In twenty-four chapters David Kaplan offers ideas, opinions, theories, and facts for someone who wants to be a theater artist today in hopes of creating their own vision of theater-making, one informed by, and in the context of, theater history. This book explores what theater artists have done before and what they, inspired by history, might do next.
A non-lineal theater history, Shakespeare Shamans, and Show Biz explores theater as a shamanâs vision, as a storytellerâs heritage, as religious propaganda, as a mirror of life, as a critique of society, as a prompt for hard laughter, as fantasy, and as national epic, with plays as different (and the same) as the writings of August Wilson, Gertrude Stein, Shakespeare, and people who never made it into history.
Each chapter explores a particular theme: âThe Middle Ages as a State of Mind,â âCommedia dellâarte and Molière,â âShakespeareâTo Begin,â âEuripidesâForever Modern,â âAeschylusâWriting in an Age of Certainty,â âSophocles and AristotleâDefining Tragedy,â âGreek Comedy,â âRoman Theater,â âAsian Classics and Rulesâ (Bunrakuken, Chikamatsu, Zeami), ChinaâThe Pear Garden and the Red Pear Garden,â âNeoclassic Theater and Why There is Such a Thing,â âShakespeareâs Classic,â âBad Boys Breaking the Rulesâ (Brecht, Ibsen, and Jarry), âInside Outsideâ (Ibsen, Strindberg, Turgenev, Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Antoine), âBeyond Illusionâ (Appia, Craig, Poel), âMelodrama and Popular Theater in Americaâ (Aiken, Brice, Cohan, Stone, Tyler, Bert Williams), âAmerican Classic: Eugene OâNeill and Martha Graham,â âExpressionism to Epicâ (Brecht, Meyerhold, OâNeill, Piscator, Treadwell), âAmerican Agitprop: Overt and Disguisedâ (Adler, Clurman, Flanagan, Kazan, Le Gallienne, Miller, Odets, Robeson, Strasberg, Wilder), âPoetry of the Theaterâ (Artaud, Breton, Cocteau, Ionesco, Kharms, Stein), âPersonal Mythologyâ (Genet, Lorca, Mishima, Strindberg), âTwo Masters: Samuel Becket and Tennessee Williams,â âTheater of Identityâ (Baraka, Ensler, Kramer, Wilson), and âMissing from Historyâ (Bonner, FornĂŠs, Kennedy, Maeterlinck).
In twenty-four chapters David Kaplan offers ideas, opinions, theories, and facts for someone who wants to be a theater artist today in hopes of creating their own vision of theater-making, one informed by, and in the context of, theater history. This book explores what theater artists have done before and what they, inspired by history, might do next.
A non-lineal theater history, Shakespeare Shamans, and Show Biz explores theater as a shamanâs vision, as a storytellerâs heritage, as religious propaganda, as a mirror of life, as a critique of society, as a prompt for hard laughter, as fantasy, and as national epic, with plays as different (and the same) as the writings of August Wilson, Gertrude Stein, Shakespeare, and people who never made it into history.
Each chapter explores a particular theme: âThe Middle Ages as a State of Mind,â âCommedia dellâarte and Molière,â âShakespeareâTo Begin,â âEuripidesâForever Modern,â âAeschylusâWriting in an Age of Certainty,â âSophocles and AristotleâDefining Tragedy,â âGreek Comedy,â âRoman Theater,â âAsian Classics and Rulesâ (Bunrakuken, Chikamatsu, Zeami), ChinaâThe Pear Garden and the Red Pear Garden,â âNeoclassic Theater and Why There is Such a Thing,â âShakespeareâs Classic,â âBad Boys Breaking the Rulesâ (Brecht, Ibsen, and Jarry), âInside Outsideâ (Ibsen, Strindberg, Turgenev, Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Antoine), âBeyond Illusionâ (Appia, Craig, Poel), âMelodrama and Popular Theater in Americaâ (Aiken, Brice, Cohan, Stone, Tyler, Bert Williams), âAmerican Classic: Eugene OâNeill and Martha Graham,â âExpressionism to Epicâ (Brecht, Meyerhold, OâNeill, Piscator, Treadwell), âAmerican Agitprop: Overt and Disguisedâ (Adler, Clurman, Flanagan, Kazan, Le Gallienne, Miller, Odets, Robeson, Strasberg, Wilder), âPoetry of the Theaterâ (Artaud, Breton, Cocteau, Ionesco, Kharms, Stein), âPersonal Mythologyâ (Genet, Lorca, Mishima, Strindberg), âTwo Masters: Samuel Becket and Tennessee Williams,â âTheater of Identityâ (Baraka, Ensler, Kramer, Wilson), and âMissing from Historyâ (Bonner, FornĂŠs, Kennedy, Maeterlinck).