IV. Individual Plays

Any of Marvin Rosenberg's four huge, scene-by-scene organized, and blessedly indexed books will save you phenomenal amounts of time. The Masks of King Lear, The Masks of Macbeth, The Masks of Othello and the recently released titanic The Masks of Hamlet each present a thorough scene-by-scene anatomy of the stage history of their respective plays; the "masks" are the different productions (full citations below).

A. Series

The Arden Shakespeare: For many years, the Ardens were the standard critical editions of Shakespeare, but they were at best sketchy when it came to stage history. The last ten years saw the birth of The New Cambridge Shakespeare and The Oxford Shakespeare, both of which come equipped with fine stage history introductions. Perhaps in response to these two new editions, Arden has begun to revise its own complete Shakespeare. This year saw the publication of three new Ardens: Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus, all with thorough stage history sections to their introductions. I have high hopes for the rest of the series.

The Folio Shakespeare: quirky little editions put out by The Folio Society in London around the 1950s. They almost always have stimulating introductions by famous directors and actors, as well as interesting illustrations. The As You Like It, for example, has an introduction by Peter Brook and illustrations by Salvador Dali.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare and The Oxford Shakespeare for more updated versions than the older Ardens: these two series plus the few new Ardens are where to start for basic inquiry.

Plays In Performance. I've only been able to find the Richard III in this series, edited by Julie Hankey (Bristol Classical Press, 1981), but there are allegedly others; Hankey's book is remarkable for being a line-by-line stage history.

The Shakespeare In Performance series. More thorough than the Text & Performance series. Hugh Richmond's King Richard III is particularly good, as is Jill Levenson's Romeo and Juliet. This series is the best in individual play stage history. However, while the paperbacks are cheap they are difficult to find; the hardbacks are prohibitively expensive and only, to my knowledge, available in the UK.

The Text & Performance series, each play (not all of them are done yet, and if you're looking for a stage history of Timon of Athens you may be out of luck) under a different author; useful books, if somewhat basic when it comes to the text half.


B. Other studies

Hamlet

Berkoff, Steven. I Am Hamlet. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989. Berkoff's production diary.

Kozintsev, Grigori. Shakespeare, Time and Conscience. Trans. Joyce Vining. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966. On his film version.

Maher, Mary Z. Modern Hamlets and their soliloquies. Studies in Theatre History & Culture. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992.

Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Hamlet. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992.

Trewin, J. C. Five & Eighty Hamlets. London: Hutchinson, 1987. One eccentric theater critic's personal memoir of many different productions: the accounts are on the brief side, but they are occasionally quite useful.

Julius Caesar

Furtwangler, Albert. Assassin on Stage: Brutus, Hamlet, and the Death of Lincoln. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.

King Lear

Kozintsev, Grigori. King Lear: The Space of Tragedy: The Diary of a Film Director. Trans. Mary Mackintosh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. On his film version.

Leggat, Alexander. King Lear. Shakespeare in Performance, eds. J.R. Mulryne and James C. Bulman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.

Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of King Lear. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Macbeth

Kliman, Bernice W. Macbeth. Shakespeare in Performance, eds. J.R. Mulryne and James C. Bulman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.

Mullin, Michael, ed. Macbeth Onstage: An Annotated Facsimile of Glen Byam Shaw's 1955 Promptbook. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1976.

Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Macbeth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Spencer, Christopher. Davenant's Macbeth from the Yale Manuscript: An edition, with a Discussion of the Relationship of Davenant's Text to Shakespeare's. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

The Merchant of Venice

Bulman, James C. The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare in Performance, eds. J. R. Mulryne, James C. Bulman, and Margaret Shewring. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.

Gross, John. Shylock.. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992.

Lelyveld, Toby. Shylock On The Stage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960.

Overton, Bill. The Merchant of Venice. Text & Performance, ed. Michael Scott. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1987.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Selbourne, David. The Making of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Detailed day-by-day history of the rehearsal process for Peter Brook's pivotal production.

Othello

Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard. Black Face Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

Hill, Errol. Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Rosenberg, Marvin. The Masks of Othello. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

Wine, Martin L. Othello. Text & Performance, ed. Michael Scott. London: Macmillan, 1984.

Richard III

Richmond, Hugh. King Richard III. Shakespeare in Performance, eds. J. R. Mulryne, James Bulman, and Margaret Shewring. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989.

Sher, Antony. Year Of The King. New York: Limelight Editions, 1987. Sher's biography of his RSC Richard III.

Twelfth Night

Billington, Michael, ed. RSC Director's Shakespeare: approaches to Twelfth Night. London: Nick Hern Books, 1990.

The History Plays

Bogdanov, Michael and Michael Pennington. The English Shakespeare Company: The Story of "The Wars Of The Roses" 1986-1989. London: Nick Hern Books, 1990.

McMillin, Scott. Henry IV, Part One. Shakespeare in Performance, eds. J.R. Mulryne and James C. Bulman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.


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