A Short History of Western Performance Space

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-521-01274-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 326 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 477 g

This innovative book provides a historical account of performance space within the theatrical traditions of western Europe. David Wiles takes a broad-based view of theatrical activity as something that occurs in churches, streets, pubs and galleries as much as in buildings explicitly designed to be 'theatres'. He traces a diverse set of continuities from Greece and Rome to the present, including many areas that do not figure in standard accounts of theatre history. Drawing on the cultural geography of Henri Lefebvre, the book identifies theatrical performances as spatial practices characteristic of particular social structures. It is not a history of contexts for dramatic literature, but the history of an activity rooted in bodies and environments. Wiles uses this historical material to address a pressing concern of the present: is theatre better performed in modern architect-designed, apparently neutral empty spaces, or characterful 'found' spaces?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wiles, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatertheorie, Ästhetik des Theaters, Theaterkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatersoziologie, Theaterpsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; 1. Introduction; 2. Sacred space; 3. Processional space; 4. Public space; 5. Sympotic space; 6. The cosmic circle; 7. The cave; 8. The empty space; Select bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Wiles, David
David Wiles is Professor of Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. His previous publications have mainly been in the field of Elizabethan and Greek theatre, including Shakespeare's Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse (Cambridge, 1987) and Greek Theatre Performance (Cambridge, 2000). This is his seventh book.