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Shakespeare Bulletin
Special issue theorizing acting techniques in Shakespeare's and other early modern plays.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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April 16, 2014
The problem with people like me is a misguided need to theorize everything. Most Shakespeare scholars have not figured out that phenomena exist outside of our little theories of how and why they work, and so we are pretty much always wrong when we attempt to analyze them. I think that our intentions are good, but this is one of the reasons the world giggles at us up in our ivory and ivy-covered towers.
This well intended, and in some ways interesting, issue of SHAKESPEARE BULLETIN is an especially egregious example of this as it attempts to expose the problems with naturalistic and realist approaches to performance criticism of plays from Shakespeare’s time and find a discursive method that works. It fails, of course, because of the reductionist problem. Any “method” reduces the phenomena to what the method can analyze and misses everything else, and the method may not be well suited for some phenomena. All you can do is attempt to be method free and describe the phenomena as you find it. The attempt to model a new methodology in the introduction to this issue is especially naïve for the way that the participants discussing a production of ‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE can’t help bringing their other critical concerns into the discussion.
There are pleasures in the issue. The reviews by Matt Kozusko and Susanne Greenhalgh are enlightening about two very interesting productions, and while the review of two books by Mark Burnett has some rather silly statements, I nevertheless felt I came to know what these books are about and how they function. This isn’t much of an issue, but it rewards selective reading.
This well intended, and in some ways interesting, issue of SHAKESPEARE BULLETIN is an especially egregious example of this as it attempts to expose the problems with naturalistic and realist approaches to performance criticism of plays from Shakespeare’s time and find a discursive method that works. It fails, of course, because of the reductionist problem. Any “method” reduces the phenomena to what the method can analyze and misses everything else, and the method may not be well suited for some phenomena. All you can do is attempt to be method free and describe the phenomena as you find it. The attempt to model a new methodology in the introduction to this issue is especially naïve for the way that the participants discussing a production of ‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE can’t help bringing their other critical concerns into the discussion.
There are pleasures in the issue. The reviews by Matt Kozusko and Susanne Greenhalgh are enlightening about two very interesting productions, and while the review of two books by Mark Burnett has some rather silly statements, I nevertheless felt I came to know what these books are about and how they function. This isn’t much of an issue, but it rewards selective reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review