Peter Holland and Stephen Orgel (eds), From Script to Stage in Early Modern England. Pp. xiii + 251 (Redefining British Theatre History). Basingstoke, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Paperbound £17.99 (ISBN 1 4039 3343 X).

Abstract

FROM SCRIPT TO STAGE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND is one of a series of five volumes that aims to question some of the fundamental assumptions that have shaped theatre history. It brings together eleven essays by specialists in early modern theatre, addressing a broad area of issues related to the physical aspects of playhouses and playing (architecture, staging, and performance), interrogating standard definitions of what texts are and how they generate meaning, and looking anew at the involvement of women. The most significant purpose of the volume is to shift emphasis away from the essentially literary process that attempts to establish the dramatic author's original manuscript, which, even though it is effectively impossible, is what most modern editions set out to do. Attention is directed instead to the collaborative labour and the material activities involved in making plays, to what Andrew Gurr, in his contribution ‘A New Theatre Historicism’, calls the ‘interaction between the plays within specific company repertories and the company's performative practices’, rather than ‘the study of authors and their versions of the texts in print’ (72). Although this different emphasis is not new, it has been given urgency by new archival materials, especially those brought to light by the Records of Early English Drama (REED) project located at the University of Toronto.