{"title":"Afterword: “Your time’s expired”: Spatiotemporal Dramaturgies of the Contemporary","authors":"Peter Kirwan","doi":"10.1353/shb.2023.a907994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2023.a907994","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This afterword responds to the contents of this special issue by returning to Jan Kott’s Szkice o Szekspirze and exploring the fuzzy language around contemporaneity, resonance, and relevance. Contemporaneity in theatrical productions often manifests in either very vague or very specific terms, and often serves a predominantly aesthetic function. Taking the cue of Shakespeare’s time-skipping later plays Pericles and The Winter’s Tale —both of which resist a straightforward depiction of a “now”—and focusing on Cheek by Jowl’s 2018–19 Périclès, Prince de Tyr , this afterword draws together the arguments made throughout this special issue to propose a model of contemporaneity as experiential immediacy, which aligns with recent attempts to understand contemporaneity at the point of reception.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"197 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135532682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Henry V (review)","authors":"Justin B. Hopkins","doi":"10.1353/shb.2022.0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2022.0053","url":null,"abstract":"Having chosen to shorten it significantly, the production had no choice but to stay for the most part on the literal level of the play, telling the story straightforwardly, emphasizing physical comedy, cutting lines that might point towards the deeper (and darker) significance of the action. It never, for example, left itself enough time (either through the words or the action) to articulate and make felt the implications of the dancing lovers or, more importantly, of the shift in lines between Oberon and Titania. As the reversal of the opening scenes suggested and his flamboyant acting made clear, Bottom and his mates were meant to be the stars of the show. All in all the production did what it apparently set out to do and offered a concise, accessible, and visually attractive articulation of the play, designed to entertain both adults and children.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"1681 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120942208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“You want to sort that out?”: A Conversation on Overwhelming Whiteness, Anti-Racism, Theater-Making, and Shakespeare with Keith Hamilton Cobb","authors":"Kevin Ewert","doi":"10.1353/shb.2022.0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2022.0050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Shortly after the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, there was a great outpouring of claims to anti-racist solidarity, including from a great many in the American theater establishment. But what would that look like, in action? The “We See You White American Theatre” manifesto lays down a wide-ranging action plan of “transformative practices” aimed at changing our current theater-making ecology. In this interview, the writer and actor Keith Hamilton Cobb lays down some ideas for transformative Shakespearean theatrical practices. Cobb draws on his long career in theater, film, and television, as well as his experience as author and performer of American Moor, and gestures towards some radical rethinking of rehearsal processes and priorities currently being put to the test in his Untitled Othello Project. Cobb’s insights offer numerous ways to challenge the overwhelming whiteness of the American theater-making status quo.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"136 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132574684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Everyone in illyria is bi you absolute cowards”: Shakespeare TikTok, Twelfth Night, and the Search for a Queer Utopia","authors":"Trevor Boffone, Danielle Rosvally","doi":"10.1353/shb.2022.0048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2022.0048","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:As TikTok continues to cement itself as the most popular social media platform in the world, the nuanced ways in which Shakespeare nerds use the platform to display their digital fandom remain understudied. This essay addresses how Shakespeare TikTokers (“ShakesTokers”) use the platform to create a queer utopia, and specifically how this utopia manifests in the usage of Twelfth Night as a queer touchstone. In this piece, we consider ShakesTokers’ readings of the text as a fluid space of gender and identity in order to show how the dramaturgy of Twelfth Night aligns with Gen Z politics and aesthetics which inform TikTok’s culture at large. We look at ShakesTok readings of Twelfth Night’s characters, how these readings manifest a queer utopia, how they approach the trope of cross-dressing, and how mini performances of and inspired by Twelfth Night saturate themselves in queer readings of this text and its characters. We argue that Twelfth Night marks the epicenter of TikTok’s critical Shakesqueer. This critical lens allows TikTok users opportunities to engage with the text of Shakespeare’s plays on their own terms, and to extend ownership of the text into spaces that are familiar to them. In so doing, they enact a well-worn paradigm of Shakespearean textual analysis in fresh ways, enabled by the digital tools at their disposal. By closely examining Twelfth Night TikTok, this article sheds new light on the little acknowledged role that Shakespeare plays in forming mainstream TikTok culture, which may be key to developing a new generation of Shakespearean audiences.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"15 12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127651560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Much Ado (review)","authors":"Josepha Kuhn","doi":"10.1353/shb.2022.0057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2022.0057","url":null,"abstract":"Much Ado Produced by Shakespeare Sisters. Premiere 1 April 2022, London Independent Film Festival. Produced, directed, and written for screen by AnnaElizabeth Shakespeare and Hillary Shakespeare. Cinematography by Tom van den Broek. Music by Simon Porter. With Emma Beth Jones (Beatrice), Luke Hunter (Claudio), Johnny Lucas (Benedick), Jody Larcombe (Hero), James McClelland (Pedro), Toby Wynn Davies (Antonio), Peter Saracen (Leonato), Jack Boal ( John), Tani Toluwa (Ursula), Anya Rivers (Margaret), Harish Goutan (Friar Francis), Joseph Emms (Balthasar), and others.","PeriodicalId":304234,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare Bulletin","volume":"91 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132352965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}