Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Russell Jackson is Emeritus Professor of Drama at the University of Birmingham, UK. His work focuses on the relationships between text and performance - particularly but not exclusively of Shakespeare’s plays - in their social and intellectual context and in a wide range of media. He is currently engaged in studies of the representation of the theatre in the other arts.I trust Jackson’s reading of that production’s theatrical signals more than I trust my own, in large part because he saw most of the productions he writes about several times, watching as the director made them tighter, deeper, and more finely detailed. Jackson extensively and meticulously documents every production’s design features, acting choices, and critical reception. But I would just as soon forego the documentation and trust Jackson’s memory, his powers of description, and his ability to get to the heart of each production’s aesthetic. Jackson’s book, like Nunn’s aesthetic, is conceptually tight, interpretively deep, and intricately detailed.
Theatre Review
Jackson’s rich eyewitness study reveals how Nunn, without ever publishing a manifesto, has been one of the key Shakespearean interpreters of our time, keeping live Shakespeare in touch with mainstream entertainment (through his cross-fertilizations with the big-budget musical) and with the arts of the screen (through his work in close-up, studio spaces). This is an important, accessible study of an important and accessible director.
- Michael Dobson, The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK,
Jackson’s book offers a fascinating insight into the career of a prolific theatre director, about whom surprisingly little has been published. It gives an invaluable overview of Nunn’s career, alongside detailed accounts of particular Shakespeare productions.
- Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall, The Shakespeare Institute, The University of Birmingham, UK,
With a masterfully even hand Jackson measures the way a major director’s work navigated the aesthetic, intellectual, administrative and financial challenges of a long and culture-shaping career. This is a deeply knowledgeable book of the kind that can only be generated out of sustained critical investment in the arts of performance.
- Andrew Hartley, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA,
Jackson is an expert guide, and his heady reactions to the shows in real time make this volume so much more engaging than an ‘objective’ stage history … A terrific book—a model of acute and detailed analysis with an eye to wider societal and theatrical trends and their inevitable overlap.
The Year's Work in English Studies
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text
Series Preface
Preface
Introduction: ‘controlled flamboyance’ and Leavisite analysis
1: The Main Stage at Stratford, 1968-72
2: The Main Stage at Stratford – after the ‘Romans’
3: Chamber Shakespeare at the Other Place
4: The National Theatre and beyond
Appendix: Shakespeare Productions directed by Trevor Nunn at the RSC and the National Theatre
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Each volume in the Shakespeare in the Theatre series examines a director or theatre company who has made a significant contribution to Shakespeare production and the aesthetic and socio-political contexts of their work.
Pointing to the range of people, artistic practices and cultural phenomena that make meaning in the theatre, the series de-centres Shakespeare from within Shakespeare studies, and provides an unrivalled way of perceiving the performance of his work.