Reviews for A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre

The average rating for A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-24 00:00:00 Oddgeir Eysteinsson About Bevington's Shakespeare in general: I like Bevington's best of all the student editions of Shakespeare. The introductions to individual plays are extremely insightful and well-written, giving you a concise overview of the play's themes and motifs and ending with a brief stage history. The general introduction is great too, and I find the footnotes to be the most useful for general readers of any edition: they tell you exactly what you need to know without cluttering up the page with extraneous detail. But I'm mostly here to throw out some of my impressions of the bard's plays. Titus Andronicus Shakespeare's first tragedy is totally bonkers, one of the goriest revenge tragedies of the period (which is saying something). It tells the story of a Roman general in the late Imperial period whose rigid adherence to the old Roman ways (manly stoicism, courage, following orders, all that) is precisely what brings him down, transforming him by the final act into a homicidal maniac. Shakespeare's poetry at this point is quite different from his mature style; much more metrically regular with way more rhymes. The prominent allusions to Ovid (a staple in Renaissance schooling) also mark it as the work of a young artist drawing on what he knows, which at this point is mostly books. Nonetheless, it's a fun romp if you're into this sort of thing. Definitely rough around the edges, but Julie Taymor's film version proves there is greatness within. Romeo and Juliet Where Shakespeare's later plays tended toward tragicomedy (a tragic setup with a comic, i.e. happy, ending, as in Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale), his first major tragedy is the reverse, a traditionally comic situation (young lovers using trickery to be together over the objections of their grumpy elders) that ends in catastrophe. And I don't have to tell you this, but it really works. I think most people read this in high school, though I didn't, but if you missed it it's definitely an essential read, and if you couldn't get into it because of the weird language it's very much worth returning to in riper years. Julius Caesar This is one I need to return to, as it didn't have a huge effect on me the one time I read through it, though it's certainly one of Shakespeare's best tragedies and certain speeches are among the most gorgerously crafted in his ouevre: Cassius' attempt to persuade Brutus to join the conspiracy springs to mind as does, of course, Mark Antony's brilliant funeral oration beginning "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." Hamlet From my original high school reading of this play, I mostly remember being puzzled by the strange logic of Hamlet's decision to feign madness, something that predictably causes King Claudius, the guy he's supposed to be trying to assassinate, to become wary and try to ship him off to England (where all men are as mad as he). On further readings and viewings of stage and film adaptations, though, I've become a convert to the critical consensus that this is probably Shakespeare's best play. There's just so much going on in every scene: so much beautiful poetry, so much terrific black humor, so much pathos and mature philosophical reflection on or just under the surface. Othello But while Hamlet is probably the best tragedy in English, Othello might be my favorite. Here we get Shakespeare's best antagonist, the demonic Iago, in the definitive portrayal of sexual jealousy that doubles as a shockingly modern-feeling study of the psychological effects of racism. Shakespeare's genius for Drama with a capital D, the interplay of personalities, motivations, and situations that grips us when we see a good tale well-told, is at its pinnacle in the working-out of Othello's ruination. King Lear Another one of my favorites, King Lear is a bit rougher around the edges than the other 4 major tragedies Shakespeare wrote right in a row from ca. 1599-1606, coming down to us in two very different early versions that Bevington, like many modern editors, conflates into a single play-text, and featuring oddities like a major character disappearing halfway through the play without explanation. It's also Shakespeare's most modern play; moments like the scene with Lear on the heath shouting at the elements and the absolutely devastating conclusion point toward the existentialist drama of Beckett and Sartre, suggesting the meaninglessness of life in an indifferent cosmos. Macbeth The last of the "Big 4," while pitch-black in its own way, steps back a bit from the intense vicarious suffering Othello and King Lear inflict on audiences via their identification with their respective tragic heroes, men more sinned against than sinning. Macbeth goes quite the other way, "sinning" in increasingly outrageous ways as he murders his way to the Scottish throne and then just keeps on murdering. As a result, this one has less of an emotional effect on me. However, I appreciate it for its stunning poetry ("Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...") and the keen insight it shows into the psychology of totalitarianism. Like Plato in The Republic, Shakespeare realizes that the tyrant is the most pitiable being of all, consumed by justifiable paranoia, racked by guilt, and alienated from his cringing subjects. Timon of Athens This is a really weird one. Probably written in collaboration with Middleton and possibly left unfinished, it has more than its share of head-scratching moments (we get, for instance, two conflicting accounts of Timon's epitaph in the play's final scenes). Definitely not one of Shakespeare's better plays, but it's got enough satirical wit to hold the reader's interest and avoid being classed by me among his absolute worst. The material (Timon's life-story comes from Plutarch) seems to have been too difficult for the bard and whoever else worked on this one to turn into truly compelling drama; you could almost read Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby as a rewriting and vast improvement, as it also tells the story of a feast-throwing, idealistic man let down by the shallowness of his contemporaries; Fitzgerald saw how to combine the tragic and comic aspects of the story effectively by telling it through the more world-weary perspective of his novel's protagonist. Antony and Cleopatra This is the Shakespeare play I most need to return to, as I really haven't given it the attention I think it deserves. I've only read it once, a while ago, and haven't gotten a chance to see a production. My initial impression is that it's overstuffed, with too many characters and scenes that feel superfluous. That's not necessarily a damning flaw for a play, though, since of course it'll be cut down in performance. Beyond that, no particular speech or scene jumped out at me as super interesting or engaging, though this is definitely not a lesser play--Cleopatra is considered one of the great Shakespearean roles, and I guess Antony's all right too. Coriolanus Neat that Shakespeare's last tragedy echoes his first, the tale of a Roman general ruthlessly effective on the battlefield but swiftly outmanouvered and inevitably undone in the treacherous world of domestic politics. Here, though, instead of fictitious generals and emperors and over-the-top gore, we get another careful adaptation of one of Plutarch's lives, set in the early Republic instead of the late empire. T. S. Eliot thought this one was better than Hamlet; I wouldn't go that far, but it's definitely a fascinating study of masculinity, homoeroticism, and the intersection of public and private life that's full of arresting poetry. Not a bad way to end the bard's career as a tragedian if you ask me. My recommendation: If you're new to the tragedies, start with the big four (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth) and Romeo and Juliet. Those are essential reading for all humans. Then I'd say read the major classical tragedies: Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Least essential but still well worth checking out are Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-11-10 00:00:00 Jewelrit Stewart كم من العداء والكراهية ليس لها مثيل يكنها برنارد شو لشكسبير ، يقول في نقده لمسرحية سيمبيلين : هي في معظم أجزائها نفاية مسرحية ، وفي أحط مرتبة يمكن أن تنحط اليها الميلودراما ، وفي بعض أجزائها مكتوبة باسلوب مقيت منفر ، ومن أولها الى آخرها مبتذلة فكريا ، لأننا اذا طبقنا عليها المعايير الفكرية العصرية وجدناها عملا فجا منفرا وبذيئا ، يضيق به الصدر عن كل احتمال ، وتمر على الانسان لحظات يتساءل فيها وهو بائس ، لماذا كتب على مسرحنا أن يبتلي بهذا " النشال الخالد " الذي ينشل قصص وأفكار غيره من الناس والمعروف بإطنابه الملل وفصاحته البشعة وأحاديثه التي لا تطاق ، وهبوطه المفتعل بأدق مشاكل الحياة وأرهفها الى مستوى الحوادث اليومية الدارجة مما هو جدير بأن تثور عليه ثائرة أي ناد من نوادي المناظرة ، وبجموده التام عن الإيحاء بالافكار جمودا لا يمكن تصوره ، أقول إنني لا أجد باستثناء كاتب واحد هو - هوميروس - كاتبا مشهورا ولا حتى - سير وولتر سكوت - يمكنني أن أحتقره احتقارا جامعا كما أحتقر شكسبير عندما أقيس عقليته بعقليتي ، اشهد أن ضيقي به يتفاقم في بعض الاحيان فيبلغ من الحدة والعنف بحيث لايسري عني فعلا الا أن أذهب راسا الى قبره فأنبشه نبشا وأستخرج رفاته وأرجمها بالحجارة ، لأنني أعلم وانا أفعل ذلك عجزه وعجز مريديه وعباده أن يفهموا اية صورة أخرى من صور الإهانة أوضح وأبلغ من هذه