Wednesday, January 7, 2009

SS Course 2009: Fantastical Magical Shakespeare

Course 213
Date: 26–30 January
Time: 9.15 am
Full Price: R270,00 Staff: R135,00 Reduced: R70,00

Fantastical Magical Shakespeare
Presented by Nigel Bakker, School of Education, University of Cape Town


Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest have been subject to many interpretations. Some studies argue that they are pre-eminently plays of magic and fantasy, farce and romance. But recent interpretations have suggested that there are much darker ways of ‘making sense’ of them. This course will look at these two of Shakespeare’s most frequently staged plays by exploring them primarily as scripts rather than academic texts: moments of theatre that need actors and audiences to become the theatrical experiences for which they were created. In that context, some interpretations might seem to offer no sense at all, while others may provoke ways of seeing that enrich a production for a modern audience.

LECTURE TITLES
  1. ‘Of imagination all compact’: Shakespeare and the theatrical imagination.
  2. ‘This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard’: What makes A Midsummer Night’s Dream funny?
  3. ‘Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?’ Evil patriarchs? Wife battering? Bestiality?
  4. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on’: The theatricality of The Tempest.
  5. ‘Sounds and sweet airs’: Renunciation and reconciliation.
Recommended reading
  • Butler, M. The Tempest. Penguin Books, 2007.
  • Holland, P. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • Orgel, S. The Tempest. Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • Wells, S. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Penguin, 2005.

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