Early Modern Tragedy, Gender and Performance, 1984-2000

About this book

What happens when contemporary actors perform the rigid gender roles that help to shape the doomed characters of much early modern English tragedy? How do their performances affect contemporary audiences and contemporary society? Early Modern Tragedy, Gender and Performance, 1984-2000 strives to answer this question by advancing a new model for politically engaged spectatorship of contemporary productions by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Using nine recent theatrical and cinematic productions as case studies, it offers close analyses of the contradictions and tensions that arise when contemporary actors perform the gender norms of a previous culture in a manner calculated to suit the norms of our own time. Because it shows how both actors and spectators can have an impact on current debates about gender roles, it will be of interest to theatre practitioners as well as to students of early modern drama, of performance, and of gender studies.