Overview
An Impossible Question From A Chinese Actor - ""Why is Shakespeare eternal?"" - drove Sidney Homan after fifty years in the theater to ponder just what makes Shakespeare...well, Shakespeare. The result, Directing Shakespeare, reflects the two worlds in which Homan operates - as a scholar and teacher on campus, and as a director and actor in professional and university theaters. His concern is the entire process, beginning in the lonely period when the director develops a concept and moving into increasingly larger realms: interaction with stage designer; rehearsal; and public performances in which the audience's response further shapes the play. Homan recounts the experience of staging King Lear accompanied by a musical score for piano, violin, and cello played live onstage. He discusses the challenge of making and trying to justify cuts in Hamlet. A casual remark from an actress leads to a feminist production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He describes the delicate collaboration between director and performer as he works with actors preparing for The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Hamlet. Other chapters treat a set designer's bold red drapes that influenced the director's concep
Full Product Details
Author: Sidney Homan
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Imprint: Ohio University Press
Edition: 1
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.60cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.417kg
ISBN: 9780821415504
ISBN 10: 0821415506
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 15 March 2004
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
General
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
Sidney Homan has the unusual gift for a literary critic of being a good story-teller, and so the moments of rehearsing and trying to find how a complicated text can work on stage come through with vividness and point...Any Shakespearean and any intellectually curious actor or director would find substantial value and interest in Directing Shakespeare. -- Robert Pierce * author of Shakespeare's History Plays *
Sidney Homan has the unusual gift for a literary critic of being a good story-teller, and so the moments of rehearsing and trying to find how a complicated text can work on stage come through with vividness and point.... Any Shakespearean and any intellectually curious actor or director would find substantial value and interest in Directing Shakespeare. - Robert Pierce, author of Shakespeare's History Plays
Author Information
Sidney Homan is a professor of English at the University of Florida as well as an actor and director. His books include When the Theater Turns to Itself, Shakespeare's Theatre of Presence, and Beckett's Theatres.
