{"product_id":"9781474241045","title":"Shakespeare in the Theatre: The National Theatre, 1963–1975 : Olivier and Hall","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eShakespeare in the Theatre: The National Theatre, 1963–1975\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Robert Shaughnessy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe National Theatre's years at the Old Vic were the most Shakespearean period in its history, one which included Laurence Olivier's Othello and Shylock, a radical all-male \u003ci\u003eAs You Like It, \u003c\/i\u003ethe Berliner Ensemble's \u003ci\u003eCoriolanus\u003c\/i\u003e and Tom Stoppard's classic offshoot, \u003ci\u003eRosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead\u003c\/i\u003e.  Drawing extensively upon the company archives, this book tells the interlinked stories of the National's relationship with Shakespeare through a series of production case studies. Between them these illuminate Olivier's significance as actor and director, the National's pioneering accommodation of European theatre practitioners, and its ways of engaging Shakespeare with the contemporary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e“Shows the actor shaping the legacy that so strongly shaped him…Highlights include unsparing accounts of Olivier’s infamous productions of \u003ci\u003eOthello\u003c\/i\u003e in blackface and of \u003ci\u003eThe Merchant of Venice\u003c\/i\u003e with a custom set of dentures that rearranged his celebrated face into a Semitic caricature. From such appalling expressions of minstrelsy-like love and theft, Shaughnessy does not permit the reader to look away. Yet the picture he paints, of a company cast in the shadow of the Royal Shakespeare Company and fighting to shake its superfluous reputation, is more pointillist tableau than knife-edged portrait. Taken as a whole, the book deftly captures Shakespeare’s centrality to the National Theatre’s sometimes canny, sometimes desultory handling of the period’s political and aesthetic churn.” - \u003ci\u003eStudies in English Literature 1500-1900\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781474241045\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"The Arden Shakespeare","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":40690320048334,"sku":"9781474241045","price":115.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781474241045","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}