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The Shoemaker's Holiday

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The Shoemaker's Holiday

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Overview

Written and first performed in 1599, The Shoemaker's Holiday was the most popular non-Shakespearean comedy of its day—a hearty brew of character and overflowing good humor, occasionally ribald, about the gentle craft of shoemaking. Bernard Sahlins's new adaptation streamlines the dialogue for contemporary audiences and makes it extremely playable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566635431
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	06/17/2003
Series:	Plays for Performance Series
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.48(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.33(d)

About the Author

Bernard Sahlins is co-editor, with Nicholas Rudall, of the Plays for Performance series. He has also written Days and Nights at The Second City.
The Plays for Performance series is edited by Nicholas Rudall, former artistic director of the Court Theatre at the University of Chicago where he is professor of classics, and Bernard Sahlins, founder and director of the Second City. They both live in Chicago, Illinois.

	General Editors' Preface	vii
	Preface	ix
	Abbreviations	x
	List of Illustrations	xii
	Introduction
1	Dekker's career: the play in its biographical context	1
2	Date: the play in its historical and literary context	8
3	The use of source material	17
4	The play	26
5	The play on the stage
	The original staging	44
	Later stage history	47
6	The text
	Early editions	53
	Later editions	58
	The present text	62
	Act-and scene divisions	63
	The Shoemaker's Holiday	71
	Appendices
A	Dekker's use of The Gentle Craft	203
B	The play's title	219
	Index to the Commentary	222

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Editorial Reviews

A popular comedy in Shakespeare's day, The Shoemaker's Holiday was temporarily removed from the repertory during the Restoration for being too racy. Here, Bernard Sahlins, a founder of Chicago's acclaimed comedy troupe, the Second City, has updated the text to make it more accessible to modern actors, sans editorial glosses or scholarly apparatus. It's all Dekker, except for about 450 words that have disappeared from the language or changed meaning. The adaptations made by Sahlins are invisible to anyone who is not intimately familiar with the text. For example, he has replaced sundry in the first line with several; later, "I'll o'erreach his policies" becomes "I'll outscheme him." The language of bawdy and insult is mostly untouched. While this is a legitimate effort, this reviewer is unconvinced of its virtue. Wanting to make a 16th-century play available to a general reading public is commendable, but altering the text is part of a dangerous trend that can lead to horrific writing when the original, if played well, is perfectly clear. That this play is intended for adults rather than teens who might have more trouble with the language makes the need for an adaptation all the more questionable. For specialized theater collections only.-Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Dekker's is one of the most popular Elizabethan plays. It reveals a vital portrait of Elizabethan London and the interaction of social classes within the city. In addition to the complete text of the play, the editors offer a study of the text, a historical and critical introduction on the play's relationship with contemporary life and drama and its place in Dekker's work, a stage history, a detailed commentary, and a reprint of source materials. Smallwood is deputy director and head of the education department at The Shakespeare Center at Stratford-Upon-Avon. Wells is general editor of . This is a reprint of an edition first published by Manchester University Press in 1979. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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The Shoemaker's Holiday

The Shoemaker's Holiday

Paperback

Paperback

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Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

Customer Reviews

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Table of Contents

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Customer Reviews