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Performing gods in classical antiquity and the age of Shakespeare
The gods have much to tell us about performance. When human actors portray deities onstage, such divine epiphanies reveal not only the complexities of mortals playing gods but also the nature of theatrical spectacle itself. The very impossibility of rendering the gods in all their divine splendor in a truly convincing way lies at the intersection of divine power and the power of the theater. This book pursues these dynamics on the stages of ancient Athens and Rome as well on those of Renaissance England to shed new light on theatrical performance. The authors reveal how gods appear onstage both to astound and to dramatize the very machinations by which theatrical performance operates. Offering an array of case studies featuring both canonical and lesser-studied texts, this volume discusses work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Plautus as well as Beaumont, Heywood, Jonson, Marlowe and Shakespeare. This book uniquely brings together the joint perspectives of two experts on classical and Renaissance drama. This volume will appeal to students and enthusiasts of literature, classics, theater and performance studies.
The gods take stage -- Approaching divinity -- Under the actor's spell: audiences in Euripides' Helen and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus -- An actor ascends: status and identity in Plautus' Amphitruo and the the Court Masque -- Authoring gods in Aeschylus' Oresteia and Shakespeare's Hamlet -- To die is human, to perform divine -- Entertainting Gods in Zimmerman's Metamophoses.
Includes bibliographical references and index.