Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131737651X
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights by : Jacob Juntunen

Download or read book Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights written by Jacob Juntunen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates the political potential of mainstream theatre in the US at the end of the twentieth century, tracing ideological change over time in the reception of US mainstream plays taking HIV/AIDS as their topic from 1985 to 2000. This is the first study to combine the topics of the politics of performance, LGBT theatre, and mainstream theatre’s political potential, a juxtaposition that shows how radical ideas become mainstream, that is, how the dominant ideology changes. Using materialist semiotics and extensive archival research, Juntunen delineates the cultural history of four pivotal productions from that period—Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985), Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1992), Jonathan Larson’s Rent (1996), and Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project (2000). Examining the connection between AIDS, mainstream theatre, and the media reveals key systems at work in ideological change over time during a deadly epidemic whose effects changed the nation forever. Employing media theory alongside nationalism studies and utilizing dozens of reviews for each case study, the volume demonstrates that reviews are valuable evidence of how a production was hailed by society’s ideological gatekeepers. Mixing this new use of reviews alongside textual analysis and material study—such as the theaters’ locations, architectures, merchandise, program notes, and advertising—creates an uncommonly rich description of these productions and their ideological effects. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of theatre, politics, media studies, queer theory, and US history, and to those with an interest in gay civil rights, one of the most successful social movements of the late twentieth century.

Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317376501
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights by : Jacob Juntunen

Download or read book Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights written by Jacob Juntunen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates the political potential of mainstream theatre in the US at the end of the twentieth century, tracing ideological change over time in the reception of US mainstream plays taking HIV/AIDS as their topic from 1985 to 2000. This is the first study to combine the topics of the politics of performance, LGBT theatre, and mainstream theatre’s political potential, a juxtaposition that shows how radical ideas become mainstream, that is, how the dominant ideology changes. Using materialist semiotics and extensive archival research, Juntunen delineates the cultural history of four pivotal productions from that period—Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985), Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1992), Jonathan Larson’s Rent (1996), and Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project (2000). Examining the connection between AIDS, mainstream theatre, and the media reveals key systems at work in ideological change over time during a deadly epidemic whose effects changed the nation forever. Employing media theory alongside nationalism studies and utilizing dozens of reviews for each case study, the volume demonstrates that reviews are valuable evidence of how a production was hailed by society’s ideological gatekeepers. Mixing this new use of reviews alongside textual analysis and material study—such as the theaters’ locations, architectures, merchandise, program notes, and advertising—creates an uncommonly rich description of these productions and their ideological effects. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of theatre, politics, media studies, queer theory, and US history, and to those with an interest in gay civil rights, one of the most successful social movements of the late twentieth century.

Celluloid Activist

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299282333
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Celluloid Activist by : Michael Schiavi

Download or read book Celluloid Activist written by Michael Schiavi and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2011-05-10 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celluloid Activist is the biography of gay-rights giant Vito Russo, the man who wrote The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, commonly regarded as the foundational text of gay and lesbian film studies and one of the first to be widely read. But Russo was much more than a pioneering journalist and author. A founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and cofounder of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Russo lived at the center of the most important gay cultural turning points in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His life as a cultural Zelig intersects a crucial period of social change, and in some ways his story becomes the story of a developing gay revolution in America. A frequent participant at “zaps” and an organizer of Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) cabarets and dances—which gave the New York gay and lesbian community its first social alternative to Mafia-owned bars—Russo made his most enduring contribution to the GAA with his marshaling of “Movie Nights,” the forerunners to his worldwide Celluloid Closet lecture tours that gave gay audiences their first community forum for the dissection of gay imagery in mainstream film. Biographer Michael Schiavi unravels Vito Russo’s fascinating life story, from his childhood in East Harlem to his own heartbreaking experiences with HIV/AIDS. Drawing on archival materials, unpublished letters and journals, and more than two hundred interviews, including conversations with a range of Russo’s friends and family from brother Charlie Russo to comedian Lily Tomlin to pioneering activist and playwright Larry Kramer, Celluloid Activistprovides an unprecedented portrait of a man who defined gay-rights and AIDS activism. “Schiavi tells a compelling story in this biography—from his re-creation of life on the streets of East Harlem and in Greenwich Village of the 1960s and 1970s to the way he conveys Russo’s excitement about his film research and popular education to his account of the AIDS years in New York City.”—John D’Emilio, Italian American Review “In [Schiavi’s] hands Russo’s life is both fascinating in its own right and a window into a larger milieu of activism during two critical decades.”—Italian American Review Best Special Interest Books, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers Finalist, Gay Memoir/Biography, Lambda Literary Awards Finalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library Association

AIDS-Trauma and Politics

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498568092
Total Pages : 185 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis AIDS-Trauma and Politics by : Aimee Pozorski

Download or read book AIDS-Trauma and Politics written by Aimee Pozorski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AIDS-Trauma and Politics considers American literary representations of the social and political silence surrounding the AIDS crisis in the U.S. in the 1980s. The book offers close readings of such authors as Paul Monette, Mark Doty, Rafael Campo, Sarah Schulman, Tony Kushner, and Larry Kramer in order to argue that the AIDS crisis was born largely without a witness and, as a result, marks a significant trauma in U.S. history. Grounded by trauma studies, AIDS-Trauma and Politics argues that the arts, exemplified here by literature and film, uniquely underscore social problems otherwise overlooked by such discourses as politics, the law, and journalism. Defining the 1980s AIDS crisis as a perfect case, this book proposes to redefine trauma not simply as an event that happened too soon, but rather as an ongoing series of oversights resulting in a failure to acknowledge or witness the humanity of those who suffer.

History and Hope in American Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442276371
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis History and Hope in American Literature by : Benjamin Railton

Download or read book History and Hope in American Literature written by Benjamin Railton and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, creative writers have often tackled topical subjects as a means to engage and influence public discourse. American authors—those born in the States and those who became naturalized citizens—have consistently found ways to be critical of the more painful pieces of the country’s past yet have done so with the patriotic purpose of strengthening the nation’s community and future. In History and Hope in American Literature: Models of Critical Patriotism, Ben Railton argues that it is only through an in-depth engagement with history—especially its darkest and most agonizing elements—that one can come to a genuine form of patriotism that employs constructive criticism as a tool for civic engagement. The author argues that it is through such critical patriotism that one can imagine and move toward a hopeful, shared future for all Americans. Railton highlights twelve works of American literature that focus on troubling periods in American history, including John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident, Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Dave Eggers’s What Is the What. From African and Native American histories to the Depression and the AIDS epidemic, Caribbean and Rwandan refugees and immigrants to global climate change, these works help readers confront, understand, and transcend the most sorrowful histories and issues. In so doing, the authors of these books offer hard-won hope that can help point people in the direction of a more perfect union. History and Hope in American Literature will be of interest to students and practitioners of American literature and history.

Locating Queerness in the Media

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498549063
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Locating Queerness in the Media by : Jane Campbell

Download or read book Locating Queerness in the Media written by Jane Campbell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locating Queerness in the Media: A New Look examines how media images of the LGBTQ community create a universal consciousness about the existence of queer people, ranging from tragic and villainous to upbeat and courageous. In this book, contributors explore how our media world invites a tension that marginalizes the LGBTQ community. It examines what a queer sensibility means and how the queer community is creating new ways to study itself. Throughout the book, contributors explore specific media images that resonate throughout the media, casting the community in a particular manner. Ultimately, its goal is to promote an understanding of the LGBTQ community.

Viral Dramaturgies

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 331970317X
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (197 download)

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Book Synopsis Viral Dramaturgies by : Alyson Campbell

Download or read book Viral Dramaturgies written by Alyson Campbell and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the impact of HIV and AIDS on performance in the twenty-first century from an international perspective. It marks a necessary reaffirmation of the productive power of performance to respond to a public and political health crisis and act as a mode of resistance to cultural amnesia, discrimination and stigmatisation. It sets out a number of challenges and contexts for HIV and AIDS performance in the twenty-first century, including: the financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry; the unequal access to treatment and prevention technologies in the Global North and Global South; the problematic division between dominant (white, gay, urban, cis-male) and marginalised narratives of HIV; the tension between a damaging cultural amnesia and a potentially equally damaging partner ‘AIDS nostalgia’; the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure; and, sustaining and sustained by all of these, the ongoing stigmatisation of people living with HIV. This collection presents work from a vast range of contexts, grouped around four main areas: women’s voices and experiences; generations, memories and temporalities; inter/national narratives; and artistic and personal reflections and interventions.

Theatre, Exhibition, and Curation

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317564804
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Theatre, Exhibition, and Curation by : Georgina Guy

Download or read book Theatre, Exhibition, and Curation written by Georgina Guy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-20 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the artistic, intellectual, and social life of performance, this book interrogates Theatre and Performance Studies through the lens of display and modern visual art. Moving beyond the exhibition of immaterial art and its documents, as well as re-enactment in gallery contexts, Guy's book articulates an emerging field of arts practice distinct from but related to increasing curatorial provision for ‘live’ performance. Drawing on a recent proliferation of object-centric events of display that interconnect with theatre, the book approaches artworks in terms of their curation together and re-theorizes the exhibition as a dynamic context in which established traditions of display and performance interact. By examining the current traffic of ideas and aesthetics moving between theatricality and curatorial practice, the study reveals how the reception of a specific form is often mediated via the ontological expectations of another. It asks how contemporary visual arts and exhibition practices display performance and what it means to generalize the ‘theatrical’ as the optic or directive of a curatorial concept. Proposing a symbiotic relation between theatricality and display, Guy presents cases from international arts institutions which are both displayed and performed, including the Tate Modern and the Guggenheim, and assesses their significance to the enduring relation between theatre and the visual arts. The book progresses from the conventional alignment of theatricality and ephemerality within performance research and teases out a new temporality for performance with which contemporary exhibitions implicitly experiment, thereby identifying supplementary modes of performance which other discourses exclude. This important study joins the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies with exciting new directions in curation, aesthetics, sociology of the arts, visual arts, the creative industries, the digital humanities, cultural heritage, and reception and audience theories.

Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317368274
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre by : Sirkku Aaltonen

Download or read book Rewriting Narratives in Egyptian Theatre written by Sirkku Aaltonen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Egyptian theatre and its narrative construction explores the ways representations of Egypt are created of and within theatrical means, from the 19th century to the present day. Essays address the narratives that structure theatrical, textual, and performative representations and the ways the rewriting process has varied in different contexts and at different times. Drawing on concepts from Theatre and Performance Studies, Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Diaspora Studies, scholars and practitioners from Egypt and the West enter into dialogue with one another, expanding understanding of the different fields. The articles focus on the ways theatre texts and performances change (are rewritten) when crossing borders between different worlds. The concept of rewriting is seen to include translation, transformation, and reconstruction, and the different borders may be cultural and national, between languages and dramaturgies, or borders that are present in people’s everyday lives. Essays consider how rewritings and performances cross borders from one culture, nation, country, and language to another. They also study the process of rewriting, the resulting representations of foreign plays on stage, and representations of the Egyptian revolution on stage and in Tahrir Square. This assessment of the relationship between theatre practices, exchanges, and rewritings in Egyptian theatre brings vital coverage to an undervisited area and will be of interest to developments in theatre translation and beyond.

Theatre and Dictatorship in the Luso-Hispanic World

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315405083
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (154 download)

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Book Synopsis Theatre and Dictatorship in the Luso-Hispanic World by : Diego Santos Sánchez

Download or read book Theatre and Dictatorship in the Luso-Hispanic World written by Diego Santos Sánchez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre and Dictatorship in the Luso-Hispanic World explores the discourses that have linked theatrical performance and prevailing dictatorial regimes across Spain, Portugal and their former colonies. These are divided into three different approaches to theatre itself - as cultural practice, as performance, and as textual artifact - addressing topics including obedience, resistance, authoritarian policies, theatre business, exile, violence, memory, trauma, nationalism, and postcolonialism. This book draws together a diverse range of methodological approaches to foreground the effects and constraints of dictatorship on theatrical expression and how theatre responds to these impositions.

Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351623966
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre by : Timothy Youker

Download or read book Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre written by Timothy Youker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Practitioners and critics alike often attribute great authenticity to documentary theatre, casting it as a salutary alternative not only to corporate news outlets and official histories but also to the supposed "self-indulgence" and "elitism" of avant-garde theatre. Documentary Vanguards in Modern Theatre, by contrast, argues for treating documentarians as vanguardists who (for good or ill) push, remap, or transgress the margins of historical and political visibility, often taking issue with professional discourses that claim a monopoly on authoritative representations of the real. This is the first book to situate documentary theatre’s development within the larger story of theatrical experimentalism, collage art, collective ritual, and other avant-garde dramaturgical and performance practices of the late 19th and 20th Centuries.

Performing Arts in Transition

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351330195
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis Performing Arts in Transition by : Susanne Foellmer

Download or read book Performing Arts in Transition written by Susanne Foellmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artists especially from dance and performance art as well as opera are involved to an increasing degree in the transfer between different media, not only in their productions but also the events, materials, and documents that surround them. At the same time, the focus on that which remains has become central to any discussion of performance. Performing Arts in Transition explores what takes place in the moments of transition from one medium to another, and from the live performance to that which "survives" it. Case studies from a broad range of interdisciplinary scholars address phenomena such as: The dynamics of transfer between the performing and visual arts. The philosophy and terminologies of transitioning between media. Narratives and counternarratives in historical re-creations. The status of chronology and the document in art scholarship. This is an essential contribution to a vibrant, multidisciplinary and international field of research emerging at the intersections of performance, visual arts, and media studies.

Incapacity and Theatricality

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351165186
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (511 download)

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Book Synopsis Incapacity and Theatricality by : Tony McCaffrey

Download or read book Incapacity and Theatricality written by Tony McCaffrey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incapacity and Theatricality acknowledges the distinctive contribution to contemporary theatrical performance made by actors with intellectual disabilities. It presents a close examination of certain key theatrical performances across a variety of different media, including John Cassavetes’ 1963 social issues film A Child Is Waiting; the performance art collaboration between Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles; and the provocative pranksterism of Christoph Schlingensief’s talent show mockumentary FreakStars 3000. Tracing a global path of performances, Incapacity and Theatricality offers an analysis of how actors with intellectual disabilities have emerged onto the main stage, and how their inclusion calls into question long-held assumptions about both theatre and intellectual disability. For postgraduate students, or anyone interested in the shifting dynamics of twenty-first century theatre, McCaffrey’s work offers a vital consideration of the intersubjective relations between people with and without intellectual disabilities and ultimately addresses urgent questions about the situation and representation of the contemporary subject caught up somewhere between incapacity and theatricality.

History Dances

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429767846
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (297 download)

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Book Synopsis History Dances by : Ofosuwa M. Abiola

Download or read book History Dances written by Ofosuwa M. Abiola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-16 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of history is founded on the interrogation of written documents from the past. However, culture is the center of life in Africa. As a result, in the past – and to a degree in the present – the process for documenting events in Africa was not written, it was performed. History Dances: Chronicling the History of Traditional Mandinka Dance argues that a wealth of information is housed within traditional Mandinka dance and, consequently, the dances can be used as an African-derived primary source for writing African history. Ofosuwa M. Abiola highlights the overall value of studying Mandinka dance history specifically, and African dance history generally, as well as addressing the issue of scarcity with regard to primary sources for writing African history. History Dances proves to be a vital read for both undergraduate students and scholars in the fields of dance history, African history, performance studies, and cultural anthropology.

Closet Drama

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 135160693X
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Closet Drama by : Catherine Burroughs

Download or read book Closet Drama written by Catherine Burroughs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Closet Drama: History, Theory, Form introduces the emerging field of Closet Drama Studies by featuring twelve original essays from distinguished scholars who offer fresh and illuminating perspectives on closet drama as a genre. Examining an unusual mix of historical narratives, performances, and texts from the Renaissance to the present, this collection unleashes a provocative array of theoretical concerns about the phenomenon of the closet play—a dramatic text written for reading rather than acting.

Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315517310
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (155 download)

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Book Synopsis Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious by : Maria Grazia Turri

Download or read book Acting, Spectating and the Unconscious written by Maria Grazia Turri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Aristotle’s theory of tragic katharsis onwards, theorists of the theatre have long engaged with the question of what spectatorship entails. This question has, directly or indirectly, often been extended to the investigation of acting. Acting, Spectating, and the Unconscious approaches the unconscious aspects of spectatorship and acting afresh. Interweaving psychoanalytic descriptions of processes such as transference, unconscious phantasy, and alpha-function with an in-depth survey of theories of spectating and acting from thinkers such as Brecht, Diderot, Rousseau and Plato, Maria Grazia Turri offers a significant insight into the emotions inherent in both the art of the actor, and the spectator’s experience. A compelling investigation of the unconscious communication between spectators and actors, this volume is a must-read for students and scholars fascinated by theatre spectatorship.

Playing Sick

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351787705
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Playing Sick by : Meredith Conti

Download or read book Playing Sick written by Meredith Conti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few life occurrences shaped individual and collective identities within Victorian-era society as critically as witnessing or suffering from illness. The prevalence of illness narratives within late nineteenth-century popular culture was made manifest on the period’s British and American stages, where theatrical embodiments of illness were indisputable staples of actors’ repertoires. Playing Sick: Performances of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine reconstructs how actors embodied three of the era’s most provocative illnesses: tuberculosis, drug addiction, and mental illness. In placing performances of illness within wider medicocultural contexts, Meredith Conti analyzes how such depictions confirmed or resisted salient constructions of diseases and the diseased. Conti’s case studies, which range from Eleonora Duse’s portrayal of the consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier to Henry Irving’s performance of senile dementia in King Lear, help to illuminate the interdependence of medical science and theatre in constructing nineteenth-century illness narratives. Through reconstructing these performances, Conti isolates from the period’s acting practices a lexicon of embodied illness: a flexible set of physical and vocal techniques that performers employed to theatricalize the sick body. In an age when medical science encouraged a gradual decentering of the patient from their own diagnosis and treatment, late nineteenth-century performances of illness symbolically restored the sick to positions of visibility and consequence.