Shakespeare's Contested Nations: Race, Gender, and Multicultural Britain in Performances of the History Plays

L. Monique Pittman

ISBN 10: 0367488310 / ISBN 13: 9780367488314

Published by Routledge, London, 2022

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 004864AD1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shakespeare's Contested Nations: Race, Gender, and Multicultural Britain in Performances of the History Plays
• Publisher: Routledge, London
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367488310
• ISBN 13: 9780367488314
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Shakespeare’s Contested Nations argues that performances of Shakespearean history at British institutional venues between 2000 and 2016 manifest a post-imperial nostalgia that fails to tell the nation’s story in ways that account for the agential impact of women and people of color, thus foreclosing promising opportunities to re-examine the nation’s multicultural past, present, and future in more intentional, self-critical, and truly progressive ways.

A cluster of interconnected stage and televisual performances and adaptations of the history play canon illustrate the function that Shakespeare’s narratives of incipient "British" identities fulfill for the postcolonial United Kingdom. The book analyzes treatments of the plays in a range of styles―staged performances directed by Michael Boyd with the Royal Shakespeare Company (2000–2001) and Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre (2003, 2005), the BBC’s Hollow Crown series (2012, 2016), the RSC and BBC adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (2013, 2015), and a contemporary reinterpretation of the canon, Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III (2014, 2017).

This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Shakespeare, theatre, and politics.

About the Author

L. Monique Pittman is Professor of English and Director of the J. N. Andrews Honors Program at Andrews University, USA.