Overview

This book writes a performance history of Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's most ambiguous play, from 1606 to the present. It observes the choices that actors, directors, designers, musicians and adapters have made each time they have brought the play's thoughts on power, race, masculinity, regime change, exoticism, love, dotage and delinquency into alignment with a new present. Informed by close attention to theatre records promptbooks, stage managers' reports, reviews it offers in-depth analyses of fifteen international productions by (among others) the Royal Shakespeare Company, Citizens Theatre Glasgow, Northern Broadsides, Berliner Ensemble and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. It ends seeing Shakespeare's black Egyptian Queen Cleopatra whited-out in performance for centuries restored to the contemporary stage. Written in a lively and accessible style, this book will be of interest to students, academics, actors, directors and general readers alike.

Full Product Details

Author:   Carol Chillington Rutter
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.402kg
ISBN:  

9781526194701

ISBN 10:   1526194708
Pages:   344
Publication Date:   20 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: A play that ‘approves the common liar’ 1 ‘That time? O times!’: The Jacobean Antony and Cleopatra 2 ‘Famous patterns of unlawful love’: Antony and Cleopatra, 1677–1931 3 ‘Wogs exit nearest way’: Glen Byam Shaw, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, 1953 4 ‘By certain scales i’th’ pyramid’: Taking the Measure of Antony and Cleopatra, Royal Shakespeare Company 1972, 1978, 1982 5 Boying Greatness: The Citizens’ Theatre (Glasgow), 1972 and Northern Broadsides (Halifax), 1995 6 ‘Back to Basics’: Peter Hall, Olivier Theatre, National Theatre 1987 7 ‘Some Squeaking Cleopatra’: Shakespeare’s Globe, 1999 8 Estranging the crocodile: Foreign Antony and Cleopatra in Britain and abroad 9 Restoring blackness: Josette Bushell-Mingo’s Cleopatra, Royal Exchange Manchester (2005); Tarell Alvin McCraney’s ‘Radical Edit’, RST, The Public, and GableStage (2013) Cast lists Bibliography -- .

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Author Information

Carol Chillington Rutter is Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick

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