The Stage Clown in Shakespeare's Theatre

Subjects:

• Literature » Drama
• Literature » English Literature

Reviews:

• Her painstaking analysis of each clown's passage through it's play is commendable...the breadth and scope of her undertaking makes her book a valuable contribution to the field
  —New England Theatre Journal

• Endorsement From
  J.L. Styan, Franklin Bliss Snyder Professor Emeritus of
  English Literature and Theatre, Northwestern University: Dr. Videbaek's book on the clown's role in Shakespeare is a highly original and illuminating account of the contributions to the plays of the resident comics in Shakespeare's company. The approach in this study is far from being narrowly literary or historical, but displays an excellent sense of theatre, and of the Elizabethan theatre in particular, treating Shakespeare's playwriting as a full performance art. The book is gratifyingly written, very much in the current mode of `performance criticism.' I know of no study of the Elizabethan clown that senses so sensitively and richly his function in performance on the stage.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Minor Roles: Cameo Appearance, Great Effect
• Rustic Clowns in Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, Antony and Cleopatra
• Servant Clowns in Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, The Tempest
• Miscellaneous Clowns in Richard III, Hamlet, Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale
• Major Roles: Expanded Function
• Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing
• The Dromios in The Comedy of Errors, Speed and Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Costard in Love's Labour's Lost, Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice
• Pompey in Measure for Measure
• The Court Jesters in the Comedies
• Lavatch in All's Well That Ends Well
• Touchstone in As You Like It
• Feste in Twelfth Night
• The Clown as "The Bitter Fool"
• Thersites in Troilus and Cressida
• Lear's Fool in King Lear
• Falstaff as Clown
• The Henriad
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Clown Characteristics in Non-Clown Characters
• Philip the Bastard in King John
• Hamlet in Hamlet
• Conclusion
• Appendix: The Elizabethan Clown
• Bibliography
• Index