Performance Studies Commons^™

The Merry Wives Of Windsor, Daniel Gordon

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

The Merry Wives of Windsor A story of LUST, GREED, and DIRTY LAUNDRY
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Daniel Gordon.

Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor uses more prose than any of his other plays, for indeed, these characters are simple folk. His setting of the countryside of Windsor also offers clues to how I might interpret this play for a South Carolina audience. To reinforce the tight-knit community or provincial common folk that is wary of outsiders, I set this production in a southern trailer park. The script and rhythms fit remarkably well with a southern twang. Knowing the …

The Many Faces Of Cleopatra: How Performance And Characterization Change Cleopatra In Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Legend Of Good Women," William Shakespeare's The Tragedy Of Antony And Cleopatra, And John Dryden's All For Love; Or, The World Well Lost, Rebecca Piazzoni Chatham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and John Dryden presented the character of Cleopatra differently, through both the written language of their pieces and their own and others’ performances of her, in order to meet the demands of their respective audiences and performance conditions. Chaucer, in “The Legend of Cleopatra,” portrays and performs Cleopatra comically. Shakespeare, in his Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, characterizes Cleopatra as a complex woman. In All for Love; or, The World Well Lost, Dryden characterizes Cleopatra as sentimental, but the performance of her on stage by female actresses added depth to the role. For Chaucer and Dryden, …

Digital Expressionism And Christopher Wheeldon’S Alice’S Adventures In Wonderland: What Contemporary Choreographers Can Learn From Early Twentieth-Century Modernism, Kelly Oden

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

How can classical ballet adapt to a world that is in an ever more rapid state of flux? By uncovering an example of the kind of interdisciplinary artistic collaboration that contributed to the thriving artistic environment of the early twentieth century, a model for artistic success emerges. By examining modernism and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in relation to Christopher Wheeldon’s groundbreaking 2011 ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a correlation between the success of the Ballets Russes and the success of Wheeldon is exposed. I argue that by applying the modernist practice of interdisciplinary interaction to his own productions, Wheeldon …

Collapsing The Secret Self: Thackeray's The History Of Pendennis As A Performative Parody, Rachel Freire

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

By collapsing the distinctions between private and public as he presents individual interiority as yet another performance, Thackeray’s The History of Pendennis undercuts disciplinary individualism, so that performances are not the product of social regulation but rather are as genuine as any presumed private thoughts or feelings. Pendennis actively performs the dissolution of interiority, as it thematically and stylistically enacts the awkwardness of genuine affectation as a routine and unavoidable reality of modern life. Reveling in the discomfort that accompanies the absence of secrecy, Thackeray parodies the privileging of secrecy and one’s interior self that pervades the Bildung genre he …

Eye For The Gap: Frenzy, Liberty, And The Nietszchean Chorus In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir And Shining City, Frances Krieg

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study situates The Weir and Shining City by Conor McPherson as embodying elements of Dionysian aesthetics as elucidated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Working through the lenses of Samuel Beckett’s linguistic philosophy and the premium of theater as established by Nietzsche, Artaud, and Brecht, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how McPherson pierces the boundaries of language in drama by establishing his audience as chorus. Background information on Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and McPherson’s own comments on the plays are included with the research on the plays themselves. This work articulates the chorus itself but also the choral, …

Reading With The Grain: On Vin Nardizzi’S Wooden Os: Shakespeare’S Theatres And England’S Trees, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Class Movements In The New South Africa: Post-Colonial Politics, Neocolonialism, And Mimicry In Pieter-Dirk Uys’S Macbeki A Farce To Be Reckoned With, J. Coplen Rose

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

This paper uses Homi Bhabha’s theory of colonial mimicry to analyze Pieter-Dirk Uys’s MacBeki: A Farce to be Reckoned With. In doing so I posit MacBeki is a colonial mimic, a character who comically imitates European gestures and language. MacBeki’s behaviour throughout the play highlights the dangers of greed and corruption in post-apartheid South Africa and encourages the play’s audience to respond with ridiculing laughter. My paper concludes by arguing that Uys’s play should be read as a hybrid text that draws on European dramatic styles and South African political events, staging a critical response to national uncertainties ahead …

Robert Burns As Dramatic Poet, R. D. S. Jack

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses Burns's skill in creating dramatic voice in his poetry, and what can be learned about the poems in their performance. Examples include "My luve is like a red, red rose," "John Anderson, my jo," "Robert Burns's March to Bannockburn," and "Tam o' Shanter."

The Persistence Of Vengeance From Early Modern England To Postmodern New York, Dominic M. Sevieri

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

As a passing glance at the popular texts of any given period reveals, the subject of vengeance is nearly inescapable; on billboards, websites, and year end lists, revenge represents a curious constant even amid disparate media. This study explores the cultural commonalities that align revenge texts of the English Renaissance and exploitation films of late 20th century America. As in-depth inquiry reveals, numerous ideas and narrative tropes popularized during the Early Modern period are pushed to their logical extremes in these films. The central factor that aligns London during the Renaissance and New York at the cusp of the 1990s …

Acting Virtuous: Chastity, Theatricality, And The Tragedie Of Mariam, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Given the interrelation of female chastity and female theatricality in early modem discourses, it comes as no surprise that both figure importantly in what is believed to be the first original English drama to be written by a woman. As Elizabeth Cary explores a Jewish queen 's sexual purity in The Tragedie of Mariam, she does so by concentrating on questions of performance. Cary's title character explicitly abjures theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always an act.

Compulsory Homosexuality And Black Masculine Performance, Vershawn A. Young

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Monstrous!: Actors, Audiences, Inmates, And The Politics Of Reading Shakespeare, Matt Kozusko

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

This essay considers the use of Shakespeare as marker of authenticity and as a therapeutic space for performers and audiences across a number of genres, from professional actors in training literature to prison inmates in radio and film documentaries. It argues that in the wake of recent academic trends—the critique of "Shakespeare" as an author figure; the privileging of the text as a source of multiple, potentially conflicting readings—Shakespeare's function as cultural capital has shifted sites, from "Shakespeare" to the playtexts themselves.

Two Kings: An Account Of The Preparation And Performance Of The Role Of Edgar In William Shakespeare's King Lear, Ryan Kathman

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This work is my graduate thesis documenting the creative process behind my performance of the role of Edgar in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s 2009 production of King Lear by William Shakespeare. It is comprised of five sections including an introduction, pre-rehearsal research, rehearsal and performance journal, post-production responses and conclusion. The introduction outlines my impressions of Edgar and King Lear prior to researching or rehearsing the role. In my research section, I attempt to better understand Shakespeare, his play and the role of Edgar by studying the playwright’s life and the history of the character and play, while also making …

Dressing The Girl/Playing The Boy: Twelfth Night Learns Soccer On The Set Of She's The Man, L Monique Pittman

Faculty Publications

She’s The Man (2006), Andy Fickman’s adaptation of Twelfth Night, pulses with the Title Nine girl power that found cinematic voice and financial reward in Bend It Like Beckham (2002). Creating a pretext for the play’s gender swapping by entering the world of high school soccer, She’s the Man exploits conventions associated with the teen film genre–social group conformity and anxiety, crisis of identity, divorced parents, and ineffectual authority figures. Shakespeare’s cross-dressed heroine Viola becomes Viola Hastings played by Amanda Bynes, for whom this film serves as a star-vehicle showcasing Bynes’s comedic range. In some ways, the film intensifies the …

Female Agency And Oppression In Caribbean Bacchanalian Culture: Soca, Carnival, And Dancehall, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

In this essay Kevin Frank discerningly analyzes agency and gender in public sexual performances emanating out of what Paul Gilroy identifies as part of the compensatory politics of the subordinated within Black Atlantic culture, Jamaican dancehall (dancehall reggae/ dancehall queens).

Taming 10 Things I Hate About You: Shakespeare And The Teenage Film Audience, L Monique Pittman

Faculty Publications

When I first paired William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew with Gil Junger’s film adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), my students’ responses to the juxtaposed works of art revealed a number of fascinating and deeply-rooted ideological conflicts. While more than willing to dissect the gender trouble readily observable in Shakespeare’s sixteenth-century play, my students resisted steadily any serious critique of the recent film version. The varied responses of my students coupled with their almost uniform approbation of the film and censure of the play prompt questions that lead the critic to speculation on the nature of …

John Milton, Blackfriars Spectator?: "Elegia Prima" And Ben Jonson's The Staple Of News, Timothy J. Burbery

English Faculty Research

In the spring of 1626 John Milton was temporarily expelled from Cambridge University, perhaps over a quarrel with his tutor William Chappell, and sent home to London, where he remained for at least several weeks. There, the seventeen-year-old poet composed his first elegy, a Latin verse-letter to his closest friend, Charles Diodati. In it, Milton claims to be enjoying his unexpected holiday by reading, girl watching, and attending the theater. Milton scholars have never reached consensus about his alleged playgoing, for while the young man speaks as a spectator, the plots and characters he mentions-these include comic types such as …

Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard's Review Of John Kneubuhl's Think Of A Garden And Other Plays, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Contributors: Vol 22 No. 2, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Contributors list of Vol. 22 (1999): Pacific Studies Full Issue 2

Books Received And Book Notices, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Book Listing for the Vol 22, No 2 Edition of the Pacific Studies Journal

Vol. 22 No. 2 (1999): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

A Good Country Gentlewoman: Catherine Clive's Epistolary Autobiography, Joallen Bradham

Faculty Articles

Unable to play the gentlewoman on stage, Catherine Clive lived the part in retirement. Her letters document the days and ways of the gentlewoman, Clive's need to assume the role, and the actress's awareness that she performs. In all details, Clive's gentlewoman conforms to contemporary expectations of that figure.

Vol. 16 No. 1 (1993): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Books Received And Book Notices, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Book Listing for the Vol 16, No 1 Edition of the Pacific Studies Journal

Vol. 16 No. 1 (1993): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Contributors: Vol 16 No. 1, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Contributors list of Vol. 16 (1993): Pacific Studies Full Issue 1

The Monster (A Fantasy): A One-Act Play, With An Interview With The Playwright, Vilsoni Hereniko

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Comic Theater In Samoa As Indigenous Media, Caroline Sinavaiana

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

A Critical Study Of The Dramas Of Four Major Romantic Poets, Earl Murphy Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Since little critical attention has been given to the dramas of this period, it would seem that further examination of them would be of value. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the dramas of the major Romantic poets in order to provide a new critical perspective on their plays specifically and Romantic drama generally. From this it is hoped useful conclusions can be drawn. The study will be limited to the plays of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. John Keats has been omitted from this group because his only …

National Traits As Revealed In The Revenge Theme In Tragedy, Hazel Pauline Glaister

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In the Renaissance drama, revenge is known as a revenge of blood, generally the “eye for an eye” variety of retaliation. The revenge of late periods deals with the return injury directed not only to the body of the opponent but also to his mental discomfort.

It is the aim of this thesis to present the different types of revenge in tragic dramas and by means of them to show how the life, manners, and attitude of the various nationalities are reflected in dramas dealing with this theme.