The diva's gift to the Shakespearean stage : agency, theatricality, and the innamorata / Pamela Allen Brown.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Pamela Allen, author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Dramatic production.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Shakespearean actors and actresses--History--16th century.

Shakespearean actors and actresses.

Women in the theater--England--History--16th century.

Women in the theater.

Women in the theater--Italy--History--16th century.

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

English drama.

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan.

Theater.

England.

Italy.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 295 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Agency, theatricality, and the innamorata

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2021.

Summary:

The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage traces the transnational connections between Shakespeare's all-male stage and the first female stars in the West. The book is the first to use Italian and English plays and other sources to explore this relationship, focusing on the gifted actress who radically altered female roles and expanded the horizons of drama just as the English were building their first paying theaters. By the time Shakespeare began to write plays, women had been acting professionally in Italian troupes for two decades, traveling across the Continent and acting in all genres, including tragicomedy and tragedy. Some women became the first truly international stars, winning royal and noble patrons and literary admirers beyond Italy, with repeat tours in France and Spain. Elizabeth and her court caught wind of the Italians' success, and soon troupes with actresses came to London to perform. Through contacts direct and indirect, English professionals grew keenly aware of the mimetic revolution wrought by the skilled diva, who expanded the innamorata and made the type more engaging, outspoken, and autonomous. Some English writers pushed back, treating the actress as a whorish threat to the all-male stage, which had long minimized female roles. Others saw a vital new model full of promise. Faced with rising demand for Italian-style plays, Lyly, Marlowe, Kyd, and Shakespeare used Italian models from scripted and improvised drama to turn out stellar female parts in the mode of the actress, altering them in significant ways while continuing to use boys to playthem. Writers seized on the comici's materials and methods to piece together pastoral, comic, and tragicomic plays from mobile theatergrams-plot elements, roles, stories, speeches, and star scenes, such as cross-dressing, the mad scene, and the sung lament.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. The Innamorata Ignites

2. Italianating the Boy

Christopher Marlowe, The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, George Peele, The Arraignment of Paris, John Lyly, Sapho and Phao, Gallathea, The Woman in the Moone

3. Dying to Act: From Bel-imperia to Juliet

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

4. Who's It? Acting the Actress in Shakespearean Comedy

The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well

5. Hostile Makeovers

Anthony Munday, Fedele and Fortunio, Anon., Dead Man's Fortune John Day, George Wilkins, and William Rowley, The Travailes of the Three English Brothers Ben Jonson, Volpone

6. Dark Ambition: The Two Faces of Portia

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

7. "Let all the dukes and all the devils roar!" Mad Skills and Madwomen

Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine Part I, John Webster, The White Devil, Shakespeare, Hamlet, Shakespeare and Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen Epilogue: Cleopatra's Sweat.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (263-289) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780198867838

0198867832

OCLC:

1260291566