Shakespeare and Garrick
Much has been written about the acting style of David Garrick, the eighteenth century's greatest actor-manager, but this book, unusually, claims a place for him within Shakespeare studies as a literary as well as a theatrical figure. It analyses several of Garrick's alterations of Shakespeare's plays in which he took the lead, and traces his close involvement with the major Shakespeare editors of the period, including his friend Samuel Johnson. Admirers claimed that Garrick's performances illuminated the playtexts better than the commentaries of scholarly editors. His reputation as Shakespeare's living representative and best interpreter was so high that he was involved in most Shakespeare-related projects of his day, not least the Jubilee at Stratford. While Garrick lived, the imminent divorce of 'stage' and 'page' could not take place. Cunningham shows how vital a resource Garrick's collection of early plays in English has been to generations of Shakespeare scholars
Print Book, English, 2008
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2008
Criticism, interpretation, etc
vii, 231 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780521889773, 0521889774
174449672
Prologue : Garrick's alterations of Shakespeare : a note on texts
Garrick and Shakespeare : before the divorce of stage and page
The contexts of Garrick's alterations of Shakespeare
'To give the actor more eclat' : Garrick's earliest alterations of Shakespeare
'Re-bottling Shakespeare' : Garrick in mid-career (1753-1768)
(Entr'acte) : celebrating Shakespeare on page and stage in 1769
'Parental and filial capacities' : King Lear and Hamlet
Garrick's legacy to Shakespeare studies