In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Brief Notices
Philip Butterworth and Katie Normington, eds. European Theatre Performance Practice, 1400–1580. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. xxvi + 551. $300.00.

The primary text, as listed on the publisher’s website, includes: Introduction; Part I Records: St John’s College register of inventories (1548–49), Trinity College Inventory (1550), Alan H. Nelson; Cordwainers’ and shoemakers’ accounts (1549–50), Smiths’, cutlers’, and plumbers’ accounts (1560–61), Bowyers’, fletchers’, coopers’, and stringers’ accounts (1571), Painters’, glaziers’, embroiderers’, and stationers’ accounts (1571), Elizabeth Baldwin, Lawrence M. Clopper, and David Mills; Cappers’ records (1540), Drapers’ accounts (1563), Smiths’ accounts (1584), R.W. Ingram; Corporation chamberlains’ accounts (1573–74) (Elizabeth’s visit), Willis’ description of a play at Gloucester (1570s), Audrey Douglas and Peter Greenfield; Chamberlains’ accounts (New Romney, 1483–86 and 1560–61), James M. Gibson; Grocers’ Guild records (1564–65), David Galloway; Mercers’ pageant documents (1433) (indenture), Mercers’ pageant documents (1461) (expenses), Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson; Of perspective, Sebastiano Serlio; Third dialogue, Leoni di Somi. Part II Pageant Vehicle Staging: The York Mercers and their pageant of Doomsday, 1433–1526, Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret (Dorrell) Rogerson; The development of the York Mercers’ pageant waggon, Peter Meredith; The manner of these playes, John Marshall; The Coventry pageant waggon, Reg Ingram. Part III Other Forms of Staging: Criteria for a popular repertory, David Bevington; La festa d’Elx: the Festival of the Assumption of the Virgin, Elche (Alicante), Pamela M. King and Asunción Salvador-Rabaza; Drama and the city: city parades, Katie Normington; Moving encounters: choreographing stage and spectators in urban theatre and pageantry, Tom Pettitt. Part IV Costume, Mask and Stage Effects: Apparell comlye, Meg Twycross; Gunnepowdyr, fyre and thondyr, Philip Butterworth; Mystery plays, Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter; Magic through sound: illusion, deception and agreed pretence, Philip Butterworth. Part V Playing: “Look at me when I’m speaking to you”: the “behold and see” convention in medieval drama, David Mills; Prompting in full view of the audience: a medieval staging convention, Philip Butterworth; “Walking in the air”: the Chester shepherds on stilts, John Marshall; Devotional acting: [End Page 121] Sydney 2008 and medieval York, Margaret Rogerson; Parts and parcels: cueing conventions for the English medieval player, Philip Butterworth; The professional travelling players of the 15th century: myth or reality?, Peter Meredith. Part VI Audiences and Spectatorship: Medieval theatricality and spectatorship, John J. McGavin; The 15th-century audience of the York Corpus Christi play: records and speculation, Peter Meredith; New evidence: vives and audience-response to Biblical drama, Sarah Carpenter; Faded pageant: the end of the Mystery plays in Lille, Alan E. Knight; Framing the Passion: mansion staging as visual mnemonic, Glenn Ehrstine; Name index.

Robert Henke and M. A. Katritzky, eds. European Theatre Performance Practice, 1580–1750. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. xxxiii + 575. $300.00.

The primary text, as listed on the publisher’s website, includes: Introduction. Part I Playing Spaces: The changing scene: plays and playhouses in the Italian Renaissance, Michael Anderson; The theatres, John Orrell; Staging and performance, Jonathan Thacker; The material conditions of Molière’s stage, Jan Clarke. Part II Staging: Shakespeare’s stage, J. L. Styan; Shakespeare’s theater: tradition and experiment, Robert Weimann; Women at the windows: commedia dell’ arte and theatrical practice in early modern Italy, Jane Tylus; The circulation of clothes and the making of the English theater, Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass; Absorbing interests: Kyd’s bloody handkerchief as palimpsest, Andrew Sofer; Insubstantial pageants: women’s work and the (im)material culture of the early modern stage, Natasha Korda. Part III Acting: Ruzante and the evolution of acting practice in Renaissance Italy, Ronnie Ferguson; Arte dialogue structures in the comedies of Molière, Richard Andrews; Rogues and rhetoricians: acting styles in early English drama, Peter Thomson; Rehearsal, performance and plays, Tiffany Stern; Comic stage routines in Guarinonius’ medical treatise of 1610, M. A. Katritzky; “La virtu et la volupté”: models for the actress in early modern Italy and France, Virginia Scott; Acting, Gerry McCarthy. Part IV Audiences: The audiences, Andrew Gurr; Theaters and audiences, Stephen Orgel; Women as spectators, spectacles, and paying customers, Jean E. Howard; Toward reconstructing the audiences of the commedia dell’ arte, Robert Henke; The...

pdf

Share