SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, Vol. 3
- Publish Date: 10/1/1990
- Dimensions: 6 x 9
- Page Count: 268 pages
- Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-271-00346-7
Shaw's plays are nothing but talk. That complaint has echoed down the years, even receiving wry support from Shaw himself. Though critics has sometimes suggested that Shaw's "Theatre of Ideas" was thought-provoking but dramatically weak, the production record stands in refutation of this claim, for audiences throughout this century have responded to Shaw the Playwright by attending performances of his plays in numbers unrivaled by any of his contemporaries. A variety of perspectives demonstrate Shaw's performance qualities.
Production records are used by two of the authors to demonstrate Shaw's remarkable ability to fill theaters, one providing a Shavian history of the Malvern Festival (where even his "talky" late plays were shown to be stageworthy), and the other detailing the phenomenal stage history of Man and Superman. Other authors focus on the visual and auditory aspects of the plays, examining how sets and props and onstage movement underscore and extend what is being said, and how meanings are conveyed not just by Shaw's words, but by the way an actor says those words—the emphases, the silences, and the interplay of words and sound effects.
Two little-known pieces by Shaw included in this volume reveal his concern, as both playwright and director, with the effective utilization of staging elements. this theme is continued in essays examining his direction of The Devil's Disciple and Pygmalion.
CONTENTS
1. FROM PAGE TO STAGE TO AUDIENCE IN SHAW 1
Daniel Leary
2. LESS SCENERY WOULD MEAN BETTER DRAMA 25
Bernard Shaw
3. DIRECTING EARLY SHAW: ACTING AND MEANING
IN MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION 29
Gladys M. Crane
4. THE ACTION OF SHAW'S SETTINGS AND PROPS 41
Charles A. Berst
5. SHAW LISTENS TO THE ACTORS: THE COMPLETION
OF THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE 67
Robert F. Whitman
6. MAN AND SUPERMAN. NOTES FOR A STAGE HISTORY 79
T. F. Evans
7. FUSION OF CHARACTER AND SETTING: ARTISTIC
STRATEGY IN MAJOR BARBARA 103
Robert G. Everding
8. BILL WALKER'S SOVEREIGN: A NOTE ON SOURCES 117
Cary M. Mazer
9. BEYOND THE VERBAL IN PYGMALION 121
Richard Hornby
10. THE DIRECTOR AS INTERPRETER: SHAW'S
PYGMALION 129
Bernard F. Dukore
11. IMAGINING SAINT JOAN 149
Michael W. Pharand
12. HOW BERNARD SHAW PRODUCES PLAYS: AS TOLD
BY LILLAH MCCARTHY 163
13. ON SPEAKING SHAW: AN INTERVIEW WITH
ANN CASSON 169
Barbara J. Small
14. ON DIRECTING SHAW. AN INTERVIEW WITH
STEPHEN PORTER 181
Julius Novick
15. “GENIUS LOCI”: THE MALVERN FESTIVAL TRADITION 191
David Nathan
REVIEWS
THE EARLY PLAY MANUSCRIPTS IN FACSIMILE 219
Barbara Bellow Watson, Elsie B. Adams, Gale Larson,
Frederick P.W. McDowell ,and Arthur Zucker
MUSIC CRITICISM FOR DEAF STOCKBROKERS 235
Stanley Weintraub
THE EVOLUTION OF SHAW'S THOUGHT 245
Warren Sylvester Smith
SHAW IN THE HISPANIC WORLD 246
Elsie B. Adams
A CONTINUING CHECKLIST OF SHAVIANA 251
John R. Pfeiffer
CONTRIBUTORS 261
Other Ways to Acquire
Buy from Amazon.com
Buy from an Independent Bookstore
Buy from Powell's Books
Buy from Barnes and Noble.com
Get a License to Reuse
Find in a Library
Sign up for e-mail notifications about new books and catalogs!