"July 2018"--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-218) and index.
Contents:
Introduction : the actor -- Against Loss. The chronology of Garrick -- Theatrical time -- Celebrating performance -- Black Garrick Versus Richard III. Aphra Behn and the memory of Othello -- Becoming Richard, becoming Othello -- Garrick, ascendant -- Hamlet, David Garrick, and Laurence Sterne. Garrick and the immortality of the stage -- Theatrical Tristram -- Garrick's autopsy, "Yorick's" skull -- Retelling The Winter's Tale. The return of Leontes -- "Perdita" Robinson and the burden of the past -- Reanimating Lady Macbeth -- Siddons and the memory of Garrick -- The Merchant of Venice and Memorial Debts. "Shakespeare's" Shylock -- Clive's Portia -- Trial by theater and tradition -- Macklin's exit, Garrick's stage -- Shakespeare, Retired. Garrick's farewell -- Siddons, offstage -- Mourning performance.
Summary:
"This book looks at a British actor from the 1700s, David Garrick. By playing Shakespeare, Garrick raised the playwright to a position of new national importance, but in the process of doing so, he also activated Shakespeare as the social and cultural center around which he, and many other actors and even novelists, could work out questions about how to resist the evanescence of theater and life. How could the artist who stakes his fame on an ephemeral form of art be celebrated or preserved? How do approaches to commemoration change in light of these attempts? And how did Shakespeare become an emblem to other artists for how such preservation could be achieved? These are questions that Garrick, through Shakespeare, was able to ask, and questions that, thanks to Garrick, others would then take up. The chapters that follow tell the story of the answers they obtained"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.