<div>This dissertation brings together studies of early modern subjectivity, material culture, and dramatic performance in ways that address the myriad ways in which material objects—in this case, clothing and costumes—can act as catalysts for change in a work of the dramatic literature of the period. Literary studies of the twenty-first century has done little to examine the ways in which costumes on the early modern English stage functioned to convey relationships between outward expression and inner self. Despite critical agreement that staged objects in early modern England were significant for creating meaning in theatrical performances, the presentation of material objects in early modern English drama with respect to a performed selfhood continues to be underappreciated or misunderstood, if not entirely neglected.</div><div> </div><div>In response to this problem, I argue that an examination of the history of costumes on the early modern English stage is necessary to discover how costumes functioned over time to indicate both complete and incomplete transformations in performance. On-stage clothing, particularly when it is removed from or placed upon an actor’s body, effectively added to the performed narrative. Within any given work of drama, of course, the act of changing costumes often coincides with the potential for a change of one’s character. Examining elements of identity including political alignment, social status, religion, gender, and sexuality as features that can be defined and redefined through costuming, it is possible to trace the ways in which costumes have the power to transform. </div><div><br></div>

This dissertation examines how early modern English playwrights employ absence to enrich their representations of the unknown, including witchcraft and the supernatural. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries magical themes were often dramatized through visual and linguistic excess. Whether this excess was manifested through the use of vibrant costumes, farcical caricatures, or exaggerated dialogue, magic was often synonymous with theatricality. Playwrights such as William Rowley, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare, however, challenge stereotypical depictions of magic by contrasting excessive magic with the subtler power of restrained or off-stage magic. Embedded in the fantastical events and elaborate plots of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, absence, whether as an unstaged thing or person or an absent ideology, becomes a crucial element in understanding how playwrights represented and understood occult issues during the early modern period. Further, when gendered feminine, magical absences serve to combat oppressive silences within scripts and provide female subjects with an unimpeded and inherently magical space from which to challenge pre-established patriarchal systems of control. Each chapter in this dissertation, therefore, appraises the magical possibilities that theatrical absences provide to women as a platform from which to develop their narrative voice. Partnered with a complementary discussion of Jonson’s The Masque of Queens and two thematically linked witchcraft cases, my first chapter argues that Mistress Ford uses the complete stage absence of both a witch and a queen in The Merry Wives of Windsor to reform her community and critique her society’s unjust categorization of women. In chapter two, I examine a series of “vanishing acts” in The Birth of Merlin and argue that Rowley’s female characters use their final moments on stage to contextualize their impending absences for audiences as moments of magical defiance rather than defeat in the face of male tyranny. In my final chapter, I look at how magical objects, such as the handkerchief in Shakespeare’s Othello or the belt in Jonson’s The Sad Shepherd resist the absence of their female creators and continue to provide physically absent or dead women with magical agency. By structuring my dissertation on these three specific gradations of absence, I provide a nuanced analysis of the purposes these dramatic omissions serve by focusing on how these shades of absence subtly alter the ways in which we interpret and define early modern magical belief. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Tony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to induce social awareness of gay male oppression, contingent on the audience's perception of Kushner's deconstruction of the traditional gender dichotomy. I also scrutinize the role of the closet and its implications in the play, primarily analyzed with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theoretical framework, suggesting Kushner's partiality to openly gay men who can actively participate in the cessation of gay male oppression.

By examining five types of astronomical and celestial phenomena—comets, constellations, the zodiac, planets, and the music of the spheres—this thesis posits not only that early modern dramatists were influenced by established and emerging natural philosophy as habits of thought that manifested in their writing, but also that astronomical phenomena operate within the drama, performance, and in the theatre as elements for creating and developing a distinctly spatial dramaturgy. Using theories from the spatial turn, this thesis maps the positions, edges, disturbances, and motions of celestial properties within the imaginary and physical space of early modern drama and theatre. It argues that the case study plays examined within this thesis demonstrate a period-wide engagement, rather than an authorial-, company-, theatre-, or even genre-specific practice. Dramatists developed techniques using astronomical phenomena as dramatic methods that occasionally underscored early modern astronomical thought. However, in many cases constructed plots, characters, visual and sound effects, and movements transgressed astronomical expectations. Dramatists broke down constellations, inserted new stars in the heavens, created zodiacal females, launched pyrotechnical comets, moved planets unexpectedly across the stage, and played (and refrained from playing) celestial "music" for the audience. Recognising composite and often contradictory astronomical constructions within the drama, this thesis moves the critical discussion away from an intellectual history of natural philosophy and gravitates toward an active astronomical dramaturgy.

This thesis seeks to place drama of the Caroline commercial theatre in its contemporary political and legal context; particularly, it addresses the ways in which the struggle for supremacy between the royal prerogative, common law and local custom is constructed and negotiated in plays of the period. It argues that as the reign of Charles I progresses, the divine right and absolute power of the monarchy on stage begins to lose its authority, as playwrights, particularly Massinger and Brome, present a decline from divinity into the presentation of an arbitrary man who seeks to impose and increase his authority by enforcing obedience to selfish and wilful actions and demands. This decline from divinity, I argue, allows for the rise of a competing legitimate legal authority in the form of common law. Engaging with the contemporary discourse of custom, reason and law which pervades legal tracts of the period such as Coke’s Institutes and Reports and Davies’ ‘Preface Dedicatory’ to Le Primer Report des Cases & Matters en Ley resolues & adiudges en les Courts del Roy en Ireland, drama by Brome, Jonson, Massinger and Shirley presents arbitrary absolutism as madness, and adherence to customary common law as reason which restores order. In this climate, the drama suggests, royal manipulation of the law for personal ends, of which Charles I was often accused, destabilises law and legal authority. This destabilisation of legal authority is examined in a broader context in plays set in areas outwith London, geographically distant from central authority. The thesis places these plays in the context of Charles I’s attempts to centralise local law enforcement through such publications as the Book of Orders. When maintaining order in the provinces came into conflict with central legislation, the local officials exercised what Keith Wrightson describes as ‘two concepts of order’, turning a blind eye to certain activities when strict enforcement of law would create rather than dissolve local tensions. In both attempting to insist on unity between the centre and the provinces through tighter control of local officials, and dividing the centre from the provinces in the dissolution of Parliament, Charles’s government was, the plays suggest, in danger not only of destabilising and decentralising legal authority but of fragmenting it. This thesis argues that drama provides a medium whereby the politico-legal debates of the period may be presented to, and debated by, a wider audience than the more technical contemporary legal arguments, and, during Charles I’s personal rule, the theatre became a public forum for debate when Parliament was unavailable.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the birth of British modern drama and the most important figures breaking its new ground; more to the point, to shed light on the second generation of British dramatists breaking what G.B. Shaw used to call ‘middle-class morality’. The focal point here is fixed on Stephen Poliakoff, one of the distinctive dramatists in contemporary British theatre, his work and the dramatic tinge he adds to the new drama.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:59:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Berilo Luigi Deiro Nosella.pdf: 517440 bytes, checksum: d451e316214cec8d93a007e898878fb4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-03-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This master degree main objective is the analysis and the study of the dramatical workmanship composition Six Personages in Search of an Author , witch is studied here as Seis Personagens em Busca de um Autor by Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), staged for the first time in 1921, in Rome / Italy, reaching success in the entire world and deeply influencing the art of the teatral representation of the century XX. The objectives of the research send to analyze the modern elements gifts in the text Six Personages in Search of an Author and to the verification of the specific items on this modern pirandellian text in debate with modernity and contemporality. Basically, here, the analysis if guideline in the reflection on the existence of a tension between tradition and renewal, characteristic of the modernity in general way and specific way of the workmanship of Pirandello. It is treated, therefore, of formal examining the renewal as crisis of the tradition while factor of revelation and denudation as crisis of the modern world that is present like a mean form in the workmanship of Pirandello and in the Modern Drama . The literary analysis of the pirandellian text was based, initially, in the theoretical debate on the question of the literary sorts for the definition of the concept of Modern Drama . For this issue, this thought followed a line that begins with Hegel, goes to Georg Lukács and finishes with Peter Szondi. Advancing in this way, it was turned back to the proper theoretical texts of Pirandello, mainly O Humorismo , wrote in 1903, that involves the modernity of the drama and how it would be articulated, later, in an artistic form. A critical historical pillar helped to support the recital of this work that had as purpose understand and context this workmanship of Pirandello in its time and the present time. It was established, a parallel between two authors: the Italian, contemporary Pirandello, Antonio Gramsci and the german, Walter Benjamin. This debate in allowed in such a way to invest them in the analysis of the tension between form and content, renewing the art of drama of Pirandello culturally (as content) and the respective esthetic way (as form) / Trata, a presente dissertação, da análise e do estudo da obra dramática Seis Personagens em Busca de um Autor, de Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), encenada pela primeira vez em 1921, em Roma, Itália, alcançando sucesso no mundo todo e influenciando profundamente a dramaturgia do século XX. Os objetivos da pesquisa remetem à analise dos elementos modernos presentes no texto Seis Personagens em Busca de um Autor e à verificação das especificidades desse moderno pirandelliano em debate com a modernidade e a contemporaneidade. Basicamente, aqui, a análise se pauta na reflexão sobre a existência de uma tensão entre tradição e renovação, característica da modernidade de modo geral e de modo específico da obra de Pirandello. Trata-se, portanto, de formalmente examinar a renovação como crise da tradição enquanto fator de revelação e desnudamento de uma crise do mundo moderno que se apresentaria como uma forma fundamental na obra de Pirandello e no Drama Moderno . A análise literária do texto pirandelliano alicerçou-se, inicialmente, no debate teórico sobre a questão dos gêneros literários para a definição do conceito de Drama Moderno . Para tanto, esse pensamento seguiu uma linha que parte de Hegel, passa por Gyorgy Lukács e se finaliza com Peter Szondi. Avançando neste caminho, voltou-se aos próprios textos teóricos de Pirandello, principalmente O Humorismo, escrito em 1903, que compreende a modernidade do drama e como se articularia, posteriormente, numa forma artística. Sustentou ainda a fundamentação deste trabalho um pilar crítico-histórico que teve como finalidade compreender e contextualizar a obra de Pirandello em seu tempo e na atualidade. Estabeleceu-se, assim, um paralelo entre dois autores: o italiano, contemporâneo a Pirandello, Antonio Gramsci e o alemão Walter Benjamin. Esse debate nos permitiu investir na análise da tensão entre forma e conteúdo, renovando a dramaturgia de Pirandello tanto culturalmente (como conteúdo) quanto esteticamente (como forma)

This thesis looks at occurrences of "living death" – a liminal state that exists between life and death, and which may be approached from either side – in early modern English drama. Today, reference to the living dead brings to mind zombies and their ilk, creatures which entered the English language and imagination centuries after the time of the great early modern playwrights. Yet, I argue, many post-Reformation writers were imagining states between life and death in ways more complex than existing critical discussions of “ghosts” have tended to perceive. My approach to the subject is broadly historicist, but informed throughout by ideas of stagecraft and performance. In addition to presenting fresh interpretations of well-known plays such as Thomas Middleton’s The Maiden’s Tragedy (1611) and John Webster’s The White Devil (1612), I also endeavour to shed new light on various non-canon works such as the anonymous The Tragedy of Locrine (c.1591), John Marston's Antonio's Revenge (c.1602), and Anthony Munday's mayoral pageants Chruso-thriambos (1611) and Chrysanaleia (1616), works which have received little in the way of serious scholarly attention or, in the case of Antonio's Revenge, been much maligned by critics. These dramatic works depict a whole host of the living dead, including not only ghosts and spirits but also resurrected Lord Mayors, corpses which continue to “perform” after death, and characters who anticipate their deaths or define themselves through last dying speeches. By exploring the significance of these characters, I demonstrate that the concept of living death is vital to our understanding of deeper thematic and symbolic meanings in a wide range of dramatic works.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the birth of British modern drama and the most important figures breaking its new ground; more to the point, to shed light on the second generation of British dramatists breaking what G.B. Shaw used to call ‘middle-class morality’. The focal point here is fixed on Stephen Poliakoff, one of the distinctive dramatists in contemporary British theatre, his work and the dramatic tinge he adds to the new drama. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished