This volume introduces ‘civic Shakespeare’ as a new and complex category entailing the dynamic relation between the individual and the community on issues of authority, liberty, and cultural production. It investigates civic Shakespeare through Romeo and Juliet as a case study for an interrogation of the limits and possibilities of theatre and the idea of the civic. The play’s focus on civil strife, political challenge, and the rise of a new conception of the individual within society makes it an ideal site to examine how early modern civic topics were received and reconfigured on stage, and how the play has triggered ever new interpretations and civic performances over time. The essays focus on the way the play reflects civic life through the dramatization of issues of crisis and reconciliation when private and public spaces are brought to conflict, but also concentrate on the way the play has subsequently entered the public space of civic life. Set within the fertile context of performance studies and inspired by philosophical and sociological approaches, this book helps clarify the role of theatre within civic space while questioning the relation between citizens as spectators and the community. The wide-ranging chapters cover problems of civil interaction and their onstage representation, dealing with urban and household spaces; the boundaries of social relations and legal, economic, political, and religious regulation; and the public dimension of memory and celebration. This volume articulates civic Romeo and Juliet from the sources of genre to contemporary multicultural performances in political contact-zones and civic ‘Shakespaces,’ exploring the Bard and this play within the context of communal practices and their relations with institutions and civic interests.

Romeo and Juliet is the most produced, translated and re-mixed of all of Shakespeare's plays. This volume takes up the iconographic, linguistic and performance layers already at work within it and tracks the play's dispersal into neighbouring art forms – including ballet, opera, television and architecture – and geographical locations, including Italy, Ireland, France, India and Korea. Chapters trace Shakespeare's own acts of adaptation and appropriation of sources and the play's subsequent migrations into other media. Part One considers reworkings of Romeo and Juliet in Hector Berlioz's 1839 choral symphony and ballets choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and John Neumeier. Part Two explores the afterlives of Shakespeare's lovers in the narrative forms of fiction, film and serial television, including works by James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and HBO's series Westworld. Part Three examines dramatic adaptations of the play into other languages, dialects and cultural contexts. Authors consider Hindi translations and the complex and changing status of Shakespeare's work in India, as well as productions of the play in Korea set against its evolving history. The volume ends with a first-person account of staging Romeo and Juliet at an HBCU (historically Black college/university), documenting the tensions between the notion of Shakespeare as a universal author and the lived experiences of marginalized communities as they engage with his plays.

The Mediterranean of Shakespeare’s dramas is a vast geopolitical space. Historically, it spans from the Trojan war to Greek mythology and the ancient Roman empire; geographically, from Venice and Sicily to Cyprus and Turkey, from Greece to Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa. But it is also the Mediterranean of Renaissance Italian cities and Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful example of how exotic frontiers for an English gaze may be replaced by closer yet different cultural Mediterranean frames. The volume offers studies on the circulation of the story of Romeo and Juliet and its ancient archetypes in early modern Europe, from Greece to Italy, France and Spain, as well as on contemporary receptions and performances of Shakespeare’s play in Sicily, the Balkans, Israel and Jordan.

New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity documents and analyses the different ways in which a range of innovative projects take Shakespeare out into the world beyond education and the theatre. Mixing critical reflection on the social value of Shakespeare with new creative work in different forms and idioms, the volume triumphantly shows that Shakespeare can make a real contribution to contemporary civic life. Highlights include: Garrick's 1769 Shakespeare ode, its revival in 2016, and a devised performance interpretation of it; the full text of Carol Ann Duffy's A Shakespeare Masque (set to music by Sally Beamish); a new Shakespearean libretto inspired by Wagner; an exploration of the civic potential of new Shakespeare opera and ballet; a fresh Shakespeare-inspired poetic liturgy, including commissions by major British poets; a production of The Merchant of Venice marking the 500th anniversary of the Venetian Jewish Ghetto; and a remaking of Pericles as a response to the global migrant crisis.

Reading Shakespeare in the Movies: Non-Adaptations and Their Meaning analyzes the unacknowledged, covert presence of Shakespearean themes, structures, characters, and symbolism in selected films. Writers and directors who forge an unconscious, unintentional connection to Shakespeare’s work create non-adaptations, cinema that is unexpectedly similar to certain Shakespeare plays while remaining independent as art. These films can illuminate core semantic issues in those plays in ways that direct adaptations cannot. Eric S. Mallin explores how Shakespeare illuminates these movies, analyzing the ways that The Godfather, Memento, Titanic, Birdman, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre take on new life in dialogue with the famous playwright. In addition to challenging our ideas about adaptation, Mallin works to inspire new awareness of the meanings of Shakespearean stories in the contemporary world.

Local/ Global Shakespeare and Advertising examines the local/ global and rhizomatic phenomenon of Shakespeare as advertised and Shakespeare as advertising. Starting from the importance and the awareness of advertising practices in the early modern period, the volume follows the evolution of the use of Shakespeare as a promotional catalyst up to the twenty-first century. The volume considers the pervasiveness of Shakespeare’s marketability in Anglophone and non-Anglophone cultures and its special engagement with creative and commercial industries. With its inter-and transdisciplinary perspective and its international scope, this book brings new insights into Shakespeare’s selling power, Shakespeare as the object of advertising and Shakespeare as part of the advertising vehicle, in relation to a range of crucial cultural, ideological and political issues.