Predramatic Theatre offers a fresh, innovative account of the drama of the period prior to the building of the professional playhouses read in the light of modern theories of the dramatic and postdramatic theatres. Designed to speak to scholars and students in both performance studies and literary studies, and to span the fields of pre-modern and contemporary performance, it uses the provocative notion of the Postdramatic Theatre , coined by Hans-Thies Lehmann, to suggest the radical practices at the heart of early drama, and to rethink the ways in which that drama is conceived and taught.

Offers a new and contemporary approach to pre-modern drama texts and performance practice The first book to engage critically with Lehmann's work from the perspective of pre-modern performance history Co-written by leading scholars in Drama Studies and English Literature, and designed to speak to both disciplines

Autorentext

Eleanor Rycroft is Associate Professor in Early Modern Performance at the University of Bristol, UK, and author of Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity (2019). Her work centres on embodiment and gender in premodern performance. She has written articles for journals such as Shakespeare, Shakespeare Bulletin, and English Literary Renaissance, and is currently writing a British Academy-funded monograph on the early modern staging of walking.   Greg Walker is Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He has published widely in the fields of late medieval and early-modern literature and theatre history. He has also been involved, with Thomas Betteridge and Eleanor Rycroft, in performance-as-research productions of Heywood’s Play of the Weather (Hampton Court Palace), Lyndsay’s Satire of the Three Estates (Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle) and Jonson’s Masque of Augurs (Banqueting House, Westminster). 

Klappentext

This is a provocative and theoretically sophisticated work that grapples with contemporary dramatic theory in relation to medieval and Tudor performance, making successful interventions in both fields. The authors artfully balance historicity and dramatic theory in chapters focused on explicating key terms including theatre, drama, performance, and playmaking; the role of the body in medieval performance; and the complex temporality of medieval drama. -Daniel Smith, Associate Professor of Theatre Studies, Michigan State University.   Predramatic Theatre offers a fresh, innovative account of the drama of the period prior to the building of the professional playhouses read in the light of modern theories of the dramatic and postdramatic theatres. Designed to speak to scholars and students in both performance studies and literary studies, and to span the fields of pre-modern and contemporary performance, it uses the provocative notion of the Postdramatic Theatre, coined by Hans-Thies Lehmann, to suggest the radical practices at the heart of early drama, and to rethink the ways in which that drama is conceived and taught.   Eleanor Rycroft is Associate Professor in Early Modern Performance at the University of Bristol, UK, and author of Facial Hair and the Performance of Early Modern Masculinity (2019). Her work centres on embodiment and gender in premodern performance. She has written articles for journals such as Shakespeare, Shakespeare Bulletin, and English Literary Renaissance, and is currently writing a British Academy-funded monograph on the early modern staging of walking.   Greg Walker is Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He has published widely in the fields of late medieval and early-modern literature and theatre history. He has also been involved, with Thomas Betteridge and Eleanor Rycroft, in performance-as-research productions of Heywood’s Play of the Weather (Hampton Court Palace), Lyndsay’s Satire of the Three Estates (Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle) and Jonson’s Masque of Augurs (Banqueting House, Westminster). 

Inhalt

Chapter 01: Introduction: Predramatic Theatre: a new category for theatre history.- Chapter 02: Postdramatic Theatre and Pre-theatrical Drama, What's in a Name?.- Chapter 03: Byholdes myn heede, myn handis, and my feete': Embodiment and Presence in Predramatic Theatre.- Chapter 04: 'The play began never till now!': Process and Time in Predramatic Theatre.- Chapter 05: Conclusion: Predramatic and Postdramatic Theatres.