The Experimental Plays of Harold Pinter offers a fresh approach to the plays of Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter. He is highlighted as an experimental playwright who attempted to free the theatre from the legacy of realism, causality, and motivation. His plays are read in relation to the avant-garde movements in the visual arts and music that flourished in the twentieth century. Scolnicov's new interdisciplinary perspective sets Pinter’s dramatic works against a background of the other arts and yields new insights into the themes and structure of the plays, underlining their evolving innovativeness. Such an approach has not been attempted to date, and Pinter’s plays are usually discussed in the context of their contemporary drama and theatre. This shift of interpretive focus requires a radical change in the acting technique called for by Pinter’s plays. The intermedial reading offered in the book also carries wider implications for the development of theatre studies. Twentieth-century dramatic criticism has lagged behind art criticism and has not been quick enough to develop adequate tools for the analysis of Pinter’s experiments with theatrical form. Scolnicov borrows from the ideas of different contemporary art movements, such as hyperrealism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, conceptual art, and abstract art to better understand his work. Pinter also adapted techniques from music, film, and literature, constantly re-defining the limits of dramatic art and theatre in his plays.
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Scolnicov highlights Harold Pinter as an experimental playwright who attempted to free the theatre from the legacy of realism, causality, and motivation.
Preface Illustrations Chapter 1 After realism: The search for new forms Chapter 2 Hyperrealism: The Room, The Birthday Party Chapter 3 Experiments in minimalism: Night, Landscape, Silence Chapter 4 Ekphrasis in the theatre: Landscape and Silence Chapter 5 Variations on the romantic triangle: The Collection, The Lover Chapter 6 Geometrical permutations: Old Times, Betrayal Chapter 7 Abstract expressionism: One for the Road, Mountain Language, Party Time Chapter 8 Surrealism and memory: Old Times, A Kind of Alaska, Ashes to Ashes Conclusion Bibliography Index
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781611493504
Publisert
2012-06-18
Utgiver
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc; University of Delaware Press
Vekt
499 gr
Høyde
236 mm
Bredde
157 mm
Dybde
18 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
206

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

Hanna Scolnicov is professor of Theatre Studies and former head of the School of Graduate Studies of the Faculty of Arts at Tel-Aviv University, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge.