Literary Criticism : Drama

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Price: $67.50

This original analysis of contemporary British pantomime addresses the question of how pantomime creates a unique interactive relationship with, and potentially transformative experience for, its audiences. British pantomime draws audiences into the story, an engagement with the hero, and an empathetic attachment to the success of the quest. Attention is held by the familiarity of the event, and the comedians draw the audience into a relationship of complicity as they unite to create the unique experience of the live interactive performance. At other times the audience is diverted by the artifice of dance, the illusion of transformation and the surreal playfulness of physical and verbal comedy. The trick of pantomime is to maintain an effective balance between the intellectual appreciation of artifice, the chaotic complicity of interactivity, and the emotional engagement of story-telling. This is an accessible and valuable text that encourages readers to review their assumptions about pantomime and reconsider its importance as a popular theatre form. more...

Price: $40.00

During the late 1940’s and 1950’s, argues David Savran, the baiting and brutalization of “communists and queers” were high on the national agenda. Within this historical context, Communist, Cowboys, and Queers offers a bold and radical reassessment of the works of theater’s most prominent and respected figures - Arthur Miller, the alleged communist, and Tennessee Williams, the self-acknowledged “queer.”Savran analyzes the radically different configurations of gender and sexuality in Miller’s and Williams’s writings and studies the ways in which each confronted and negotiated the postwar homophobic and anticommunism crusades. Through a detailed reexamination of their plays, films, and short stories, Savran argues against the popular images of both playwrights and the findings of most academic critics. Ultimately, his provocative exploration of the constitution of the Old Left, the demographic changes following World War II, the gay rights movement, the New Left, and the counterculture distinguishes Communists, Cowboys, and Queers as the first book rigorously to historicize the achievements of Miller and Williams. more...

Price: $67.50

Spanning a quarter of a century, the essays in this book rehearse, in the movement of memory and cross-reflection, an extensive career in theater. The work of Herbert Blau—his directing, writing, and criticism—has been a determining force during this period as theater encounters theory. more...

Price: $72.00

Frames of Mind provides a fresh and stimulating introduction to the world of Post-Jungian film and television studies. To orientate the reader the book starts with an overview of analytical psychology and how it has been used to analyze films. From that starting point it broadens out to include topics such as: why we have genuine emotional responses to films which we know to be unreal; how and why we watch television; the unconscious motifs of advertising; and the psychological role that technology plays in contemporary society. Film and television programmes considered in Frames of Mind include: Chinatown (Polanski) and Star Trek: The Next Generation. A number of television advertisements are also considered. This book will appeal to students, researchers, academics and practitioners interested in either media and, or, analytical psychology. more...

Price: $40.00