How plays work : reading and performance / Martin Meisel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meisel, Martin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drama--History and criticism.

Drama.

Drama--Technique.

Physical Description:

xii, 276 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Summary:

Martin Meisel's engaging book looks at how we read plays on the page. Cultivated in tone and jargon-free, his incisive account is illuminated by dozens of judiciously chosen examples from western drama - from classical Greek dramatists to contemporary playwrights, both canonical and relatively obscure. How Plays Work will appeal as much to the serious student of the theatre as to the playgoer who likes to read a play before seeing it performed.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Figures

1. Introduction: The Art of Reading Plays

2. Beginnings

2.1. Defining the stage/Enlisting the audience

2.2. Setting the defaults/Breaking the rules

2.3. Modulations

2.4. Puzzle pictures

2.5. Démontage

2.6. Theatre unveiled

2.7. Worlds within

3. Seeing and Hearing

3.1. Sound that is not speech

3.2. Indirect seeing

3.3. Visible speech

3.4. Masks and markings

3.5. Dress code

3.6. The object in view

3.7. Movement and configuration

4. The Uses of Place

4.1. Statics

4.2. Dynamics

4.3. Place-Time

5. The Role of the Audience

5.1. Audience enactments

5.2. Illicit intercourse

5.3. Audience surrogates

5.4. Audience expectations

5.5. Outreach

6. The Shape of the Action

6.1. One thing after another

6.2. Shaping forces

6.3. Penetrative progressions

6.4. Figures of the whole

7. The Action of Words

7.1. Expressing, impelling, revealing

7.2. Lapsus linguae

8. Reading Meanings

8.1. Thematics

8.2. Parable and 'conceit'

8.3. Making a case

8.4. Naturalized symbolism

8.5. Where it all comes together (perhaps)

9. Primal Attractions

9.1. Mimesis and magic

9.2. The pleasure of privileged witness

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-266) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0191526959

9780191526954

OCLC:

476242265