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The History Of European Theatre
As You Like It: ‘I Can Suck Melancholy Out of a Song as a Weasel Sucks Eggs’
Episode 188:
Following on from the last episode before the run of summer guest conversations we take a sharp swerve from ‘Henry V’ to ‘As You Like It’. Although we cannot be quite sure about the chronology in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, or how much the writing of one crossed over with the writing of another, whatever the precise order it is pretty clear that Shakespeare could move freely between the History and Comedy genres and within those how he was always pushing at the edges of the forms and conventions of the theatre and playwrighting to see what could work on stage and with language. ‘As You Like It’ is no exception to that.
The Dating of the play
The sources for the play
The possible first performance date
A brief synopsis of the play
The use of poetry and prose in the play
The play as part of the ‘Pastoral’ genre
The location of the play and influence of the forest
The character of Jacques
The character of Rosalind
The character of Touchstone
The ending, Hyman, and the masque
A summary of the performance history of the play
The epilogue
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1. Prologue and Pre History
25:26||Season 1, Ep. 1Episode 1An Introduction to the podcast and your host.Pre-history and how the urge to mimic and present might have been the start of theatre.Religious ritual and Shamanism.The Abydos Passion play and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.The beginning of Greek Theatre.A note on dates and the nature of translations.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy1. Trailer
03:52||Ep. 1An introduction to The History Of European Theatre PodcastThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy2. Dionysus and the beginning of Greek Theatre
26:53||Season 1, Ep. 2Episode 2An overview of the history of Greece to the 5th Century BCE including Minoan and Mycenaean periods, the Greek dark age and the rise of the city state.The development of the religious festivals and their main featuresAn overview of the main playwrights and their plays:AeschylusSophoclesEuripidesAristophanesMenanderThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy3. The Place Of Seeing
31:49||Season 1, Ep. 3Episode 3The vocabulary of the theatre we inherit from the GreeksThe layout of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens and it's main featuresDevelopments in the theatre over timeThe ChorusStage MachineryMasks and costumeThe judging and prizesThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy4. Aeschylus: The First Tragedies
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