere: the fact that most actors playing the lead roles were well over the appropriate age of the lead characters (one of the oldest, an American, was still playing it at 65, to a Juliet who was 57); that no cast list of the original production survives, so no one knows who first played Romeo (speculation centers on Richard Burbage as Romeo, perhaps with Shakespeare as Friar Lawrence); that the Victorians often cast women as Romeo, with at least one playing opposite her sister as Juliet; that a notable 18th century actor, aged 41, played Romeo opposite his own young daughter (much to audience disdain); and so on. There is also a history of musical adaptations of it, film versions of it, renditions of it in languages other than English, as well as versions that altered Shakespeare's ending so that the young lovers could at least see each other (and sometimes sing a duet) in the tomb before dying. The text of the play is also presented with copious annotations, though they again emphasize stage presentation rather than theme, allusion, or literary explication. Thus, although this would not be the best choice for those who are reading the play for the first time (and is not priced for that market), it is indispensable for those interested in performance history--whether directors, actors, scholars of stage history, or just curious readers seeking a new and fascinating perspective on a play that, for many, has come to seem entirely too familiar. This is an example of scholarship at its absolute finest--lucidly written, dazzling in its thoroughness, amazing in its discoveries, astonishing in its implications, and even extremely much fun to read. | ||