Work and play on the Shakespearean stage / Tom Rutter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rutter, Tom.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Characters.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.

English drama.

Work in literature.

Play in literature.

Professions in literature.

Literature and society--England--History--16th century.

Literature and society.

England.

History.

Acting in literature.

Physical Description:

x, 205 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Time and again, early modern plays show people at work: shoemaking, basket-weaving, grave-digging and professional acting are just some of the forms of labour that theatregoers could have seen depicted on stage in 1599 and 1600. Tom Rutter demonstrates how such representations were shaped by the theatre's own problematic relationship with work: actors earned their living through playing, a practice that many considered idle and illegitimate, while plays were criticised for enticing servants and apprentices from their labour. As a result, the drama of Shakespeare's time became the focal point of wider debates over what counted as work, who should have to do it, and how it should be valued. This book describes changing beliefs about work in the sixteenth century and shows how new ways of conceptualising the work of the governing class inform Shakespeare's histories. It identifies important contrasts between the way the work of actors was treated in plays written for the adult and child repertories. Finally, it examines whether different playing companies depicted work and workers in different ways in the decade between the reopening of the playhouse at St Paul's in 1599 and the move of the King's Men to the Blackfriars.

Contents:

Work in sixteenth-century England

'Vpon the weke daies and worke daies at conuenient times' : acting as work in Elizabethan England

'Though he be a king, yet he must labour' : work and nobility in Shakespeare's histories

'We may shut vp our shops, and make holiday' : workers and playhouses, 1599-1601

'Work upon that now!' : labour and status on the stage, 1599-1610.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 158-199) and index.

ISBN:

9780521884860

0521884861

OCLC:

191891563

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description