Synopses & Reviews
Each edition includes:
- Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
- Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
- Scene-by-scene plot summaries
- A key to famous lines and phrases
- An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
- An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
- Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books
Essay by Cynthia Marshall
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe.
In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.
Review
"...Richard Madelaine's volume...offers tantalizing gimpses of performances of the past." Shakespeare Bulletin
Synopsis
"Antony and Cleopatra has the strangest stage history of any of Shakespeare's major tragedies. Richard Madelaine explains how the play's challenging complexity has at different times inhibited or promoted its success on the stage, and accounts for the remarkable resurgence of performances in the last twenty-five years. The introduction provides the only detailed, extensive and up-to-date history of the play on stage and screen, in and beyond Britain."--BOOK JACKET. "Making plentiful use of direct quotation from contemporary sources, Madelaine examines the ways in which cultural factors have shaped the performance of the play, and how actors have tackled the main parts, in particular the exotic eroticism of Cleopatra. In the process he reveals not only the rich plurality of possible readings of the play, but also changing attitudes to Shakespeare."--BOOK JACKET.
Synopsis
Richard Madelaine explains how the challenging complexity of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra has at different times inhibited or promoted its success on the stage, and accounts for the remarkable resurgence of performances in the past twenty years. His introduction and commentary, presented alongside the New Cambridge edition of the text, provide the most detailed, extensive and up-to-date history of the play on stage and screen, in and beyond Britain. In the process he reveals not only the rich plurality of possible readings of the play, but also changing attitudes to Shakespeare.
Table of Contents
List of productions; Introduction; Antony and Cleopatra (text plus commentary); Bibliography; Index.