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Overview
Alan Dessen focuses on the playtexts used for staging Shakespeare's plays, from almost three hundred productions of the last twenty five years. Dessen examines the process of rescripting--when directors make cuts to streamline the playscript, save running time, etc., and rewriting--when more extensive changes are made. He assesses what is lost and gained by rescripting, and the demands of presenting to contemporary audiences words targeted at players, playgoers, and playhouses that no longer exist. The results are of interest to theatrical professionals and historians.Synopsis
Alan Dessen examines the pluses and minuses of directors' rescripting or rewrighting of Shakespeare's playtexts.
Booknews
The treatment of references to swords in a production that uses handguns and grenades is one example of the adaptations made by modern directors that Dessen (English, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) explores. He fuses his earlier work on the first productions of Shakespeare's plays and productions since 1970, by comparing differences between them in the playtexts used, actual words spoken, scenes or segments omitted or transposed, and other elements. Some of the chapters have been published separately. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Editorials
From the Publisher
"An important study by one of the most astute critics of the performed text." Studies in English Literature"A valuable resource for theatre practioners." Renaissance Quarterly
"The sheer scope of the project as well as its minute attention to particular production choices is astounding." Text and Performance
"In his current book, which draws so richly on his knowledge of choices made by directors and the opportunities lost or gained thereby, Dessen offers a fascinating history of nearly three decades of Anglo-American Shakespearean production and, in the process, makes a judicious case for not too blithely altering a script in the interest of clarification or contemporary relevance. In its appeal to examine afresh the received texts, Dessen's book couldn't be more timely." Essays in Theatre James C. Bulman, Allegheny College