The English Stage A History of Drama and Performance [Paperback]

This wide-ranging study follows the history of drama through its many changes in style and convention from medieval times to the present day.Providing a critical performance analysis, this study closely examines a few key plays from each age--medieval times to the present--to demonstrate how they succeed on stage. It also focuses on several major playwrights--Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Shaw--and discusses their stagecraft in detail.Providing a critical performance analysis, this study closely examines a few key plays from each age--medieval times to the present--to demonstrate how they succeed on stage. It also focuses on several major playwrights--Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Shaw--and discusses their stagecraft in detail.The English Stage tells the story of English drama through its many changes in style and convention from medieval times to the present day. John Styan analyzes the key features of staging, including early street theater and public performance, the evolution of the playhouse and the private space, and the pairing of theory and stagecraft in the works of modern dramatists. Giving a critical performance analysis, the author closely examines a few key plays from each age to demonstrate how they succeed on stage. He also focuses on several major playwrights--Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Shaw--and discusses their stagecraft in detail. Styan can be considered among a small number of influential scholars who have helped to develop theater history from its origins in literary studies into an independent and respected field.1. Medieval drama, secular and religious; 2. The early morality play; 3. The Tudor interlude; 4. The Elizabethan theatre; 5. Marlowe's stagecraft; 6. Shakespeare's practice; 7. Ben Jonson's comic stagecraft; 8. The court masque; 9. Jacobean experiment: exploring the form; 10. The Restoration stage; 11. The Georgian theatre; 12. The Victorian theatre; 13. Bernard Shaw and his stage practice; 14. Twentieth-century developmló: