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Then and Now: Henry IV’s England via the RSC and Bell Shakespeare
Citation
Gaby, RS, Then and Now: Henry IV's England via the RSC and Bell Shakespeare, Shakespeare, 11, (3) pp. 303-315. ISSN 1745-0918 (2015) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 Rosemary Gaby
DOI: doi:10.1080/17450918.2015.1048281
Abstract
Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays invite a split temporal vision, depicting through one
lens historical figures from a specific moment in British history and through
another a group of fictional characters from Shakespeare’s present. The degree
to which the plays have been geared towards the past or the present in
performance has varied widely, with some landmark productions choosing to
utilise contemporary settings and many others constructing medieval or
Elizabethan contexts for the plays. This paper compares two contrasting
examples: the RSC’s 2014 productions of the two parts of Henry IV, directed by
Gregory Doran, and the Bell Shakespeare Company’s 2013 Henry IV, directed
in Australia by John Bell and Damien Ryan. It situates them as, respectively,
embracing historicist and presentist approaches to the plays and considers what
their divergent representations of Henry IV’s England might say about the
companies and the disparate cultural contexts in which they reproduce
Shakespearean history.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Research Division: | Studies in Creative Arts and Writing |
Research Group: | Performing Arts and Creative Writing |
Research Field: | Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies |
Objective Division: | Cultural Understanding |
Objective Group: | Communication |
Objective Field: | Languages and Literature |
Author: | Gaby, RS (Dr Rosemary Gaby) |
ID Code: | 102452 |
Year Published: | 2015 |
Deposited By: | Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2015-08-21 |
Last Modified: | 2017-11-14 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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