Performing Shakespeare's Women: Playing Dead

by Paige Martin Reynolds

Overview

Shakespeare's women rarely reach the end of the play alive. Whether by murder or by suicide, onstage or off, female actors in Shakespeare's works often find themselves 'playing dead.' But what does it mean to 'play dead', particularly for women actors, whose bodies become scrutinized and anatomized by audiences and fellow actors who 'grossly gape on'? In what ways does playing Shakespeare's women when they are dead emblematize the difficulties of playing them while they are still alive? Ultimately, what is at stake for the female actor who embodies Shakespeare's women today, dead or alive? Situated at the intersection of the creative and the critical, Performing Shakespeare's Women: Playing Dead engages performance history, current scholarship and the practical problems facing the female actor of Shakespeare's plays when it comes to 'playing dead' on the contemporary stage and in a post-feminist world. This book explores the consequences of corpsing Shakespeare's women, considering important ethical questions that matter to practitioners, students and critics of Shakespeare today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350170964
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/25/2020
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

Paige Martin Reynolds is Associate Professor of English at the University of Central Arkansas, teaching Shakespeare and Drama. She also performs both on stage and on film.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction;
2. Performing Death and Desire in Othello;
3. Playing Parts in King Lear;
4. Performing the Female Body in Macbeth;
5. Making Love in Hamlet;
6. Making Memory Work in Richard III;
7. Performing Maternity in Romeo and Juliet;
Notes
Bibliography
Index