ABSTRACT
Four hundred years after William Shakespeare’s death, his works continue to not only fill playhouses around the world, but also be adapted in various forms for consumption in popular culture, including in film, television, comics and graphic novels, and digital media. Drawing on theories of play and adaptation, Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations demonstrates how the practices of Shakespearean adaptations are frequently products of playful, and sometimes irreverent, engagements that allow new ‘Shakespeares’ to emerge, revealing Shakespeare’s ongoing impact in popular culture. Significantly, this collection explores the role of play in the construction of meaning in Shakespearean adaptations—adaptations of both the works of Shakespeare, and of Shakespeare the man—and contributes to the growing scholarly interest in playfulness both past and present. The chapters in Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations engage with the diverse ways that play is used in Shakespearean adaptations on stage, screen, and page, examining how these adaptations draw out existing humour in Shakespeare’s works, the ways that play is used as a pedagogical aid to help explain complex language, themes, and emotions found in Shakespeare’s works, and more generally how play and playfulness can make Shakespeare ‘relatable,’ ‘relevant,’ and entertaining for successive generations of audiences and readers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 1|16 pages
“Did Shakespeare Really Write This Racy Stuff?”
part Section I|93 pages
Page to Stage/Stage to Page
chapter 2|18 pages
“This Great Stage of Fools”
chapter 5|18 pages
Playing with Genre and Form
chapter 6|17 pages
When Fictions Collide
part Section II|45 pages
Practising Shakespeare On Stage and Screen
part Section III|44 pages
Adapting the Man
part Section IV|47 pages
Adapting the Plays