Recovering Shakespeare's Theatrical Vocabulary [Paperback]

Dessen investigates what a playgoer actually saw on stage at the first performance of, for example, Hamlet or Macbeth.Alan Dessen draws upon stage directions from hundreds of plays (from 1425 to 1642) to investigate what a playgoer may actually have seen when watching the original productions of Hamlet or Macbeth. He argues for the presence of a shared vocabulary among playwrights, players and playgoers geared to a sense of theatre which is easily obscured or eclipsed today. Chapters are devoted to such things as early entrances, the sick chair, vanish effects, tomb scenes, and to the staging of places such as a forest, a shop, a study or a house.Alan Dessen draws upon stage directions from hundreds of plays (from 1425 to 1642) to investigate what a playgoer may actually have seen when watching the original productions of Hamlet or Macbeth. He argues for the presence of a shared vocabulary among playwrights, players and playgoers geared to a sense of theatre which is easily obscured or eclipsed today. Chapters are devoted to such things as early entrances, the sick chair, vanish effects, tomb scenes, and to the staging of places such as a forest, a shop, a study or a house.Alan Dessen draws on stage directions from hundreds of plays (from 1425 to 1642) to investigate what a playgoer may actually have seen when watching the original production of Hamlet or Macbeth. He argues for the presence of a shared vocabulary among playwrights, players and playgoers geared to a sense of theater that is easily obscured or eclipsed today. Chapters are devoted to such things as early entrances, the sick chair, vanish effects, tomb scenes, and to the staging of places such as a forest, a shop, a study or a house.Preface; Note on texts and old spelling; 1. The problem, the evidence, and the language barrier; 2. Lost in translation; 3. Interpreting without a dictionary; 4. Juxtapositions; 5. Theatrical italics; 6. Sick chairs and sick thrones; 7. Much virtue in as; 8. The vocabulary ols/