Renaissance Performance, Gender, Space

Overview

This module will examine gendered dimensions of performance from the late sixteenth century to the Restoration. It will introduce students to ways of reading performance via a range of playwrights, genres and theatrical contexts. Topics will include Shakespeare’s boy actors, the children’s playing companies, female performance, shifting dramatic practices and theatrical innovation. It will raise questions about performance spaces and traditions and the representation of gender, location, status, cross-dressing, the body and the actor on this stage.

Learning Objectives

Students will gain knowledge of modes of representation on the Renaissance stage. They will become familiar with important developments in theatrical practices in this period. They will be able to critically reflect on the ways in which dramatic texts refract contemporary issues of gender, sexuality, status and location and to evaluate these themes across dramatic genres and performance spaces.

Skills

Students will develop skills of close analysis of texts in relation to Renaissance performance and cultural contexts. They will develop the ability to explore questions of gender, genre, space and performance. The module will improve students’ written and oral communication skills and enhance their abilities to develop an argument independently and through group work.

Assessment

None