Anatomy of an Actress: Bel-imperia as Tragic Diva
Bel-imperia is a star player in The Spanish Tragedy, using bravura theatricality as she drives the plot forward and seeks revenge for the deaths of two lovers. With this novel role Kyd invokes the virtuosic performances of professional actresses, who first emerged in the commedia dell’arte in Italy in the 1560s. Their scenes of pathos and passion extended the arte’s reach beyond comedy to tragicomedies and tragedies. Playwrights and actors began to create new female-centered plays to showcase the actress’s presence and skills. This trend eventually affected the all-male stage, nowhere more clearly than in The Spanish Tragedy. Kyd refers explicitly to the Italian troupes, which gained international fame and royal patrons performing both improvised plays based on scenarios and fully scripted and memorized five-act plays. He built an innamorata in the Italian mode, translating her to the English stage with spectacular scenes mingling witty eroticism and tragic violence. Kyd stresses her virtuosity and multi-generic range while spinning a web of allusions to far-flung spheres featuring royal women and courtly politics, mixed-gender players and playing, and dramatic innovations in Italy, France, and Spain. The Spanish Tragedy shows that English playwrights used models forged abroad to fashion Italian-style leading “women” just as the commercial stages were striving to expand the repertory, attract paying audiences, and satisfy courtly tastes. Bel-imperia, played by a boy, is Kyd’s bold attempt to answer Hieronymo’s question: “For what’s a play without a woman in it?”
Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater
Contents: Introduction, Robert Henke Part I Traveling Actors: Border crossing in the commedia dell' arte, Robert Henke English troupes in early modern Germany: the women, M.A. Katritzky. Part II Transportable Units: A Midsummer Night's Dream and Italian pastoral, Richard Andrews Dramatic bodies and novellesque spaces in Jacobean tragedy and tragicomedy, Melissa Walter. Part III The Question of the Actress: Moral and Theoretical Transnationalisms: Ophelia sings like a prima donna innamorata: Ophelia's mad scene and the Italian female performer, Eric Nicholson Theorizing women's place: Nicholas Poussin, The Rape of the Sabines, and the early modern stage, Jane Tylus. Part IV Performing Alteriety: Doubled National Identity: The Dutch diaspora in English comedy: 1598 to 1618, Christian M. Billing Foreign emotions, Susanne L. Wofford Translated Turks on the early modern stage, Jacques Lezra. Part V Performing a Nation: Transregional Exchanges: Epicene in Edinburgh (1672): city comedy beyond the London stage, Clare McManus Proto-nationalist performatives and trans-theatrical displacement in Henry V, David Schalkwyk Shakespeare on the Indian stage: resistance, recalcitrance, recuperation, Shormishtha Panja. Epilogue: Reading Shakespeare, reading the masks of the Italian commedia: fixed forms and the breath of life, Mace Perlman Select bibliography Index.
Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution
Chapter 1 Preface to the Paperback Edition Chapter 2 Foreword Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 The Origins of Russian Imperialism Chapter 5 Pan-Slavism or Pan-Russianism Chapter 6 Russia and the Baltic Chapter 7 Russo-Polish Confrontation Chapter 8 The Ukraine and Muscovite Expansion Chapter 9 Russian Domination in the Balkans Chapter 10 Russian Penetration of the Caucasus Chapter 11 Russian Conquest and Colonization of Central Asia Chapter 12 Russian Designs on the Far East Chapter 13 Notes Chapter 14 About the Authors Chapter 15 Index Chapter 16 Maps