Double Shakespeares

Double Shakespeares examines contemporary performances of Shakespeare plays that employ the emotional realist traditions of acting that were codified by Stanislavski over a century ago. These performances recognize the inescapable doubleness of realism: that the actor may aspire to be the character but can never fully do so. This doubleness troubled the late-nineteenth-century actors and theorists who first formulated realist modes of acting; and it equally troubles theorists and theatre practitioners today. The book first looks at contemporary performances that foreground the doubleness of the actors body, particularly through cross-dressing. It then examines narratives of Shakespearean rehearsalboth fictional representations of rehearsal in film and video, and eye-witness narratives of actual rehearsalsand how they show us the process by which the actor does or does not become the character. And, finally, it looks at modern performances that frame Shakespeares play as a play-within-a-play, showing the audience both the character in the Shakespeare play-within and the actor in the frame-play acting that character.