Performance

doi:10.1017/9781009392761.022

2. - Performance

from The Year’s Contribution to Shakespeare Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2023

Miranda Fay Thomas

Edited by

Emma Smith

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Emma Smith: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

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Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic represents innumerable, incalculable loss. Surviving it is a privilege, but we are far from finished processing the experiences of the past three years, particularly as the virus continues to mutate and shape our lives. The idea of re-visiting the earliest lockdowns – those freeze-frames of isolation and uncertainty – may not be a pleasant thought. But Lockdown Shakespeare: New Evolutions in Performance and Adaptation, is a remarkably cathartic read. Editors Gemma Kate Allred, Benjamin Broadribb and Erin Sullivan have curated a collection of essays, reflections and testimonies to record how Shakespearians spent the first fourteen months of the pandemic imagining, creating and reaching out to each other on a global scale. While acknowledging the toll that COVID-19 took on the world, the book refutes the Royal Shakespeare Company’s assertion that the pandemic shut down all forms of theatre.

Type: Chapter
Information: Shakespeare Survey 76
Digital and Virtual Shakespeare
, pp. 239 - 250

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009392761.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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References

Works Reviewed

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