Embracing Disruption: Clowning, Improvisation, and the Unscripted in Early Shakespearean Performance

This volume celebrates the centrality of clowning in Shakespeare’s conception of theatre and explores how he purposefully invited the clown’s anarchic energy into the heart of his dramaturgy.

Clowning was a potent but divisive force in the theater of Shakespeare’s time, challenging the emerging tyranny of decorum and the developing notion of the authorial voice. As such, the figure of the clown is key to understanding the pervasive tension between existing and emergent forms of Elizabethan t...