by Andrew Dickson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2016
A frequently illuminating investigation of Shakespeare around the world.
Shakespeare, performed in the most unlikely places.
In a melding of literary history and travelogue, journalist and BBC Radio presenter Dickson (The Rough Guide to Shakespeare, 2009, etc.) enthusiastically recounts his worldwide excursions in search of Shakespearean productions. As a playwright, Shakespeare “wrote bestride the world,” more often setting his works in far-flung places rather than his native Britain. When he turned to England, he reached back into history. Part of his motivation may have been to avoid censorship; “playwrights of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras worked in continual fear of losing their livelihoods” if they offended those in power. But Dickson is more interested in how Shakespeare has been interpreted globally; to find out, he hopped around the world, watching performances and interviewing everyone who might enlighten him. Shakespeare has long been popular in Germany, he discovered, especially “at moments of political crisis or change,” such as the rise of Nazism. In South Africa, the author viewed performances inflected with the nation’s racial troubles. In Germany, he accompanied a woman who works on postwar political theater to a “self-consciously baffling” production of Coriolanus, “acted by five female performers wearing wigs to a soundtrack of corny eighties pop music.” Although he asserts that “in translation…the plays had a habit of wriggling free” to suggest new meanings, Dickson is confounded by the difficulties of translating them into Chinese. “The challenges…were almost innumerable,” a Chinese translator tells him, even with an apparently simple line such as, “To be or not to be.” The author is amused by the notion that for decades, Chinese scholars put forth Marxist interpretations: “Shakespeare excellently depicts the real nature of money,” Marx noted with satisfaction. Despite a tendency to digress—he reports on every thought, step, and sometimes irrelevant observation—Dickson proves himself a genial guide to Shakespeare’s huge influence and legacy.
A frequently illuminating investigation of Shakespeare around the world.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9734-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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