Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre

by Colin Counsell

Signs of Performance provides the beginning student with working examples of theatrical analysis. Its range covers the whole of twentieth century theatre, from Stanislavski to Brecht and Samuel Beckett to Robert Wilson. Colin Counsell takes an historical look at theatre as a cultural practice, clearly tracing connections
* Key practitioners' ideas about performance
* The theatrical practices prompted by those ideas
* The resulting signs which emerge in performance
* The meanings and political consequences of those signs
It provides an understandable theoretical framework for the study of theatre as a an signifying practice, and offers vivid explanations in clear, direct language. It opens up this fascinating field to a broad audience.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 1996