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Shakespeare in the Theatre
Shakespeare in the Theatre: The American Shakespeare Center
The original Blackfriars closed its doors in the 1640s, ending over half-a-century of performances by men and boys. In 2001, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, it opened once again. The reconstructed Blackfriars, home to the American Shakespeare Center, represents an old playhouse for the new millennium and therefore symbolically registers the permanent revolution in the performance of Shakespeare. Time and again, the industry refreshes its practices by rediscovering its own history. This book assesses how one American company has capitalised on history and in so doing has forged one of its own to become a major influence in contemporary Shakespearean theatre.
- GenresNonfiction
252 pages, Hardcover
Published February 23, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 29, 2020
See my previous review for what I think about this bound toilet paper. Rereading it, alas, did not change my mind.
November 4, 2017
I have been overexposed to Paul Menzer in the past seven days (I write this on 30 October 2017). I am just back from the Blackfrairs Conference, and read this book on the Blackfrairs Theatre and its founding on the airplane out to be familiar with the place and the Blackfrair's approach to performing Shakespeare. Dr. Menzer's style is ill-suited for this. Oh, you will learn most of what you want to know if you stick with the book, but the author does not make it easy.
In his talks at the conference, in the (not) short (enough) play he wrote to entertain us, and in this book, Menzer demonstrates an (t00) immense capacity to play with words and ideas, turning them about like cut diamonds so all the facets may catch the light, and then turning them inside out to expose what is within. That reads like high praise, but the result is seldom as illuminating as Dr. Menzer would like us to believe. Some of his statements are just stupid, such as the idea that there are no origins, that even the first instance of something is not original. That is obviously wrong. Something had to be first, truly first, or there could not be a first revolution against it. He also seems to see the Blackfrairs Theatre as a new status quo in search of a revolution to reject the Blackfrairs by finding new ways of producing Shakespeare. Perhaps it will be someday, but my experience of the company is that they are doing fine. Something is not by definition wrong or in need of correction simply because it exists even if that does come later.
So, if Menzer is not always enlightening about the Blackfrairs Theater, then what is he? In this book, his play, and his talks, the subtext always, ALWAYS, seemed to be "Aren't I clever? Look at what I do with words and ideas and admire me." No thanks. You seem to have that covered and do not need my help.
This book would have benefited by a lot less of that and a lot more clear writing about the history and struggles of this company. The last chapter is titled, "But wait . . . there's more!"
That last chapter is the only chapter I enjoyed reading. It is two interviews with the two founders of Blackfrairs. Finally, Menzer's stodgy prose finds a conversational voice and the pages fly by instead of being something to slog through. If you read only that, you will get most of what you need.
A major omission is skipping nearly all mention of the Blackfrairs biannual conference - this past week was the ninth. The part that the theatre plays in this conference and the conference has played in the lives and works of academics who attend deserves its own chapter, and so does the role of the conference in spreading the word about Blackfrairs. Menzer barely mentions the conference, yet there would have been room had he not spent so many pages showing off. This is an education in how not to write a book.
In his talks at the conference, in the (not) short (enough) play he wrote to entertain us, and in this book, Menzer demonstrates an (t00) immense capacity to play with words and ideas, turning them about like cut diamonds so all the facets may catch the light, and then turning them inside out to expose what is within. That reads like high praise, but the result is seldom as illuminating as Dr. Menzer would like us to believe. Some of his statements are just stupid, such as the idea that there are no origins, that even the first instance of something is not original. That is obviously wrong. Something had to be first, truly first, or there could not be a first revolution against it. He also seems to see the Blackfrairs Theatre as a new status quo in search of a revolution to reject the Blackfrairs by finding new ways of producing Shakespeare. Perhaps it will be someday, but my experience of the company is that they are doing fine. Something is not by definition wrong or in need of correction simply because it exists even if that does come later.
So, if Menzer is not always enlightening about the Blackfrairs Theater, then what is he? In this book, his play, and his talks, the subtext always, ALWAYS, seemed to be "Aren't I clever? Look at what I do with words and ideas and admire me." No thanks. You seem to have that covered and do not need my help.
This book would have benefited by a lot less of that and a lot more clear writing about the history and struggles of this company. The last chapter is titled, "But wait . . . there's more!"
That last chapter is the only chapter I enjoyed reading. It is two interviews with the two founders of Blackfrairs. Finally, Menzer's stodgy prose finds a conversational voice and the pages fly by instead of being something to slog through. If you read only that, you will get most of what you need.
A major omission is skipping nearly all mention of the Blackfrairs biannual conference - this past week was the ninth. The part that the theatre plays in this conference and the conference has played in the lives and works of academics who attend deserves its own chapter, and so does the role of the conference in spreading the word about Blackfrairs. Menzer barely mentions the conference, yet there would have been room had he not spent so many pages showing off. This is an education in how not to write a book.
May 27, 2023
Perhaps it's because I just finished reading Lucy Munro's book on The King's Men from this Shakespeare in the Theatre series, but for me Menzer's book on the ASC is not focused enough on the accomplishments of the company and how it has influenced the playing of Shakespeare. To my mind, the ASC's work has been extremely influential, but Menzer gets to that only in chapter 5, when he interviews Ralph Cohen and Jim Warren. Instead, Menzer spends most of his time in the book situating the Blackfriars Playhouse in its Virginia setting and pointing up discrepancies between some of the ASC's claims to historical accuracies and actual history / actual practice.
Menzer's most interesting insights are, I think, 1) the way he locates the ASC as an heir to 1970s Shakespeare scholarship like J.L. Styan's The Shakespeare Revolution and John Russell Brown's Free Shakespeare, 2) Menzer's emphasis on dynamic performance practices as much, much more important to the ASC than the authenticity of the building itself, and 3) his claim that the actor-oriented focus of the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, and the American Shakespeare Center after it, were reactions to the 1960s and '70s trend of director-driven Shakespeare.
Menzer's most interesting insights are, I think, 1) the way he locates the ASC as an heir to 1970s Shakespeare scholarship like J.L. Styan's The Shakespeare Revolution and John Russell Brown's Free Shakespeare, 2) Menzer's emphasis on dynamic performance practices as much, much more important to the ASC than the authenticity of the building itself, and 3) his claim that the actor-oriented focus of the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, and the American Shakespeare Center after it, were reactions to the 1960s and '70s trend of director-driven Shakespeare.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews