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|Title:||Stage Directions and Spatial Mapping on the Elizabethan Stage|
Department of Performance Studies
|Keywords:||Shakespeare in performance|
Elizabethan stage management
Elizabethan stage directions
|Abstract:||This paper will discuss initial work that points to a degree of directionality in some Elizabethan stage directions: they are not merely telling the actors to enter and exit the stage, but may in addition be indicating more specific points of entry and exit which relate to the spatial geography of the fictional world in its onstage and offstage components. It seems that ‘comes in’ and ‘goes out’ does not merely mean ‘comes onstage’ and ‘goes offstage’; and ‘comes out’ and ‘goes in’ does not just mean ‘comes out of’ or ‘goes into’ the tiring house. This research suggests that playwrights were writing themselves into practical production processes by inscribing important logistical information in their texts: my previous work has focussed on analysis of spatial indications in the dialogue, and this work on stage directions corroborates that. This analysis has broader implications for an understanding of how rehearsal might have been organised, and of the role the playwrights might have played, through their texts, in that process.|
|Description:||This paper, along with that by Laura Ginters also included in this collection, was part of a panel on various aspects of the performance preparation process, flowing from a research cluster initiative which has been funded by the Network for Early European Research, and which is seeking A.R.C. funding through the Discovery Grants scheme. This work focusses on attempting to understand what might have been involved in the preparation process before the arrival of the director in the late nineteenth century. The research involves traditional archival work to uncover evidence from company records, analysis of the textual remnants of the predominantly oral process of organising performance, and analysis of oral testimonies of participants.|
|Department/Unit/Centre:||Department of Performance Studies|
|Rights and Permissions:||Copyright Australasian Association for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies|
|Type of Work:||Conference paper|
|Appears in Collections:||Being There: |
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