tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post8727231741491584467..comments2011-04-25T10:30:06.350-04:00Comments on Wynken de Worde: Is Othello a sad book?Sarah Wernerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941029918210770136noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post-49347368514636966612009-05-15T19:34:00.000-04:002009-05-15T19:34:00.000-04:00I do remember having difficulty getting students t...I do remember having difficulty getting students to attend to stage directions. "Oh, I never read those," someone would always say blithely. <br /><br />Just finished reading Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun which is part play, part novel. Fascinating but impossible to stage, I'd imagine, unless you just skipped the novel-parts, which would kind of defeat the purpose.StephLovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02711343685652511843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post-86008387969803764012009-05-06T15:53:00.000-04:002009-05-06T15:53:00.000-04:00That's a more apt suggestion that you know, Tim--C...That's a more apt suggestion that you know, Tim--Cary's an old friend and it's an ongoing topic of conversation between us!Sarah Wernerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06941029918210770136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post-51511145976713022012009-05-06T10:26:00.000-04:002009-05-06T10:26:00.000-04:00Cary Mazur @ Penn was doing some interesting thing...Cary Mazur @ Penn was doing some interesting things with texts and performance a few years ago. He taught a class on early modern plays, modern texts, and contemporary readers (or something like that). He may be worth looking up!Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13026955797817424956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post-51831538096358234242009-05-05T15:13:00.000-04:002009-05-05T15:13:00.000-04:00Thanks, Darryl--this is really helpful. I was awar...Thanks, Darryl--this is really helpful. I was aware of Shaw in a general sense--certainly those long prefaces and those very detailed stage directions and settings suggest to me a desire to turn playscript into something that is readable in ways that are familiar to, say, novel readers. I haven't looked at the originals, though, so am glad to hear about those details.<br /><br />As for Barrie, I know nothing about his plays (or even, indeed, about any of his work), so that's a helpful suggestion, too.<br /><br />One of the books that has been sitting unread for too long on my shelf is W.B. Worthen's <I>Print and the Poetics of Modern Drama</I>. Shaw shows up in Worthen's book, along with a host of others, including Anna Deveare Smith and Suzan-Lori Parks. I clearly need to move that book to the top of my pile. And, I think, I need to take this as an excuse to go to theatre more often...Sarah Wernerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06941029918210770136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640125206110669026.post-64016620807711575772009-05-04T19:47:00.000-04:002009-05-04T19:47:00.000-04:00Hi Sarah,
In a much later period, the plays of G....Hi Sarah,<br /><br />In a much later period, the plays of G. B. Shaw and J. M. Barrie raise fascinating ideas about the interplay between performed "play" and printed "book."<br /><br />G. B. Shaw understood the printed text of the play to be a cultural product in its own right and maintained very tight control over its production. Some results of this control include:<br /><br />- very long written prefaces to many of his plays (sometimes as long as the text of the play itself)<br />- very particular ideas about typeface and margin (e.g., quite large margins consistent across printed "books" of many of his plays, and rather than underlining or italics for emphasis, using extra spaces between letters of a word, s o r t o f l i k e t h i s.)<br />- absence of apostrophes (i.e., dont rather than don't)<br />- lengthy and detailed stage directions <br /><br />(See Katherine E. Kelly, "Imprinting the Stage: Shaw and the Publishing Trade, 1883-1903," in _The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw_ for a much more detailed and smarter discussion of these things than I can give.)<br /><br />The stage directions of Shaw are especially intriguing in relationship to performance, as they are so detailed and specific as to be impossible to really convey in a staged performance (although I imagine very useful for directors and actors working on the performance).<br />It is fascinating to see the different ways directors will use these directions, to at least give some sense of them to the audience. I have seen:<br />- "voice-over" or narration (either recorded or spoken by an actor) of (some part of) stage directions<br />- writing of some part of stage direction text on the scenery<br />- printing of some part of stage direction in the printed programme<br /><br />I don't know if J. M. Barrie was so intimately involvement with the details of printing of his plays, but the text of his plays clearly "want" to be read and not only performed. If anything, his stage directions are even more detailed and more playful than Shaw's.<br /><br />For these two playwrights, I always feel like there can't be a single "complete" mode of experiencing the text. Typically I will try to read the "book" of the play as soon as possible after seeing the play, to try to bring together the dual experience of seeing a theatrical and reading the text (with its "supplemental" materials).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05707492548410538170noreply@blogger.com