Description: Double Shakespeares examines contemporary performances of Shakespeare's plays, and narratives about rehearsing and performing Shakespeare's plays, that acknowledge the inescapable doubleness of "emotional-realist" acting.
Brief description: Cary M. Mazer is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and English at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Review Quotes:
"How to achieve emotional truth on stage is a persistent, complicated issue in actor training; how audiences recognize such truth through the innate doubleness of performance--that is, inescapable awareness of both actor and character--is similarly complicated. Bringing to bear his scholarship on Shakespeare and his experience as a director and dramaturg, Mazer tackles multiple aspects of double awareness with a view to conveying the emotional realism of 16th-century characters for often-jaded contemporary theatergoers. He examines historical theories of acting and modern concepts of cross-gendered, cross-racial, and multifaceted representation, grounding his discussion in a wealth of examples from Shakespeare plays and productions. Mazer's wide-ranging allusions are most telling when he describes Shakespeare on stage. . . .The chapters on rehearsal journals and actor memoirs and on the fad for 'framed' productions of Shakespeare bring lucid insights. Seven production photos and chapter endnotes enhance the volume. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers." --Choice Reviews
"Cary Mazer's book argues that, for more than a century, techniques of emotional realism have inexorably influenced the way actors on both sides of the Atlantic have approached Shakespearean acting, and the ways audiences have received it. As such, this phenomenon is worth examining, which Mazer does in this insightful book.... Mazer brings the important voice of a scholar-practitioner to the subject: insights gleaned from his own work in the theatre spur some of the book's best arguments.... The book's key insight...is that empathy--the ability for characters and actors and audiences to understand each other--is paramount to successful Shakespearean theatre, and that such empathy is the link between early modern scripts and contemporary performance. That he comes to this insight through experience is in and of itself an important revelation of this thought-provoking book on the practices of today's Shakespearean theatre." --Theatre Survey "Mazer's applause for Declan Donellan's approach...encapsulates the book's project.... Mazer pursues this and related ideas through an impressive and stimulating range of examples." --Shakespeare Survey