The Idea of a Theater: A Study of Ten Plays, The Art of Drama in Changing Perspective (Princeton Legacy Library, 1897) by Francis Fergusson (PDF)

Description

An original and beautifully written book on changing perspectives in the art of theater. Through a study of nine plays―Oedipus Rex, Bérénice, Tristan und Isolde, Hamlet, Ghosts, The Cherry Orchard, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Noah, Murder in the Cathedral―the author shows how all playwrights seek to “hold the mirror up to nature” and how in this respect the art of drama is always the same, varying only with the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of each age. The Idea of a Theater will delight both readers with a special interest in drama and those who read drama as a source of insight into man’s nature and man’s changing ideas of himself.Originally published in 1949.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A text in my drama classes with Arch Lauterer, long ago at Mills College, and still an invaluable resource for anyone who needs to _think_ about the creating or producing (or watching) of plays. The prose between the essays on the plays is dense and difficult, but skip to the plays themselves and enjoy.”…we need the “Idea of a Theater,” both to understand the masterpieces of drama at its best, and to get our bearings in our own time. I have selected… Fergusson selected ten plays, from Oedipus Rex (‘The Tragic Rhythm of Action’) to Murder in the Cathedral (‘The Theological Scene’). The essays on the plays are less daunting than the expositions of his philosophies about theater, and timelessly useful to anyone who needs or wishes to produce or study any of these plays. Or perhaps any play.Not an easy read, but after 60-some years away from my theater studies I still couldn’t put down the (simply and engagingly told) essays on the plays.The Kindle edition seems an exact replica of the paperback I read to death, though I haven’t examined every page. Not at all a given, given the current (2022) spate of incomprehensibly muddled Kindle editions of books produced long after manuscripts were routinely digitized.

⭐Actors play actions. So do plays. Fergusson persuasively describes how. Every theater director should put this book in her back pocket.

⭐

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