Closet drama in early modern England : theatre without a stage / edited by Aurelie Griffin & Sophie Lemercier-Goddard.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Griffin, Aurelie, editor.

Lemercier-Goddard, Sophie, editor.

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Closet drama, English--History and criticism.

Closet drama, English.

Closet drama, English--Great Britain--History--16th century.

Closet drama, English--Great Britain--History--17th century.

English drama--History and criticism.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

Summary:

A collection of critical scholarship on early modern closet plays performed in private non-playhouse settings between 1560 and 1670. Capturing a lively period of performance, this volume covers textual history, women's writing and contemporary staging. Scholars highlight the radical choices made by playwrights who were actively seeking to create a new theatre, distinct from the characteristics of the public stage. Studying a wide array of plays from 1560 to 1670, the book interrogates the role of women writers in the development of closet drama, early modern racialisation, translation and the circulation of particular motifs across the Channel. It pays close attention to Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam as a proto-feminist play that has become increasingly popular with teachers and directors. Contemporary performances of early modern closet plays such as Cleopatra, The Tragedy of Mariam, and Love's Victory are discussed through interviews with scholars involved in performance revivals. By offering an extensive and detailed exploration of closet drama readers are invited to rethink early modern theatre as a whole by looking beyond the public-private divide.

Contents:

List of Illustrations

Contributors

Introduction by Aur&&&&&lie Griffin (Sorbonne University, France) & Sophie Lemercier-Goddard (ENS Lyon, France)

I.

Plays for the Page?

1. Periodization, Evidence, and the Non-Performance of Tudor Interludes, Patrick Durdel (University of Lausanne, France)

2. 'When perform'd / Wil this dull vow be?': George Chapman's Unstaged Plays, Christine Sukic (University of Reims, France)

II.

Systems of Power

3. 'With all the ornaments on earth inrich'd': Power and Imagined Properties in Mary Sidney and Samuel Daniel's Cleopatra Plays, Daniel Cadman (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

4. Race and the Christian Anatomy of Islam in Three Closet Dramas, Nora Galland (C&&&&&&¾te d'Azur University, France)

III.

Show and Tell in Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam

5. How to Do Things with Words: Learning and Teaching Rhetorics in The Tragedy of Mariam, Sophie Lemercier-Goddard (ENS Lyon) and Aur&&&&&lie Griffin (Sorbonne University, France)

6. 'Shows and proofs uneven': Evidence, Uncertainty and Women on Trial in The Tragedy of Mariam, Judith Hudson (Birkbeck College, University of London, UK)

7. 'All Passion Spent'?: Affective Worlds in Early Modern Closet Drama, Naya Tsentourou (University of Exeter, UK)

IV.

Household Drama in the Cavendish circle

8. '[Our] brain, the stage': Oral and Silent Reading in Margaret Cavendish's Love's Adventure et The Convent of Pleasure, Line Cottegnies (Sorbonne University, France)

9. Rereading Elizabeth Brackley and Jane Cavendish's The Concealed Fancies as a Town Comedy, Marion Wynne-Davies (University of Surrey, UK)

V.

Staging Closet Drama in the Twenty-First Century

10. Women's Closet Drama and Site-Specific Performances (Jane Lumley's Tragedy of Iphigenia and Mary Wroth's Love's Victory), Alison Findlay (Lancaster University, UK), Emma Rucastle (Director, ELART Productions) and Robert Crighton for the Beyond Shakespeare Podcast

11. Staging Samuel Daniel's Cleopatra (2013) and Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam (2022): Agency, Embodiment and Female Performance, Yasmin Arshad (University College London, UK), Emma Whipday (Newcastle University, UK) and Bethany Mayo (Director, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory) in Conversation with Aur&&&&&lie Griffin (Sorbonne University, France) and Sophie Lemercier-Goddard (ENS Lyon)

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version:

Print version: Closet drama in early modern England

ISBN:

1350455059

1350455067

9781350455054

9781350455061

OCLC:

1520506710