Inside Shakespeare Essays on the Blackfriars Stage

by Menzer, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781575910772
• ISBN10: 1575910772
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-01
• Publisher: Susquehanna University Press

Summary

The recently built Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, VA, has renewed interest among Shakespeareans and theater historians alike in the playhouse to which Shakespeare's company moved late in his career. Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage represents the first scholarly collection to address questions peculiar to the Blackfriars and indoor playing: Did the Blackfriars have its own repertory? What was the place of the Blackfriars in the urban economy? What qualities did the Blackfriars share with the long tradition of great-hall performances? Featuring essays by Andrew Gurr, Tiffany Stern, Stephen Booth, Roslyn Knutson, A. R. Braunmuller, Michael Shapiro, Alan Somerset, Virginia Mason Vaughn and others, the essays span a range of approaches from performative to historical to textual. Some focus quite specifically on the Blackfriars, while others use the theater as a springboard to related concerns. Culled from the first two Blackfriars Conferences in 2001 and 2003, all the essays help resituate the place of the Shakespearean stage.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Shakespeare Inside and Out	7	(10)
Paul Menzer
Ralph Alan Cohen
London's Blackfriars Playhouse and the Chamberlain's Men	17	(18)
Andrew Gurr
Part I: The Blackfriars Playhouse and the Indoor Stage
Taking Part: Actors and Audience on the Stage at Blackfriars	35	(19)
Tiffany Stern
What If There Wasn't a ``Blackfriars Repertory''?	54	(7)
Roslyn Knutson
Who's In, Who's Out?: The Knight of the Burning Pestle on the Blackfriars Stage	61	(11)
Leslie Thomson
``Beware at what hands thou receiv'st thy commodity'': The Alchemist and the King's Men Fleece the Customers, 1610	72	(8)
Melissa D. Aaron
The Blackfriars on Tour: Provincial Analogies	80	(6)
Alan Somerset
Professional Players in Stratford-on-Avon, 1587--1602	86	(7)
Elza C. Tiner
The Queen's ``unfledged minions'': An Alternate Account of the Origins of Blackfriars and of the Boy Company Phenomenon	93	(25)
Jeanne H. McCarthy
The Westminister Scholars' Sapientia Solomonis as Royal Gift Offering	118	(5)
Michael Shapiro
Blacking-up at the Blackfriars Theatre	123	(9)
Virginia Mason Vaughan
The Blackfriars Gladiators: Masters of Fence, Playing a Prize, and the Elizabethan and Stuart Theater	132	(17)
Ian Borden
Part II: Plays and Playing
``What is Become of Bushy? Where is Green?'': Metadramatic Reference to Doubling Actors in Richard II	149	(7)
Alan Armstrong
Smelling Their Way to Dover: A Blind Director's Take on Blind Gloucester	156	(6)
David Richman
From Willow Cabin to Dark House: Twelfth Night and the Poetics of Indoor Spaces	162	(12)
Walter W. Cannon
Changeable Taffeta: Re-dressing the Bears in Twelfth Night	174	(18)
John R. Ford
Hamlet's Pockets: Problems with Stage Directions	192	(8)
William Proctor Williams
A Joke and a Crux in Hamlet Q2	200	(6)
Albert Braunmuller
The Single Performance of Hamlet that Changed Theater History	206	(10)
Barry Gaines
A Discourse on the Witty Partition of A Midsummer Night's Dream	216	(7)
Stephen Booth
Afterword: Discovery Spaces? Research at the Globe and Blackfriars	223	(8)
Paul Menzer
Notes on Contributors	231	(5)
General Index	236	(5)
Author Index	241