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Author:   Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. ,  Meredith Conti
Publisher:   University of Wales Press
Imprint:   University of Wales Press
ISBN:  

9781786838452

ISBN 10:   1786838451
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   15 March 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction: I Made the Dance of Death - Meredith Conti Part I. Histories of the Macabre The Mortification of Harvey Leach: Humour and Horror in Nineteenth-Century Theatre of Disability - Michael M. Chemers The Horrors of the Great War on the London Stage: The Grand Guignol Season of 1915 - Helen E.M. Brooks Phantoms of the Stage: The History and Practice of Uncanny Apparitions - Richard J. Hand Part II. Dramaturgies of the Macabre Time and Punishment: Gothic Maternal Bodies on the Contemporary British Stage - Kelly Jones The Body Dismembered: Allegory and Modernity in German Trauerspiel - Magda Romanska Macabre Children on the Australian Stage: Angela Betzien's Cycle of Crime Plays - Chris Hay and Stephen Carleton Martin McDonagh's Hangmen: Justice and Guilt in Public and Private Acts of Hanging - Michelle C. Paull Fear of Death and Lyrical Flight: Mortality Salience Mediation in Fun Home - Christopher J. Staley Part III. Staging the Macabre The Severed Head on Stage - Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Dancing Haunted Legacies: Diana Szeinblum's Alaska - Jeanmarie Higgins 'To Die Over and Over Inside My Body': Three Deaths in Hijikata Tatsumi's Butoh - J. E. F. Ooi Part IV. The Immersive Macabre 'Black and Deep Desires': Sleep No More and the Immersive Macabre - Dan Venning The Dark Ride Immersive and the Danse Macabre - David Bisaha Liveness and Aliveness: Chasing the Uncanny in the Contemporary Haunt Industry - David Norris American Hells: Hell Houses, Abortion Frames, and Unsexed Women - Robyn Lee Horn Haunting the Stage: Macabre Tourism, Lieux de Memoire, and the Immortal Death of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre - Meredith Conti Bibliography Index

Reviews

Theatre and the Macabre is a must-read book for academics, history buffs, theatre professionals and students of the macabre. The range of subjects covered and depths to which they are explored, literally from head to footlights, make this book an invaluable addition to any library. --Teel James Glenn, actor, director, fight choreographer and novelist Horror onstage is too often considered a mere curiosity, rarely worthy of serious critical consideration. By presenting a wide range of pieces that incorporate history and region, as well as exploring those extraordinary places where literature, theatre, folklore and pop culture meet, Theatre and the Macabre succeeds in proving that the study of theatrical horror is tremendously valuable. --Lisa Morton, author of Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances Meredith Conti and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. have choreographed a fascinating collection on the macabre and the theatre. More than that, its delineation of the liminal nature of performance, witnessing and participation reveal the centrality of death to the ongoing dance of life. --Simon Bacon, author and editor of Gothic: A Reader, and Horror: A Companion Skulls, ghosts, severed heads. . . . This is a book steeped in gruesome and creepy manifestations. The essays gathered together address the ethics and politics of macabre spectacles--from Grand Guignol to twenty-first-century immersive experiences--as well as the potentially lucrative exploitation of our fascination with the body's perturbing vulnerabilities. It is this joint concern that gets right to the bleeding heart of macabre theaters. --Dr. Adam Alston, Goldsmiths, University of London

""Theatre and the Macabre is a must-read book for academics, history buffs, theatre professionals and students of the macabre. The range of subjects covered and depths to which they are explored, literally from head to footlights, make this book an invaluable addition to any library."" --Teel James Glenn, actor, director, fight choreographer and novelist ""Horror onstage is too often considered a mere curiosity, rarely worthy of serious critical consideration. By presenting a wide range of pieces that incorporate history and region, as well as exploring those extraordinary places where literature, theatre, folklore and pop culture meet, Theatre and the Macabre succeeds in proving that the study of theatrical horror is tremendously valuable."" --Lisa Morton, author of Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances ""Meredith Conti and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. have choreographed a fascinating collection on the macabre and the theatre. More than that, its delineation of the liminal nature of performance, witnessing and participation reveal the centrality of death to the ongoing dance of life."" --Simon Bacon, author and editor of Gothic: A Reader, and Horror: A Companion ""Skulls, ghosts, severed heads. . . . This is a book steeped in gruesome and creepy manifestations. The essays gathered together address the ethics and politics of macabre spectacles--from Grand Guignol to twenty-first-century immersive experiences--as well as the potentially lucrative exploitation of our fascination with the body's perturbing vulnerabilities. It is this joint concern that gets right to the bleeding heart of macabre theaters."" --Dr. Adam Alston, Goldsmiths, University of London

Author Information

This book will appeal to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and scholars, particularly theatre practitioners, or those interested in theatre studies, Horror or Gothic.

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