J. L. Styan

The theories of Wagner and Nietzsche provide the basic principles for this volume, disseminated by the work of Appia and Craig, and affecting the later plays of Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and Lugné-Poe's Théatre de Le'Oeuvre. Jarry is seen as the precursor of surrealism; later symbolist elements are found in the plays of Claudel, Giraudoux, Yeats, Eliot, Lorca and Pirandello. Artaud's theatre of cruelty is related to the work of Peter Brook. The theatre of the absurd is illustrated in Sartre, Beckett, Pinter and Ionesco. Recent avant-garde theatre in America and Britain also reveals elements of symbolism.… (more)

This volume begins with the naturalistic revolt in France against traditional styles of theatre. As realism becomes a European movement the account moves from Paris to the Meiningen company and Ibsen's work as producer and play-wright in Oslo, Chekhov's in Moscow, Shaw's in London, Synge's in Dublin. Among the producers are Antoine, Brahm, Grein, Granville-Baker, Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky. The early days of the Irish Dramatic Movement and the chief realistic directors and critics in the USA after Belasco are considered; the tradition is shown to persist in the work of Williams and Miller in the USA and Osborne and Bond in England.… (more)

For many years, critics and students of Shakespeare have tended to stress that his plays are poetic structures embodying 'themes', and these structures have been analysed in great detail. Professor Styan advocates another approach. The plays were written for acting, in a theatre of a particular type. If we ask what effects this kind of theatre encouraged and how Shakespeare exploited them, the plays are seen as a sequence of stage-effects, planned with great art so as to enrich, reinforce and modify each other. Professor Styan begins with the known facts about the Elizabethan theatre, stressing the effect of the size of the apron stage, and the degree in which the spectators situated all around are involved in the action. It was a theatre of movement and grouping, and above all speech. Shakespeare's verse is full of suggestions about how it is to be delivered; it is, in Professor Styan's word, 'gestic'. Professor Styan shows in very many examples, quoting the text and examining its dramatic implications, what the words suggest about movement over the stage, about the relationship between groups of players on the stage, and about the delivery and dramatic effect of the words themselves. Thus we build up a new sense of the whole play. This is a convenient and comprehensive introduction to the study of Shakespeare's dramatic craftsmanship, which also reopens that direction of enquiry which Granville-Barker first explored.… (more)