Blood on the Stage, 1600-1800: Murder Mystery Plays & Mayhem | Historical Drama Collection | Perfect for Theater Lovers & Literature Students
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SKU:91959723
Product Description
Audiences throughout the centuries have always been drawn to theatrical productions that feature criminal activity. Playwrights from Sophocles to Anthony Shaffer have been more than willing to satisfy those cravings with productions that feature an assortment of dastardly deeds. Never was this more apparent than in the 17th and 18th centuries, where crime lurked from stage left to stage right and every bloody spot in between.In Blood on the Stage, 1600 to 1800: Milestone Plays of Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem, Amnon Kabatchnik profiles near fifty works of theft, treachery, court intrigue, incest, and murder produced over these two centuries. Among the plays discussed in this book are The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, Horace Walpole’s The Mysterious Mother, Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, and George Lillo's The London Merchant, which was based on an actual case of murder. This volume also includes American plays such as The Prince of Parthia by Thomas Godfrey and William Dunlop’s The Fatal Deception. William Shakespeare is also represented with the classics Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. Entries are presented chronologically, and each includes a plot synopsis, production data, opinions by critics and scholars, and biographical sketches of playwrights and key actors. Blood on the Stage, 1600 to 1800 will appeal to theater scholars, researchers, and any who immerse themselves in the genre of suspense, both in print and on stage.
Customer Reviews
I am in awe. Amnon Kabatchnik has done it again. His two recent books -- BLOOD ON THE STAGE, 1600 to 1800 and BLOOD ON THE STAGE, 1800 to 1900 -- are the sixth and seventh in his award-winning series, a monumental task of analyzing plays of crime-and-punishment produced throughout history -- from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome to the Middle Ages and Elizabethan England to modern times. I gleaned in each of the new books the plot and production elements of 50 thrillers depicting chicanery, theft, treachery, court intrigue, incest, kidnapping, and murder. I was overwhelmed by the meticulous research, the amount of detailed information, and the entertaining story telling as I became acquainted with the first drama based on a real-life homicide, the first blood-and-thunder melodrama, the first American musical, the first theatrical vampire, the first Frankenstein monster, the first sensational Gothic, pioneering psychological thrillers, and the debut of stage detectives. And I was amazed by the inclusion of international authors better known for their contribution to other fields: Goethe, Byron, Dumas, Hugo, Dickens, Zola, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Wilde, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The last entry is Arthur Conan Doyle's and William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes," a befitting ending to an extraordinary reading and learning experience. I give each of the two books 5 stars.
