European Theatre Performance Practice, 1750–1900

This volume presents foundational and representative essays of the last half century on theatre performance practice during the period 1580 to 1750.Explicitly or implicitly, many essay collections on 'early modern theatre' focus almost exclusively on London.We contend that it is essential to place Shakespeare's theatre in its European context.Some of the most illuminating contemporary accounts of the London amphitheatres were provided by cosmopolitan travellers such as the Swiss physician Thomas Platter. 1 Similarly, a comparative, geographically balanced account italicizes English theatre itself in new ways.Notwithstanding the importance of amateur theatre in universities, religious institutions, Jesuit and other schools, courts, academies, salons and rhetorical chambers, our main focus is professional theatre.Although France was long held back by the Confrérie de la Passion's monopoly over theatrical activity in Paris (see Wiley, 1960, pp.133-57), the rise of yearround professional theatre in England, Italy and Spain occurred more or less at the same time, between about 1560 and 1580.Our selections range from groundbreaking works of the 1960s, such as J.L. Styan's study of Shakespearean staging and W.L. Wiley and N.D. Shergold's discussions of French and Spanish theatre audiences, to innovative contemporary considerations of the evolution of Italian or English renaissance acting practice, or 'hidden' dimensions of performance, by scholars such as Ronnie Ferguson, Tiffany Stern and Natasha Korda.As such, it complements the treatment of England with essays on the three other major professional theatres of early modern Europe.A comparative approach is fundamental to early modern performance practice, because both theatrical production (emphasized by the term 'theatre') and the literary and dramaturgical dimensions of the play (flagged by the term 'drama') can be productively analysed as international systems.There are at least three reasons for this.First, right across Europe, there were playwrights, dramatic theorists, theatre designers, scenic designers, actors and protodirectors engaged in the shared humanist enterprise of excavating, deciphering, interpreting, adapting and transforming the legacy of ancient Greek, and especially ancient Roman theatre.Renaissance responses to ideas of ancient theatre were various, ranging from uncritical subservience to the flexible and often self-justifying use of general principles (Javitch, 1994), to irreverent -but still highly informed -flouting of classical principles, such as Shakespeare's high-profile violation of the unity of time in The Winter's Tale or Lope de Vega's arch demonstrations of his full awareness of the rules infringed by his plays. 2 Nowhere can the * For helpful suggestions and discussions, we thank the editors of the other volumes in this series; also Susanne Greenhalgh and all our friends and colleagues in Theater Without Borders, most especially Michael Armstrong-Roche, Natasha Korda and Eric Nicholson. 1

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