With his customary wit and quite often with remarkable prescience, Bernard Shaw maintained a dialogue on cinema that ran almost from the infancy of the industry in 1908 until his death in 1950. Bernard F. Dukore presents the first collection of Bernard Shaw s writings and oral statements about cinema. Of the more than one hundred comments Dukore has selected, fifty-ninemore than halfare new to today s readers. Twelve are previously unpublished, one is published in full for the first time, and forty-six appear in a collected edition of Shaw s writings for the first time since their publication in newspapers and magazines. Very early in the life of cinema, Shaw perceived that as an invention, movies would be more momentous than the printing press because they appealed to the illiterate as well as the literate, to the manual laborer at the end of an exhausting day as well as to the person with more leisure. He predicted that cinema would form people s minds and shape their conduct. He recognized that cinema s "colossal proportions make mediocrity compulsory" by leveling art and life down to the blandest morality and to the lowest common denominator of potential audiences throughout the world. By 1908, Shaw was familiar with experiments synchronizing movies and sound. When talkies arrived, he discerned that they would precipitate major changes in acting, writing, and economics. He also saw how they would affect live theatre: "The theatre may survive as a place where people are taught to act," he said in 1930, "but apart from that there will be nothing but talkies soon." At that time, few people in the theatrical profession were making such prophecies, at least not in public.
In 1892 the first production of Bernard Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, heralded the birth of modern drama in the English language. One hundred years later a group of Shavians gathered to examine the significance and influence of Shaw's drama in the English-speaking world. The conference, sponsored by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, brought together theater scholars, critics, and artists from Canada, England, Ireland, and the United States. The conference also featured productions of The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet, The Man of Destiny, and Farfetched Tales, each followed by a symposium. The centennial conference not only marked the importance of the event but also stimulated new ways of regarding that historic moment, reexaminations of the significance of Shaw's plays, and explorations of their consequences. Some speakers reevaluated the genesis of the first production of Widowers' Houses and its social, cultural, and theatrical context. Some brought to bear on the subject of Shavian drama recent critical perspectives, such as feminism, deconstructionism, and the type of close textual and intertextual scrutiny seldom accorded Shaw. Others explored his impact in England, America, Ireland, and the Antipodes. Still others examined the relationship of comedy and ideas, subtext, and how this Victorian dramatist remains pertinent today. The conference concluded with a symposium that aimed to assess what might lie ahead for Shaw on page and stage in the next hundred years. This volume records the proceedings of the conference as well as reviews and the continuing checklist of Shaviana. Contributors are Peter Barnes, Charles A. Berst, Montgomery Davis, Bernard F. Dukore, Martin Esslin, Joanne E. Gates, Nicholas Grene, Christopher Innes, Katherine E. Kelly, Frederick P. W. McDowell, Rhoda Nathan, Christopher Newton, Michael O'Hara, Jean Reynolds, Irving Wardle, Stanley Weintraub, and J. L. Wisenthal.
When an interviewer asked Bernard Shaw whether, "speaking personally", he would prefer to see the English and Americans "become drama and variety fans as of old, rather than movie fans", Shaw replied, "Speaking personally, I should prefer to see them become Shaw fans". With his customary wit and quite often with remarkable prescience, Shaw began a dialogue on cinema that ran almost from the infancy of the industry in 1908 until his death in 1950. Bernard F. Dukore presents the first collection of Bernard Shaw's writings and oral statements about cinema. Of the more than one hundred comments Dukore has selected, fifty-nine -- more than half -- are new to today's readers. Twelve are previously unpublished, one is published in full for the first time, and forty-six appear in a collected edition of Shaw's writings for the first time since their publication in newspapers and magazines. Very early in the life of cinema, Shaw perceived that as an invention, movies would be more momentous than the printing press because they appealed to the illiterate as well as the literate, to the manual laborer at the end of an exhausting day as well as to the person with more leisure. He predicted that cinema would form people's minds and shape their conduct. He recognized that cinema's "colossal proportions make mediocrity compulsory" by leveling art and life down to the blandest morality and to the lowest common denominator of potential audiences throughout the world. By 1908, Shaw was familiar with experiments synchronizing movies and sound. When talkies arrived, he discerned that they would precipitate major changes in acting, writing, and economics. He also saw how they would affect live theatre:"The theatre may survive as a place where people are taught to act", he said in 1930, "but apart from that there will be nothing but 'talkies' soon". At that time, few people in the theatrical profession were making such prophecies, at least not in public.
This work provides a wealth of information on obscure and overlooked American playwrights as well as some famous ones; it will be a welcome addition for collections specializing in the theater arts. Reference Books Bulletin This directory and index, the first such volume devoted exclusively to contemporary black American dramatists, will have an important place in theatre collections. It captures and preserves an elusive part of artistic endeavor, giving access to literally thousands of dramatic works that would otherwise be lost to scholars and the public. Organized as an encyclopedia, it provides information on more than 600 noteworthy Black American playwrights whose plays have been written, produced, or published between 1950 and the present. The volume begins with an introductory essay surveying the history of contemporary black American drama. Playwrights, screenwriters, radio and television scriptwriters, and musical theatre collaborators are treated in individual entries that comprise the bulk of the book. The volume also supplies a bibliography of anthologies, books, and periodicals cited; mailing addresses for more than 200 of the playwrights; and title and subject indexes.
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