Three extraordinary productions of Hamlet by three giants of modern theatre.Peter Brook, Robert Lepage and Robert Wilson have all attempted radical reworkings of Hamlet. This book examines their very different approaches.Brook's Qui Est La - his 'variation' on Hamlet - was first seen in Paris in 1995, incorporating the writings of Artaud, Brecht, Craig, Meyerhold, Stanislavsky and Zeami Motikoyo into edited scenes from Shakespeare's play....

This volume examines afresh the impact upon acting and performance of digital technologies. It is concerned with how digital culture combines the traditional ‘liveness’ of theatre with media interfaces and internet protocols. The time and space of the ‘here and now’ are both challenged and adapted, just as barriers between theatre-makers and the ‘experiencers’ of events are broken down. Today many of us are everyday players performing the interconnectedness of digital culture and a key aim...

What distinguishes documentary theatre from other forms of drama? How has it integrated different media across the years, and to what effect? What is its relationship to truth and reality, and defining moments of civic unrest and political change?In this short, authoritative book, Andy Lavender surveys a century of documentary theatre and performance and analyses key productions. Arranged in 3 sections that take a broadly chronological approach, the volume consider...

Neoliberalism, Theatre and Performance tackles one of the most slippery but significant topics in culture and politics. Neoliberalism is defined by the contributors as a political-economic system, and the ideas and assumptions (individualism, market forces and globalisation) that it promotes are consequently examined.Readers will gain an insight into how neoliberalism shapes contemporary theatre, dance and performance, and how festival programmers, directors and other arti...

This volume brings together performance texts from nine productions by the experimental theatre company Lightwork and one playtext from Lightwork’s precursor company Academy Productions, presented between 1997 and 2011.Lightwork specialized in collaboratively created and multimedia performance. The company also experimented with several performance forms that emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century, including verbatim and site-specific approaches. Because of this, the texts...

Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement addresses the reshaping of theatre and performance after postmodernism. Andy Lavender argues provocatively that after the ‘classic’ postmodern tropes of detachment, irony, and contingency, performance in the twenty-first century engages more overtly with meaning, politics and society. It involves a newly pronounced form of personal experience, often implicating the body and/or one’s sense of self.This volume e...

Cine-scapes explores the relationship between urban space, architecture and the moving image. While an impressive amount of research has been done with regards to the way in which architecture is portrayed in film, this book offers a new perspective....What happens if we begin to see the city as a place for an embodied visual consumption; a visual apparatus or, perhaps, a system that is based on movement, light and the body, and which we can explore in

'I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.'Peter Brook's seminal book, an acknowledged classic of theatre writing, sets out many of the ideas about theatre which informed his lifelong work as a theatre director, from his iconic 'white box' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and his ground-breaking adaptation of The Mahabharata, to his work at the International Centre for Theatre Research.Available as an ebook for the first time sin...

Understand Postmodernism is an indispensable guide to this sometimes challenging domain. Using contemporary examples to further your understanding, it takes a broad look at theorists in a range of disciplines. Whether you're encountering postmodernism for the first time, or you need a quick reference to support your studies, this guide offers a comprehensive introduction to the key ideas in this thought-provoking philosophy.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introdu...

From the author of the best-selling Feminist City, this urbanite’s guide to gentrification knocks down the myths and exposes the forces behind the most urgent housing crisis of our time.Gentrification is no longer a phenomenon to be debated by geographers or downplayed by urban planners—it’s an experience lived and felt by working-class people everywhere. Leslie Kern travels to Toronto, Vancouver, New York, London, and Paris to look beyond the familiar and false stories we...

Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance proposes that the concept of curating is a complex field of enquiry. By drawing together artists, curators, architects and cultural theorists, it proposes new approaches to curating and ways of developing critical enquiry about this increasingly expanding field. Focusing on pertinent issues in curating contemporary art and performance, the book's four parts examine forms of thinking in contemporary curating; curating and the inte...

Cultural policy is changing. Traditionally, cultural policies have been concerned with providing financial support for the arts, for cultural heritage and for institutions such as museums and galleries. In recent years, around the world, interest has grown in the creative industries as a source of innovation and economic dynamism. This book argues that an understanding of the nature of both the economic and the cultural value created by the cultural sector is essential to good policy-makin...