Shakespeare's Opposites
Shakespeare's Opposites
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The Admiral's Men is the acting company that staged Christopher Marlowe's plays while its companion company was giving the first performances of Shakespeare. Unlike the Shakespeare company, there is plenty of evidence available telling us what the Admiral's company did and how it staged its plays. Not only do we know far more about the design of its two playhouses, the Rose and the Fortune, than we know of any other playhouse from the time, including the Globe, but we have Henslowe's Diary. This recorded everything the Admiral's company performed from 1594 to 1600 and after, what the company bought to stage its plays, who performed which parts, who wrote which plays and even how much they were paid. The first history to be written of the Admiral's Men, this book tells us not only a great deal about the company's own work, but also how the Shakespeare company operated.
- Andrew Gurr is the best-known international authority on the staging of plays in the time of Shakespeare
- Corresponds closely to the author's previous prolific studies The Shakespearean Stage, 1574–1642 and The Shakespeare Company, 1594–1642
- Appendices include a complete list of the 229 plays known to have been staged by the company
Reviews & endorsements
Review of the hardback: '… Shakespeare's Opposites is a highly recommended reading for students and scholars of early modern drama and performance history alike. It provides profound detail, specific information and reference material for the expert while offering an alternative access to the undergraduate who wants to enrich his or her appreciation of the poetic value of early modern drama with an understanding of its particular impact in performance.' Birgit Walkenhorst
Review of the hardback: 'Shakespeare's Opposites is a necessary work, and an impressive one.' Around the Globe
'In Shakespeare's Opposites Gurr meets a new challenge: the near-impossible task of making historical bricks with Henslowe's straw. The result is an authoritative work, invaluable for every theatre historian and illuminating to every student of Elizabethan theatre.' Alastair Fowler, The Times Literary Supplement
'This is a groundbreaking work of repertory history by today's most learned, versatile, and acute historian of English Renaissance drama.' Charles Whitney, The Ben Jonson Journal
Product details
- Published: May 2009
- Format: Hardback
- ISBN: 9780521869034
- Length: 328 pages
- Dimensions: 235 × 160 × 22 mm
- Weight: 0.65kg
- Contains: 17 b/w illus.
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- 1. The company's unique features
- 2. Tricks of disguise and travel
- 3. Henslowe's accounts and the play texts
- 4. Staging at the Rose and the Fortune
- 5. The company's repertory practices
- Appendices: Appendix 1. The plays
- Appendix 2. The players
- Appendix 3. Travelling
- Appendix 4. Performing at court.
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