Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare is a unique survey of the small supporting roles - such as foils, feeds, attendants and messengers - that feature in Shakespeare's plays. Exploring such issues as how bit players should conduct themselves within a scene, and how blank verse or prose may be spoken to bring out the complexities of character-definition, Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare brings a wealth of insights to the dynamic of scenic construction in Shakespeare's dramaturgy. M.M. Mahood explores the different functions of minimal characters, from clearing the stage to epitomizing the overall effect of the comedy or tragedy, and looks at how they can extend the audience's knowledge of the social world of the play. She goes on to describe the entire corpus of minimal roles in a selection of six plays: * Richard III * The Tempest * King Lear * Antony & Cleopatra * Measure for Measure * Julius Caesar This new edition comes enhanced with a new Appendix, 'Who Says What', especially designed to aid directors in making decisions about the speaking parts of the minimal characters. It also comes complete with an index of characters (including line references) as well as a detailed general index. An invaluable aid for directors and actors in the rehearsal room, this perceptive and informative volume is equally of interest to students studying and writing about Shakespeare's plays.

PUBLICITY TITLE Will appear in 1998 Theatre Craft leaflet and in a New Theatre Quarterly advert Re-issue of hardback published by CUP - this received exceptional review coverage M. Mahood is an all-time old-school Great: well known for Shakespeare's Wordplay and her Penguin editions of Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice The Pb will include a new appendix aimed at helping directors and actors Will appeal to actors and directors, critics and students The six studies of individual plays offers models for students to follow in studying and writing about the other thirty plays. Includes an index of characters as well as a detailed general index - very user friendly

Playing Shakespeare is the premier guide to understanding and appreciating the mastery of the world’s greatest playwright. Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors–among them Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet–John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. The director begins by explicating Shakespeare’s verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare’s most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students.

Molly Mahood's survey of the small supporting roles which abound in Shakespeare's plays addresses the interests of scholars, actors and directors.

A theatre-based study guide to Shakespeare's greatest play, emphasising the conditions of Jacobethan production, textual variations, and aspects of modern performance, rather than the background of ideas or critical interpretations. This book aims to introduce students (including those with little or no prior experience of the field) to the worlds of Shakespeare and his theatre revealed in King Lear. It begins by 'Approaching Shakespeare' as utterly a man of the theatre, a professional actor before he was a playwright and a resident dramatist who knew intimately the actors for whom he wrote. It continues by discussing 'King Lear' in that light. The middle chapters look in detail at the 'Actors and Players' of the drama, and at Shakespeare's favourite 'Acts and Devices' as deployed within it. A final chapter considers the concept of 'comedic agony'. The annotated Bibliography includes the current major editions, major film-adaptations, and a selection of both the best criticism and the most useful websites.

Paying special attention to Sidney's Arcadia, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare's romances, this study engages in sustained examination of chiasmus in early modern English literature. The author's approach leads to the recovery of hidden designs which are shown to animate important works of literature; along the way Engel offers fresh and more comprehensive interpretations of seemingly shopworn conventions such as memento mori conceits, echo poems, and the staging of deus ex machina. The study, grounded in the philosophy of symbolic forms (following Ernst Cassirer), will be a valuable resource for readers interested in intellectual history and symbol theory, classical mythology and Renaissance iconography. Chiastic Designs affords a glimpse into the transformative power of allegory during the English Renaissance by addressing patterns that were part and parcel of early modern "mnemonic culture."