Department of English Publications
Title
Experiencing Stanislavsky in All’s Well That Ends Well
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2018
Abstract
Shakespeare and Realism
On the Politics of Style
EDITED BY PETER LICHTENFELS AND JOSY MILLER - CONTRIBUTIONS BY ROBERTA BARKER; YU JIN KO; SAM KOLODEZH; PETER LICHTENFELS; JOSY MILLER; BRYAN REYNOLDS AND KIM SOLGA
This collection of essays examines the works of the most famous writer of plays in the English language within the most culturally pervasive genre in which they are performed. Though Realist productions of Shakespeare are central to the ways in which his work is produced and consumed in the 21st century-and has been for the last 100 years-scholars are divided on the socio-political, historical, and ethical effects of this marriage of content and style.
The book is divided into two sections, the first of which focuses on how Realist performance style influences our understanding of Shakespeare’s characters. These chapters engage in close readings of multiple performances, interrogating the ways in which actors’ specific characterizations contribute to extremely varied interpretations of a single character.
The second section then considers audiences’ experiences of Shakespearean texts in Realist performance.
Book Chapter Abstract:
All's Well That Ends Well is a problem of a play, and its hero, Bertram, is a bigger problem yet. Actors have often worked to make sense of this oddity of a character using Stanislavskian techniques, specifically "emotional realism", in order to create a Bertram that is relatable and believable, even though he's actually a fiction from a fairy tale. In this chapter we examine this approach critically in order to understand how the Stanislavsky Solution to the Bertram Problem can have a knock-on effect for the representation of the play's female characters, creating obstacles to understanding for contemporary spectators, and reinforcing unhelpful binary gender modalities.
Notes
Shakespeare and Realism: On the Politics of Style. Ed. Peter Lichtenfels and Josy Miller. Shakespeare and the Stage. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 2018. Available for purchase here.