Shakespeare's Double Plays

Dramatic Economy on the Early Modern Stage

Brett Gamboa

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781108417433
• eBook ISBN: 9781108281119
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático británico

In the first comprehensive study of how Shakespeare designed his plays to suit his playing company, Brett Gamboa demonstrates how Shakespeare turned his limitations to creative advantage, and how doubling roles suited his unique sense of the dramatic. By attending closely to their dramaturgical structures, Gamboa analyses casting requirements for the plays Shakespeare wrote for the company between 1594 and 1610, and describes how using the embedded casting patterns can enhance their thematic and theatrical potential. Drawing on historical records, dramatic theory, and contemporary performance this innovative work questions received ideas about early modern staging and provides scholars and contemporary theatre practitioners with a valuable guide to understanding how casting can help facilitate audience engagement. Supported by an appendix of speculative doubling charts for plays, illustrations, and online resources, this is a major contribution to the understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic craft.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 ‘Improbable Fictions’
• 2 Versatility and Verisimilitude on Sixteenth-Century Stages
• 3 Doubling in The Winter’s Tale
• 4 Dramaturgical Directives and Shakespeare’s Cast Size
• 5 Doubling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet
• 6 ‘What, are they children?’
• 7 Doubling in Twelfth Night and Othello
• Epilogue: Ragozine and Shakespearean Substitution
• Appendix: Doubling Roles in Shakespeare’s Plays
• Bibliography
• Index