The narrator, the expositor, and the prompter in European medieval theatre / edited by Philip Butterworth.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Butterworth, Philip.

Series:

Medieval texts and cultures of Northern Europe ; v. 17.

Medieval texts and cultures of Northern Europe ; v. 17

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--History--Medieval, 500-1500.

Theater.

History.

Drama--Technique--History--To 1500.

Drama.

Drama--Technique.

Physical Description:

xiv, 343 pages : illustrations, portrait ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout : Brepols, 2007.

Summary:

Interest in the content of this book has developed out of an examination of the prompter who operated in full view of the audience and offered all the lines to the players. In 2001 at Groningen a production of the Towneley Second Shepherds' Play focused on an examination of this convention. Many of the audience responses then were concerned with the figure of the prompter as he was seen to operate simultaneously both 'inside' and 'outside' the action of the play. Such a role and its function is fascinating, not only in its own right, but also in relation to how it might inform us about the nature and purpose of presented theatre. The ability of such a figure to move in and out of the action, and thus different realities, characterizes a relationship to the action and the audience. The same fascination exists in relation to roles of the narrator and the expositor. Sometimes these roles are overt ones; sometimes they 'double up' with roles of actors, personages or characters. These figures are of pivotal significance in the communication of those plays in which they operate. The purpose of this book is to investigate the nature of these roles in order to identify their influence upon the performance of medieval plays.

Contents:

'Every Man, I wyll go with thee and be thy gyde': Narrators, Expositors, and Prompters in the Drama of the Low Countries / Elsa Strietman 11

Expositor Figures in Some Cycle Plays in French and German / Peter Happe 45

Directing the Gaze: Expository Modes in Late Medieval Italian Plays / Nerida Newbigin 69

The Narrator as Everyone's Voice: A Project to Produce the Ecerinis of Albertino Mussato / John Mckinnell 93

Unwinding Stories: Challenges of the Expositor in Early Modern Polish Popular Theatre / Jolanta Rzegocka 109

Puppets, Minstrels, Kings, and Shepherds: Expository Narrators in Early Spanish Theatre / Max Harris 129

Masqueing the Moral Expositor in the Macro Plays / Milla Cozart Riggio 161

Prompting the Action: The Prologue, the Messenger, and the Fool / Mario Longtin 191

'Perchance you wonder at this show': Dramaturgical Machinery in A Midsummer Night's Dream and 'Pyramus and Thisbe' / Tom Pettitt 211

'Ancient [and Modern] Gower': Presenting Shakespeare's Pericles / Christine Dymkowski 235

'La predication par personnages'? Expositor Figures in the Moralites / Alan Hindley 265

Establishing an Expositor's Role: Contemplacio and the N.town Manuscript / Peter Meredith 289

Brought to Book: Chester's Expositor and his Kin / David Mills 307

Richard Carew's 'Ordinary': The First English Director / Philip Butterworth 327.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

2503525792

9782503525792

OCLC:

153560660