The stage life of props / by Andrew Sofer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sofer, Andrew, 1964-

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Series:

Theater--theory/text/performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theaters--Stage-setting and scenery.

Theaters.

Stage props.

European drama--History and criticism.

European drama.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 278 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2003.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Props have often been taken for granted in our notions of the theater, yet they've helped alter the course of dramatic history by providing playwrights with a concrete way to keep theatrical meaning in motion. In The Stage Life of Props, Andrew Sofer aims to restore to certain props the performance dimensions that literary critics are trained not to see, then to show that these props are not just accessories, but time machines of the theater. Using case studies that explore the Eucharistic wafer on the medieval stage, the bloody handkerchief on the Elizabethan stage, the skull on the Jacobean stage, the fan on the Restoration and early eighteenth-century stage, and the gun on the modern stage, Andrew Sofer reveals how stage props repeatedly thwart dramatic convention and reinvigorate theatrical practice. While the focus is on specific objects, Sofer also gives us a sweeping story of half a millennium of stage history as seen through the device of the prop, revealing that as material ghosts, stage props are a way for playwrights to animate stage action, question theatrical practice, and revitalize dramatic forms.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-268) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472068395

047209839X

0472068393

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.11888

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.