This compilation of the prefaces from the author's "English plays of the nineteenth century" (5 vols. ; London : Oxford Univ. Press, 1969-1976) provides an introduction to the critical interpretations of most genres of English drama.

Reader's Guide Literature in English provides expert guidance to, and critical analysis of, the vast number of books available within the subject of English literature, from Anglo-Saxon times to the current American, British and Commonwealth scene. It is designed to help students, teachers and librarians choose the most appropriate books for research and study.

This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying a wide range of subjects associated with the creation, performance and reception of 'opera' in varying social and historical contexts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Each essay addresses migrations between genres, cultures, literary and musical works, modes of expression, media of presentation and aesthetics. Although the directions the contributions take are diverse, they converge in significant ways, particularly with the rebuttal of the notion of the singular nature of the operatic work. The volume strongly asserts that works are meaningfully transformed by the manifold circumstances of their creation and reception, and that these circumstances have an impact on the life of those works in their many transformations and on a given audience's experience of them. Topics covered include transformations of literary sources and their migration into the operatic genre; works that move across geographical and social boundaries into different cultural contexts; movements between media and/or genre as well as alterations through interpretation and performance of the composer's creation; the translation of spoken theatre to lyric theatre; the theoretical issues contingent on the rendering of 'speech' into 'song'; and the transforming effects of aesthetic considerations as they bear on opera. Crossing over disciplinary boundaries between music, literary studies, history, cultural studies and art history, the volume enriches our knowledge and understanding of the operatic experience and the works. The book will therefore appeal to those working in the field of music, literary and cultural studies, and to those with a particular interest in opera and musical theatre.

A comprehensive study of economic theory in relation to the development of nineteenth-century British theatre.

The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.

Felicia Londre explores the world of theater as diverse as the Entertainments of the Stuart court and Arthur Miller directing Chinese actors at the Beijing People's Art Theater in "Death of a Salesman." Londre examines: Restoration comedies; the Comedie Francais; Italian "opera seria"; plays of the "Surm und Grand" movement; Russian, French, and Spanish Romantic dramas; American minstrel shows; Brecht and dialectical theater; Dighilev; Dada; Expressionism, Theater of the Absurd productions, and other forms of experimental theater of the late-20th century.>

Charlotte Cushman, one of the great actors of 19th century American theatre, was a lesbian who kept her identity hidden by focusing her career on male characters (Romeo, Claude Melnotte, Wolsey), and also on strong and passionate women (Lady Macbeth, Bianca in Fazio, and Queen Katherine in Henry VIII). This biography is an authoritative record of Cushman's life and performances, showing how her complex gender identity illuminates and is illuminated by 19th century theatre critical views. Part One is a biography; Part Two is a performance history listing all of Cushman's known performances, often with a description of her role and critical commentary.

The Cambridge History of American Theatre is an authoritative and wide-ranging history of American theatre in all its dimensions, from theatre building to play writing, directors, performers, and designers. Engaging the theatre as a performance art, a cultural institution, and a fact of American social and political life, the History recognizes changing styles of presentation and performance and addresses the economic context that conditions the drama presented. The History approaches its subject with a full awareness of relevant developments in literary criticism, cultural analysis, and performance theory. At the same time, it is designed to be an accessible, challenging narrative. Volume One deals with the colonial inceptions of American theatre through the post-Civil War period: the European antecedents, the New World influences of the French and Spanish colonists, and the development of uniquely American traditions in tandem with the emergence of national identity.

Nearly all residents of England and its colonies between 1860 and 1914 were active theatergoers, and many participated in the amateur theatricals that defined late Victorian life. The Victorian theater was not an abstract figuration of the world as a stage, but a media system enmeshed in mass lived experience that fulfilled in actuality the concept of a theatergoing nation. Everyone’s Theater turns to local history, the words of everyday Victorians found in their diaries and production records, to recover this lost chapter of theater history in which amateur drama domesticates the stage. Professional actors and playwrights struggled to make their productions compatible with ideas and techniques that could be safely reproduced in the home—and in amateur performances from Canada to India. This became the first true English national theater: a society whose myriad classes found common ground in theatrical display. Everyone’s Theater provides new ways to extend Victorian literature into the dimension of voice, sound, and embodiment, and to appreciate the pleasures of Victorian theatricality.

The book presents a detailed study as well as a critical analysis of George Bernard Shaw and the women characters in his plays. These female characters are from Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Candida, Arms and the Man, Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren s Profession, Saint Joan, Misalliance, The Philanderer. The Study of Shavian Plays forms an integral part of the curriculum of various universities. Hence an attempt has been made to familiarize scholars and researchers of Shaw with some rare and valuable critical material.