Performing Arts : Theater

Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921) was an actor, journalist and playwright. She was born during the 123 year partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia and wrote over thirty plays. The Morality of Mrs. Dulska (1906), a 'petty-bourgeois tragic-farce', is probably her best known. Mrs Dulska is a cross between Patricia Routledge¹s Hyacinth Bucket and Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage. She is the tyrannical and hilarious landlady of a fine stone tenement building – proud, shrewd and highly preoccupied with appearances. Dulska keeps her purse strings tightly drawn and exploits her tenants in a most unforgiving fashion. To the unhappy woman from the first floor apartment who tries to poison herself by swallowing some match heads, she shows no mercy. To her serving maid, who she effectively prostitutes to her son in order to keep his philandering under her own roof and within her control, she shows no compassion. Her daughters struggle through the torments of adolescence with the facts of life skillfully concealed from them, and her husband, worn down over the years by his power-hungry wife, has barely a word to say to his family. It is her son that Mrs Dulska loves – loves with an unhealthy possessiveness. Her fear that he will leave prompts her to fund the servicing of his every desire. Why is it, then, that he resents her so much? Why is it that he feels compelled to seek revenge? Zapolska’s uncompromising look at gender construction and class oppression in fin-de-siecle Poland is witty, entertaining and incisive. This is the first published UK translation of this popular Polish classic. It was prepared by Teresa Murjas, a lecturer in Theatre at the University of Reading. In her introduction, Teresa discusses how the translation and first UK production, which she directed, were developed. She introduces Zapolska's work in its historical contexts, provides the reader with relevant biographical information and considers the play's more...

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This work offers an historical treatment of a music theatre that was once at the centre of London's West End. It establishes musical comedy as one of the first industrial cultures and offers fascinating insights into how it functioned ideologically as a celebrated embracing of the modern condition. more...

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Introduction: What is Music Theater?. Part I: Music in Music Theater. 1. The Voice. 2. Where the Sound Comes From. 3. The Music. Entr'acte I: Is there such a thing as progress in music and music theater?. Part II: Theater in Music Theater. 4. Theater, Music, and Culture. 5. Text. Entr'acte II: The Language of Kathakali. 6. Visual Strategies. 7. Space. Entr'acte III: A Theater of Warm Bodies?. Part III: Putting it all together: La Mise en Scene. 8. The American Eccentrics. 9. Germany and Austria. 10. The Italians. Entr'acte IV: The In Between. 11. Music Theater in France. 12. Great Britain and Northern Europe. 13. Downtown. 14. Minimalism. 15. The Show Music Go On. 16. Extended Voice. 17. Media and Music Theater. Part V: After the Show: Taking it Apart. Entr'acte V: Criticism and Journalism. 18. Towards a Theory of Music Theater. 19. Notation vs. Improvisation. 20. The Ingredients. 21. Popular or High Art?. 22. Is Anyone Listening?. Coda. Appendix. Bibliography more...

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An unprecedented history of the production of Brecht's plays in Britain over the last forty years. Eddershaw surveys all aspects of Brecht in performance, from his methodologies to his place in postmodernist theatre and beyond. more...

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Live performance continues to be created every time it is performed. This book explores the dynamic relationship between creative process, presentation and spectator response to provide students and scholars in Drama with new insights on performance from poetry to pantomime. These essays make parallels between areas of performance that are rarely, if ever, compared. They present the basis for an overall theory of how 'conception', 'development', 'presentation' and 'reception' are fused together to make up the overall 'performance'. This study investigates the relationship between the process of creating performance and spectator response, and how this exchange is embedded into the product itself. The authors draw on theoretical approaches from a range of sources, and examine the work of contemporary dramatists, choreographers, poets and performers. Its construction of a new, wide-ranging approach to performance research makes this book a valuable resource for the student as well as the broader academic community. It has application both as a textbook and for supplementary research on drama courses nationwide. more...

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