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Review of Philip Butterworth, Staging Conventions in Medieval English Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 272 pp. ISBN 9781107015487

2022/03/18 by Black, Daisy
#Drama #FOS: Arts (arts #Medieval #history of arts #music) #performing arts

paper · doi:10.57686/256204/9

Abstract

Questioning the use of post-medieval theatre concepts and terms (such as ‘character’, ‘characterization’ and ‘stage direction’), Staging Conventions in Medieval English Theatre calls for a review of the ways we approach medieval performance. Considering a range of fourteenth-to sixteenth-century plays, records and supporting texts from England and Cornwall, this exciting study examines the ‘agreed pretence’ established between performance instigators and witnesses. Ten chapters address staging conventions including indoor and outdoor performance; casting and doubling; rehearsing, memorising and cuing; coming and going; playing, feigning and counterfeiting; dressing and disguising; expounding and monitoring; effects; timing and hearing; and seeing and responding.

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