Exeter Performance Studies: Eighteenth-Century Brechtians : Theatrical Satire in the Age of Walpole download ebook DJV
9780859899970 0859899977 Eighteenth-Century Brechtians is a collection of essays by a well-known author on comic and radical political theatre. It looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theatre censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's biography, the book contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were early Brechtians.Reconstructions of lost episodes in theatre history include a recounting of Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theatre was closed, Charlotte Charke's performances as Macheath and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera and the 1740 staging of Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation on a double bill with Shakespeare's Merry Wives . . . Some documents in this collection offer another perspective on theatre history by employing fiction - speculative reconstructions of Georgian theatre events for which historical facts are scarce or missing. Brecht also employed fiction to reconsider history in short stories he wrote about Lucullus and Socrates, and a novel about Julius Caesar. The stories and several new letters attributed to Fielding delve into theatre history and keep some of its controversy alive in new ways, historicizing fiction and theatre somewhat as Brecht did. It offers an unconventional, new reading of theatre history, Brecht's tradition and stage satire. From the foreword by Professor Peter Thomson: 'This new book has been written as a challenge to the twenty-first century, a bid to jolt the anglophone theatre out of its political doziness. 'This book is written in full awareness of the Marxian warning that history repeats itself at least twice. It treats its dead authors and actors in the present tense, and is unafraid of supplying them, on occasion, with splashes of dialogue that they neglected to provide while they were alive. Scholars too rarely write with this kind of relish.', Eighteenth-Century Brechtians looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theater censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's biography, Joel Schechter contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were in fact early Brechtians. He also reconstructs lost episodes in theater history including Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theater was closed, Charlotte Charke's performances as Macheath and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera , and the 1740 staging of Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation on a double bill with Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor .
9780859899970 0859899977 Eighteenth-Century Brechtians is a collection of essays by a well-known author on comic and radical political theatre. It looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theatre censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's biography, the book contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were early Brechtians.Reconstructions of lost episodes in theatre history include a recounting of Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theatre was closed, Charlotte Charke's performances as Macheath and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera and the 1740 staging of Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation on a double bill with Shakespeare's Merry Wives . . . Some documents in this collection offer another perspective on theatre history by employing fiction - speculative reconstructions of Georgian theatre events for which historical facts are scarce or missing. Brecht also employed fiction to reconsider history in short stories he wrote about Lucullus and Socrates, and a novel about Julius Caesar. The stories and several new letters attributed to Fielding delve into theatre history and keep some of its controversy alive in new ways, historicizing fiction and theatre somewhat as Brecht did. It offers an unconventional, new reading of theatre history, Brecht's tradition and stage satire. From the foreword by Professor Peter Thomson: 'This new book has been written as a challenge to the twenty-first century, a bid to jolt the anglophone theatre out of its political doziness. 'This book is written in full awareness of the Marxian warning that history repeats itself at least twice. It treats its dead authors and actors in the present tense, and is unafraid of supplying them, on occasion, with splashes of dialogue that they neglected to provide while they were alive. Scholars too rarely write with this kind of relish.', Eighteenth-Century Brechtians looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theater censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's biography, Joel Schechter contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were in fact early Brechtians. He also reconstructs lost episodes in theater history including Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theater was closed, Charlotte Charke's performances as Macheath and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera , and the 1740 staging of Jonathan Swift's Polite Conversation on a double bill with Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor .