Author Description

Product Description Since the widely acclaimed premiere of Rosencrantz andGuildenstern Are Dead in 1967, Tom Stoppard has continued to provide an intellectual depth to his works that is uncommon in Broadway or West End theatrical productions. As a capable playwright, Stoppard effectively manages the full range of the elements of theatre to work as integral points in his rhetorical statements. This study presumes that one cannot understand a dramatic composition in isolation from a context of playgoer activity and analyzes the meanings that arise in Stoppard's plays from sets, furnishings, properties, lighting, music, sound effects, vocal delivery, mise en scène, actions, movements, gestures, costumes, and dramatic structure. Review «... a unified work, one that approaches Stoppard's dramaturgy with a critical strategy now very much at the forefront of serious and important study of the drama, namely a belief in the centrality of stagecraft and non-verbal components for any full understanding of a play that is much more than a text, just as a symphony is more than a score. Hu has done his job excellently, intelligently, thoroughly, articulately, and engagingly. He emerges with a lively, illuminating, insightful criticism that pays proper attention to a major element of Stoppard's art that several books of recent vintage do not treat at all --- a distinct contribution...» (Peter Bauland, The University of Michigan) «...stimulating and accessible...Those who teach...will find Hu's book to be clear, useful, and illuminating. Directors and performers, too, will benefit from the discussion of the stagecraft. The style is lucid and jargon-free. A particular strength of the manuscript lies in Hu's treatment of a central irony... traces perceptively the linguistic confusions, ruptures, and lapses that bedevil Stoppard's characters, and this analysis is new, true, interesting, and significant.» (Shoshana Knapp, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universit