Conversations with Shakespeare: three contemporary adaptations for the stage

The study of adaptation, the practice of creating and producing literature, performance, music, and art that maintains a sustained engagement with an informing sourcetext or ‘original’ piece of literature, is a way of analyzing cultural, theoretical, and performance trends. This study takes up three distinctive contemporary approaches to Shakespearean adaptation and the way in which they reflect the cultural milieu of contemporary Shakespeare performance. Through first-hand observation, personal and previously published interviews with the artists, as well as performance reviews, this study constructs a literary and dramaturgical analysis of three contemporary adaptations in order to understand how these artists converse with Shakespeare, as well as how they invite audiences to engage with retellings of his plays. In addition to analyzing contemporary audience engagement with Shakespeare, this examination provides an analysis of the artists’ respective methodologies of adaptation. The ways in which the writers and artists discussed here collaborate with and interrogate Shakespeare is of particular interest, as well as how they invite audiences to respond to and engage with the plays. The three plays examined in this study, BOY by Erik Ehn, The Feast: an intimate Tempest by Jessica Thebus and Frank Maugeri, and Sleep No More by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, are thrown into relief with their Shakespearean sourcetexts to explore a question that is threefold: how are these adaptations interacting with Shakespeare? How are the adapters asking audiences to interact with these plays? Finally, if Shakespeare’s works and adaptations are, as Julie Sanders argues, a “cultural barometer for the historically contingent process of adaptation” (21), what can these three distinct styles of adaptation tell us about trends in Shakespearean performance within the context of contemporary American audiences?

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Theatre

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Boland-Taylor, Sara

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hohman, Valleri J.

• Shakespeare
• Adaptation
• theater
• BOY
• Erik Ehn
• Raphael Parry
• Dallas Shakespeare
• Project X: Theatre
• The Feast: an intimate Tempest
• Chicago Shakespeare Theater
• Redmoon Theater
• Jessica Thebus
• Frank Maugeri
• puppetry
• Punchdrunk
• Felix Barrett
• Maxine Doyle
• Sleep No More
• promenade performance
• immersive theater
• interactive theater
• Macbeth adaptation
• Hamlet adaptation
• Tempest adaptation
• As You Like It adaptation
• Midsummer Night's Dream adaptation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Sara Boland-Taylor

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31995

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/31995