Shakespeare and the Challenge of the Contemporary : Performance, Politics and Aesthetics

Contemporary performance is a particularly stimulating area for the study of how Shakespeare and particular cultural contexts interact with and transform each other. Francesca Clare Rayner’s original and thought-provoking book highlights the diversity and experimentalism of contemporary performance practices through a focus on unexplored performances in Portugal. This book references key debates within contemporary performance studies on intermediality, globalization and political participation and analyses their particular configurations within the Portuguese context. These case studies represent clear alternatives to the market-driven view of the contemporary as the continual reproduction of the new and the topical for global consumers, recasting the contemporary instead as the site of tragedy and crisis in a Europe fragmented by years of economic austerity, political divisions around Brexit and ecological vacillation, and an anxious, refashioning of global relations between North and South. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Foreword: Time is of the essence Note on translation Acknowledgements Introduction: The challenge of the contemporary in Shakespearean performance Shakespeare and the contemporary Shakespeare in Portugal Portuguese Shakespeare in a global context Contemporary Portuguese Shakespeares Characteristics of the contemporary in Shakespearean performance The occasional ensemble Doing more for less: Performing Shakespeare Directing Shakespeare Dramaturgies of the Shakespearean trace Expanded performance spaces Emancipated spectators Chapter 1: Border crossings: Intermedial collaborations in Teatro Praga’s Shakespeare trilogy What’s love got to do with it? A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2010) Sweet dreams are made of this: The Tempest (2013) The best things in life are free: Timon of Athens (2019) Redefining intermedial collaboration Chapter 2: Memories of the future: Tiago Rodrigues and dramaturgies of the Shakespearean trace ‘A Monster too horrible to be shown’: Three Fingers below the Knee (2012) By Heart (2013) Enter the present: Antony and Cleopatra (2014) Memories of the future Chapter 3: Cruel optimism: Nuno Cardoso’s political Shakespeares (Re)defining political Shakespeare The unfinished revolution Staging the nation Richard II (2007) Measure for Measure (2012) Coriolanus (2014) Timon of Athens (2018) Political Shakespeare as a discourse of cruel optimism Chapter 4: Empowering the spectator: Christiane Jatahy’s The Moving Forest The dramaturgy of The Moving Forest Immersive performance and implicated spectatorship Documenting process The politics of situation Chapter 5: Licensing experiment: mala voadora’s Hamlet  Locating authority in contemporary performance Hamlet in Portugal Not that Hamlet The raw material of the ‘Bad’ Quarto Multiple Hamlets Scenography and contested authority Melodramatic display and parodic performance Metatheatrical play and gender-aware performance Where is Hamlet? Chapter 6: Performance matters: Contemporary Shakespearean performance criticism Challenges for contemporary performance criticism Corporeality and embodiment Participation-observation (Trans)national flows Performance knowledge Criticism in practice 1: Reviewing Shakespeare and online reviewing Criticism in practice 2: The 2018 Craiova Festival Towards performative criticism Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 References Index "Contemporary performance is a particularly stimulating area for the study of how Shakespeare is produced and received in different cultural contexts. Francesca Clare Rayner's original and thought-provoking book highlights the diversity and experimentalism of contemporary performance practices through a focus on unexplored performances in Portugal. This book references key debates within contemporary performance studies on intermediality, globalization and political participation and analyses their particular configurations within the Portuguese context. These case studies represent clear alternatives to the market-driven view of the contemporary as the continual reproduction of the new and the topical for global consumers. Instead, they recast the contemporary as a site of disempowerment, crisis and erasure in a Europe fragmented by economic austerity, political divisions around Brexit, ecological vacillation and an anxious refashioning of global relations between North and South."-- Provided by publisher