Dramatic Apparitions and Theatrical Ghosts
The Staging of Illusion across Time and Cultures
Published on 20. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-1-350-37173-6 (ISBN)
Description
Ghosts haunt the stages of world theatre, appearing in classical Greek drama through to the plays of 21st-century dramatists. Tracing the phenomenon across time and in different cultures, the chapters collected here examine their representation, dramatic function, and what they may tell us about the belief systems of their original audiences and the conditions of theatrical production. As illusions of illusions, they foreground many dramatic themes common to a wide variety of periods and cultures.
Arranged chronologically, this collection examines how ghosts represent political change in Athenian culture in three plays by Aeschylus; their function in traditional Japanese drama; the staging of the supernatural in the dramatic liturgy of the early Middle Ages; ghosts within the dramatic works of Middleton, George Peele, and Christopher Marlowe, and the technologies employed in the 18th and 19th centuries to represent the supernatural on stage.
Coverage of the dramatic representation of ghosts in the 20th and 21st centuries includes studies of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, plays by Sam Shepard, David Mamet, and Sarah Ruhl, Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man, Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog, and the spectral imprint of Shakespeare's ghosts in the Irish drama of Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, William Butler Yeats, and Samuel Beckett. The volume closes by examining three contemporary American indigenous plays by Anishinaabe author, Alanis King.
Arranged chronologically, this collection examines how ghosts represent political change in Athenian culture in three plays by Aeschylus; their function in traditional Japanese drama; the staging of the supernatural in the dramatic liturgy of the early Middle Ages; ghosts within the dramatic works of Middleton, George Peele, and Christopher Marlowe, and the technologies employed in the 18th and 19th centuries to represent the supernatural on stage.
Coverage of the dramatic representation of ghosts in the 20th and 21st centuries includes studies of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, plays by Sam Shepard, David Mamet, and Sarah Ruhl, Paddy Chayefsky's The Tenth Man, Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog, and the spectral imprint of Shakespeare's ghosts in the Irish drama of Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, William Butler Yeats, and Samuel Beckett. The volume closes by examining three contemporary American indigenous plays by Anishinaabe author, Alanis King.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
9 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
320 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-37173-6 (9781350371736)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Ann C. Hall | Alan Nadel
Dramatic Apparitions and Theatrical Ghosts
The Staging of Illusion Across Time and Cultures
E-Book
08/2023
1st Edition
Methuen Drama
€31.99
Available for download
Ann C. Hall | Alan Nadel
Dramatic Apparitions and Theatrical Ghosts
The Staging of Illusion Across Time and Cultures
E-Book
08/2023
1st Edition
Methuen Drama
€31.99
Available for download
Persons
Ann C. Hall is a Professor in the Department of Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville, USA. She is the author of Phantom Variations: The Adaptations of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, 1925 to the Present (2009) and A Kind of Alaska: Women in the Plays of Eugene O'Neill, Harold Pinter, and Sam Shepard (1993). She is currently the President of the International Harold Pinter Society and editor of The Harold Pinter Review.
Alan Nadel is William T. Bryan Chair in American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky, USA. He is the author of six books on post-WWII American literature, including: The Theatre of August Wilson (Methuen Drama, 2018), Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s (2017), Containment Culture (1995), and Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon (1994). He has also edited of two volumes of essays on August Wilson, August Wilson: Completing the 20th-Century Cycle (2010) and May All Your Fences Have Gates (1994).
Alan Nadel is William T. Bryan Chair in American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky, USA. He is the author of six books on post-WWII American literature, including: The Theatre of August Wilson (Methuen Drama, 2018), Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s (2017), Containment Culture (1995), and Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon (1994). He has also edited of two volumes of essays on August Wilson, August Wilson: Completing the 20th-Century Cycle (2010) and May All Your Fences Have Gates (1994).
Content
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Summoning the Illusion Within the Illusion-An Introduction, Ann C. Hall (University of Louisville, USA) and Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky, USA)
1. Made of Anxiety: Two (or Three) Ghosts in Aeschylus, John Timpane (Independent scholar, USA)
2. A Theater of Ghosts: Spirits on the Traditional Japanese Stage, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Loyola Marymount University, USA)
3. The Holiest of Ghosts: Staging the Supernatural in the Early Middle Ages, Andrew Rabin (University of Louisville, USA)
4. "I Am Not Here": Staging the (Un)Dead and the Thresholds of Theatrical Performance, Christopher Salamone (University of Oxford, UK)
5. Creating Stage Ghosts: The Archeology of Spectral Illusion, Beth Kattelman (Lawrence and Lee Theater Research Institute, The Ohio State University, USA)
6. Blithe Spirit: A Spectral Anatomy of Astral Bigamy, Judith Roof (Independent scholar, USA)
7. The Ghost of Unrequited Love Possesses the Modern Heart: Paddy Chayefsky's Dybbuk in The Tenth Man, Ben Furnish (Haskell Indian Nations University, USA)
8. Of Outlaws and Spirits: Sam Shepard's Fool for Love (1983) and David Mamet's Prairie du Chien (1979) and The Shawl (1985), Ann C. Hall (University of Louisville, USA)
9. Literal Ghosts, Figurative Humanity, and the Specter of Capitalism in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky, USA)
10. "All Spooked Out": Topdog/Underdog's Ghosts, Jennifer Larson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
11. Deficient Visitations: Staging Ghostliness and Irishness in Martin McDonagh's Comedy, Craig N. Owens (Drake University, USA)
12. Holding the Dead Close: The Comfort of Ghosts in the Plays of Sarah Ruhl, Amy Muse (University of St. Thomas, USA)
13. Anishinaabe, Dakhota, and Nimiipuu Hauntings in the Indigenous Drama of Alanis King, LeAnne Howe, and Beth Piatote, Margaret Noodin (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA)
Index
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Summoning the Illusion Within the Illusion-An Introduction, Ann C. Hall (University of Louisville, USA) and Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky, USA)
1. Made of Anxiety: Two (or Three) Ghosts in Aeschylus, John Timpane (Independent scholar, USA)
2. A Theater of Ghosts: Spirits on the Traditional Japanese Stage, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Loyola Marymount University, USA)
3. The Holiest of Ghosts: Staging the Supernatural in the Early Middle Ages, Andrew Rabin (University of Louisville, USA)
4. "I Am Not Here": Staging the (Un)Dead and the Thresholds of Theatrical Performance, Christopher Salamone (University of Oxford, UK)
5. Creating Stage Ghosts: The Archeology of Spectral Illusion, Beth Kattelman (Lawrence and Lee Theater Research Institute, The Ohio State University, USA)
6. Blithe Spirit: A Spectral Anatomy of Astral Bigamy, Judith Roof (Independent scholar, USA)
7. The Ghost of Unrequited Love Possesses the Modern Heart: Paddy Chayefsky's Dybbuk in The Tenth Man, Ben Furnish (Haskell Indian Nations University, USA)
8. Of Outlaws and Spirits: Sam Shepard's Fool for Love (1983) and David Mamet's Prairie du Chien (1979) and The Shawl (1985), Ann C. Hall (University of Louisville, USA)
9. Literal Ghosts, Figurative Humanity, and the Specter of Capitalism in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky, USA)
10. "All Spooked Out": Topdog/Underdog's Ghosts, Jennifer Larson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
11. Deficient Visitations: Staging Ghostliness and Irishness in Martin McDonagh's Comedy, Craig N. Owens (Drake University, USA)
12. Holding the Dead Close: The Comfort of Ghosts in the Plays of Sarah Ruhl, Amy Muse (University of St. Thomas, USA)
13. Anishinaabe, Dakhota, and Nimiipuu Hauntings in the Indigenous Drama of Alanis King, LeAnne Howe, and Beth Piatote, Margaret Noodin (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA)
Index