Awards
- Winner of Finalist Theatre Library Awards August 2017
Overview
Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theatre censorship, controversial plays and Fielding’s forgery of an actor’s biography, the book contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were early Brechtians. Reconstructions of lost episodes in theatre history include a recounting of Fielding’s last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theatre was closed, Charlotte Charke’s performances as Macheath and Polly Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera and the 1740 staging of Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation on a double bill with Shakespeare’s Merry Wives . . . Some documents in this collection offer another perspective on theatre history by employing fiction – speculative reconstructions of Georgian theatre events for which historical facts are scarce or missing. Brecht also employed fiction to reconsider history in short stories he wrote about Lucullus and Socrates, and a novel about Julius Caesar. The stories and several new letters attributed to Fielding delve into theatre history and keep some of its controversy alive in new ways, historicizing fiction and theatre somewhat as Brecht did. It offers an unconventional, new reading of theatre history, Brecht’s tradition and stage satire.
Full Product Details
Author: Joel Schechter
Publisher: University of Exeter
Imprint: University of Exeter
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 2.80cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.703kg
ISBN: 9780859899970
ISBN 10: 0859899977
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 03 May 2016
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
`Joel Schechter may have written the perfect book for this historical moment. `Schechter brings a lively and highly readable style to Eighteenth-Century Brechtians, which makes the daunting task of teasing out the parallels between two seemingly disparate aesthetic movements easy to follow. The breadth of the connections that Schechter makes is impressive [. . . ] The result is a clear, nuanced, novel reading of theatrical events and plays that demonstrates their vitality and relevance today. `Eighteenth-Century Brechtians is part history, part exegesis, and part polemical manifesto. As we enter a period of political uncertainty, the satirical voices that Schechter celebrates here may prove useful once more. Readable and concise, the book is accessible enough for an undergraduate but with enough sophistication for more advanced students.' Seth Wilson, University of Georgia, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Volume 32, Number 1, Fall 2017 `Not every book about the eighteenth-century theatre alludes to Chelsea Manning, Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders, or concludes with a chronology that jumps from 1763 ( James Boswell visits Newgate Prison ) to 1928 ( Brecht and others adapt Gay's The Beggar's Opera ). Eighteenth-century Brechtians: Theatrical Satire in the Age of Walpole makes these contemporary references and goes further: it is introduced by the theatre historian Peter Thomson as a bid to jolt the anglophone theatre out of its political doziness , and by its author Joel Schechter as a mapping of paths to future satire and activism, through a survey of earlier routes explored by Brecht and his precursors in England . [ ] there is much here to prompt further investigation, not least for any post-Brechtian producers who happen to open the book.' Michael Caines, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2016 `It is very jauntily written, as might well be expected from this author, and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is at times infectious.' Michael Wilson, Professor of Drama, Loughborough University `This is a book like no other. Schechter delights in liberating his own fantasy, in allowing his imagination free play in interpreting, not only what was, but also what might have been and what, with the right incentives, might be.' `This new book has been written as a challenge to the twenty-first century, a bid to jolt the Anglophone theatre out of its political doziness. Peter Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Exeter `This is an intelligent, radical book, intriguing from the start and relentlessly imaginative. Always accessible and affable in style.' Graham Ley, Professor of Drama and Theory, University of Exeter
'Not every book about the eighteenth-century theatre alludes to Chelsea Manning, Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders, or concludes with a chronology that jumps from 1763 ( James Boswell visits Newgate Prison ) to 1928 ( Brecht and others adapt Gay's The Beggar's Opera ). Eighteenth-century Brechtians: Theatrical Satire in the Age of Walpole makes these contemporary references and goes further: it is introduced by the theatre historian Peter Thomson as a bid to jolt the anglophone theatre out of its political doziness , and by its author Joel Schechter as a mapping of paths to future satire and activism, through a survey of earlier routes explored by Brecht and his precursors in England . [ ] there is much here to prompt further investigation, not least for any post-Brechtian producers who happen to open the book.' Michael Caines, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2016 'It is very jauntily written, as might well be expected from this author, and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is at times infectious.' Michael Wilson, Professor of Drama, Loughborough University 'This is a book like no other. Schechter delights in liberating his own fantasy, in allowing his imagination free play in interpreting, not only what was, but also what might have been and what, with the right incentives, might be.' 'This new book has been written as a challenge to the twenty-first century, a bid to jolt the Anglophone theatre out of its political doziness. Peter Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Exeter 'This is an intelligent, radical book, intriguing from the start and relentlessly imaginative. Always accessible and affable in style.' Graham Ley, Professor of Drama and Theory, University of Exeter
`Joel Schechter may have written the perfect book for this historical moment. `Schechter brings a lively and highly readable style to Eighteenth-Century Brechtians, which makes the daunting task of teasing out the parallels between two seemingly disparate aesthetic movements easy to follow. The breadth of the connections that Schechter makes is impressive [. . . ] The result is a clear, nuanced, novel reading of theatrical events and plays that demonstrates their vitality and relevance today. `Eighteenth-Century Brechtians is part history, part exegesis, and part polemical manifesto. As we enter a period of political uncertainty, the satirical voices that Schechter celebrates here may prove useful once more. Readable and concise, the book is accessible enough for an undergraduate but with enough sophistication for more advanced students.' Seth Wilson, University of Georgia, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Volume 32, Number 1, Fall 2017 `Not every book about the eighteenth-century theatre alludes to Chelsea Manning, Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders, or concludes with a chronology that jumps from 1763 ( James Boswell visits Newgate Prison ) to 1928 ( Brecht and others adapt Gay's The Beggar's Opera ). Eighteenth-century Brechtians: Theatrical Satire in the Age of Walpole makes these contemporary references and goes further: it is introduced by the theatre historian Peter Thomson as a bid to jolt the anglophone theatre out of its political doziness , and by its author Joel Schechter as a mapping of paths to future satire and activism, through a survey of earlier routes explored by Brecht and his precursors in England . [ ] there is much here to prompt further investigation, not least for any post-Brechtian producers who happen to open the book.' Michael Caines, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2016 `It is very jauntily written, as might well be expected from this author, and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is at times infectious.' Michael Wilson, Professor of Drama, Loughborough University `This is a book like no other. Schechter delights in liberating his own fantasy, in allowing his imagination free play in interpreting, not only what was, but also what might have been and what, with the right incentives, might be.' `This new book has been written as a challenge to the twenty-first century, a bid to jolt the Anglophone theatre out of its political doziness. Peter Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Exeter `This is an intelligent, radical book, intriguing from the start and relentlessly imaginative. Always accessible and affable in style.' Graham Ley, Professor of Drama and Theory, University of Exeter
'I found it both engaging and challenging/confusing, which is probably very Brechtian in itself. It is very jauntily written, as might well be expected from this author, and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is at times infectious. 'The author's approach to history is a welcome one that serves the material well. Rather than take a strictly chronological approach to history he adopts a view of history as a set of episodes that reflect on each other and through which we can move backwards, as well as forwards. This approach is one that Brecht himself would have endorsed, as a non-chronological approach challenges the notion that any event is the inevitable consequence of the event that preceded it. It acknowledges that other possible outcomes are always present.' (Michael Wilson, Professor of Drama, Loughborough University) 'This is a book like no other. 'Schechter delights in liberating his own fantasy, in allowing his imagination free play in interpreting, not only what was, but also what might have been and what, with the right incentives, might be. What if, he asks, we were to accept that Brecht influenced John Gay. What if The Threepenny Opera can be seen as a source for The Beggar's Opera and its banned sequel Polly? By challenging the authority of chronology, might we not come to a new understanding of the radicalism of Gay and Fielding? That's what this book succeeds in doing. (Peter Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Exeter) 'This is an intelligent, radical book, intriguing from the start and relentlessly imaginative. It has a clear agenda, which is to mix up two periods from the past in the hope that they will stimulate the present. Joel Schechter goes out of his way to suggest ways in which this is already, arguably, the case and in which directors or script-makers or dramaturgs might get in there and stir some more. 'The shape of the book is exciting and unpredictable, not conforming to a format, but always accessible and affable in style.' (Graham Ley, Professor of Drama and Theory, University of Exeter)
Author Information
Joel Schechter is Professor of Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University. He is famous as a writer about clowns, jesters, satirists and their radical politics. Much of his work has been focused on contemporary global mayhem. He was previously Professor of Dramatic Literature at Yale School of Drama, lecturer in Performance Studies at New York University and the New School for Social Research. He was Editor in Chief of the Yale journal Theater from 1977-92.
