Shakespeare's Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan

Shakespeare's Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse

This book argues that a professional Elizabethan theatre company always contained one actor known as 'the clown'. Its focus is Will Kemp, clown to the Chamberlain's Men from 1594 to 1599 and famed for his solo dance from London to Norwich in 1600. David Wiles combines textual, theatrical and biographical lines of research in order to map out Kemp's career. He shows how Shakespeare and other dramatists made use of Kemp's talents and wrote specific roles as vehicles for him. He discerns a perpetual and productive tension between the ambitions of a progressive writer and the aspirations of a traditional actor whose art was rooted in improvisation. The book also describes the clown tradition in general, dealing with Kemp's inheritance from medieval theatre, with the work of Richard Tarlton, the great comic actor of the 1570s and 1580s, and with Kemp's successor, Robert Armin, who created the 'fool' parts in Shakespeare.

Country	USA
Author	David Wiles
Binding	Paperback
Brand	Brand: Cambridge University Press
EAN	9780521673341
Feature	Used Book in Good Condition
ISBN	0521673348
Label	Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer	Cambridge University Press
NumberOfItems	1
NumberOfPages	240
PublicationDate	2005-06-30
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Studio	Cambridge University Press
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Shakespeare's Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse