![]() The section devoted to Caliban is the least original of the three, deriving many of its insights from previous work by Alden and Virginia Vaughan and Trevor Griffiths, 2 but Dymkowski adds evidence from her vast store of performance choices to illustrate the crucial importance of cultural attitudes toward race, imperialism, and democracy in the portrayal of Prospero's slave. ![]() And Caliban, who appears as a comic monster in most early productions, gradually develops into a more sympathetic victim of colonialist oppression, a symbol of all exploited indigenous peoples. The part of Ariel, Dymkowski shows, functions as a vehicle for the expression of gender ideology, particularly with regard to the sex of the performer assuming the role. The segment on Prospero documents the figure's evolution from a wise, semi-divine patriarch to a more complicated, flawed human being struggling with his own creative and destructive urges. Dymkowski illustrates this function at length in a six-part introduction, three sections of which are devoted to changing patterns in the stage portraits of Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban. Because the play is "unusually elastic," she argues, it serves as "a mirror powerfully reflecting contemporary concerns, be they social, political, scientific or moral" (1). Throughout her edition Dymkowski emphasizes the cultural significance of historical trends in the play's theatrical representation, particularly in the characterization of The Tempest's primary characters. It also includes a more detailed list of productions and two appendices, the first devoted to selected textual variations and the second to a list of principal players. Compared to previous volumes in the series, Dymkowski's edition is somewhat broader in scope, going beyond major British revivals to examine regional and fringe productions, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American stage versions, and recent performances in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, and Japan. This exclusive emphasis on performance renders such editions inadequate for beginning students yet invaluable for theatrical practitioners and stage-centered scholars alike. ![]() The edition essentially reprints David Lindley's New Cambridge version of the text, but it substitutes, in place of Lindley's apparatus, Dymkowski's own notes, which chronicle stage settings, actors' performances, textual alterations and cuts, and the contemporary reception of various productions. $64.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.Ĭhristine Dymkowski's edition of The Tempest represents the fifth entry in Cambridge University Press's Shakespeare in Production series and, like its predecessors, functions as a "theatrical variorum," 1 compiling an exhaustive account of staging choices employed since the play's inception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Book Review Shakespeare in Production: The Tempest In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: ![]()
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