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Twelfth Night: A User's Guide
“Michael Pennington...is sharply intelligent, scrupulously careful, hugely knowledgeable and, above all, wonderfully readable.” –The Shakespeare Institute
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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February 4, 2015
A guide to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night from the perspective of a director who has directed three different professional productions of the play, with the English Shakespeare Company in 1991, the Japanese company Haiyuza in 1993, and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 1995. The Introduction describes the first production, then there are chapters on Acts One and Two commenting almost line by line and explaining the different interpretations of the play and how they influence the choices made in directing it, then an "Entr'acte" describing the Japanese production, chapters on Acts Three, Four and Five, and a "Conclusion" describing the Chicago production.
Although I haven't seen any of Pennington's productions, I have seen at least one live production and four film versions, and will be seeing another live production this summer at USF, so it was interesting to compare Pennington's ideas with these other versions and try to understand why they made the choices they did (all of the filmed versions switched the first two scenes, which Pennington objects to).
Although I haven't seen any of Pennington's productions, I have seen at least one live production and four film versions, and will be seeing another live production this summer at USF, so it was interesting to compare Pennington's ideas with these other versions and try to understand why they made the choices they did (all of the filmed versions switched the first two scenes, which Pennington objects to).
Displaying 1 of 1 review