Benjamin Griffin. Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama 1385-1600. Woodbridge and Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2001. xiii + 193 pp. index, append, bibl. $75. ISBN: 0-85991-615-4.

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 548-550
Author(s):  
Sid Sondergard
Keyword(s):  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past

Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama, 1385–1600. By Benjamin Griffin. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2001; pp. xiii + 193. $70 cloth.

2004 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-309
Author(s):  
Paulette Marty
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
History Play

Benjamin Griffin takes an innovative approach to studying the history-play genre in early modern England. Rather than comparing history plays to their chronicle sources or interrogating their political implications, Griffin studies their relationships with other early modern English dramas, contextualizing them for “those who wish . . . to understand the history play by way of the history of plays” (xiii). He seeks to identify the genre's distinct characteristics by selecting a relatively broad spectrum of plays and examining their dramatic structure, their historical content, and their audiences' relationship to the subject matter.

Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama, 1385-1600

2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1094
Author(s):  
Regina M. Buccola ◽  
Benjamin Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past

A Male-Centric Modification of History; Efunsetan Aniwura Revisited

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 303-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foluke Ogunleye
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
Audience Adaptation ◽  
History Play ◽  
Yoruba Language

Historical drama can be described as a form of drama which purports to reflect or represent historical proceedings. Since time immemorial writers have combined fiction and history in creative works. Lawrence Langner has ascribed the popularity of historical drama to the desire of the theatergoer to spend an evening in the company of kings, queens, and other historical personages; the opportunity to become familiar with far greater events than those which take place in the lives of ordinary people; and that historical plays recreate great deeds done by great personages in the past. Historical facts are then creatively adapted and made available in play form to the audience. Adaptation has been defined as “the rewriting of a work from its original form to fit it for another medium … The term implies an attempt to retain the characters, actions, and as much as possible of the language and tone of the original…” The history play is also defined as “any drama whose time setting is in some period earlier than that in which it was written. We can also go further to describe the history play as one “that reconstructs a personage, a series of events, a movement, or the spirit of a past age and pays the debt of serious scholarship to the facts of the age being recreated.Judging from the foregoing, Akinwunmi Isola's play, Efunsetan Aniwura falls into the category of historical drama, treating as it does the story of the eponymous heroine who was the second Iyalode (queen of women) of Ibadan and who died on 30 June 1874. Prominent themes in Yoruba historical plays include war, conflict, and class struggle. Olu Obafemi has declared that the dramatization of the history, myth, and legends of the Yoruba community forms the bulk of the themes of Yoruba drama. These factors are vividly portrayed in Akinwunmi Isola's plays. Akinwunmi Isola is one of the most prolific playwrights who use their mother tongue to write plays in Nigeria. He is a Professor of Yoruba language and he uses the Yoruba language in writing his plays despite the fact that he is proficient in English and French languages.

scholarly journals Truth and entertainment : historical film as a representation of the past in the works of selected filmmakers

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alistair Heath
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Film ◽  
Film Genres

The aim of this study is to interrogate the validity of Historical film as a representation of the past and a source of historical knowledge, in the work of Richard Attenborough, Claude Lanzmann, Angus Gibson and Jo Mennel and my film practice, using Robert Rosenstone’s theories, the 6 Codes of Representation (Rosenstone, 1995a) and the 4 Modes of Invention (Rosenstone, 1995a) as a theoretical framework. The main research question is: How can Historical film preserve the historical integrity of a subject whilst entertaining the viewer? Three different film genres were analyzed using this theoretical framework. Films included the Historical Drama Gandhi (1982), the Historical Documentary Mandela (1996) and the Experimental Historical film Shoah (1985). This research interrogates the degrees to which history presented on film can be altered, without becoming an invalid representation of the past. Research outcomes have concluded that the Historical film will inevitably dramatize a subject in order to appeal to a larger audience. However, in making a Historical film, a filmmaker’s decision to stray from historical facts must be supported by a sufficient justification of any significant fabrication, and an explanation of how it benefits the historical subject. This study informed my practical component, consisting of a treatment and storyboard for what I term a hypothetical Historical Experimental film, exploring the Aversion Therapy. These therapies were practiced on SADF conscripts in order to ‘’ cure’ them of ‘illnesses’ such as homosexuality (Kaplan, 2001). It is my hope that this study and proposed film will encourage people to investigate and discuss the Aversion Therapies, creating an awareness of a subject that has had little exposure post 1994.

Spread Of Artistic Spirit Of Chinese Historical Drama Songs

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 3652-3663
Author(s):  
Yijun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Critical Value ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Connotation ◽  
Artistic Conception ◽  
Music Aesthetics ◽  
Historical Dramas

As an important symbol of an excellent TV series, Chinese historical dramas’ songs have become the spiritual symbols left to the broad audience. They have the theme and spiritual value of spreading the story, connecting the link between the past and the following, showing the infinite empathy and yearning of women, symbolizing the identity and symbolic the identity and symbolic meaning of the characters, borrowing historical allusions and drama adaptation, preserving the artistic spirit of and beautiful style. These songs play an essential role in spreading the story plot, characters, cultural connotation, and regional customs of the historical drama and play a critical value-added role in enhancing the historical drama’s artistic charm and spiritual value. This is also the music aesthetics that presents the blending of form and spirit and the sublimation of artistic conception in historical dramas’ songs.

Staging Sancho

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Paterson Joseph
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Audience Reaction ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Question And Answer ◽  
Black Man ◽  
Costume Drama

In this chapter Paterson Joseph describes the genesis and evolution of Sancho—An Act of Remembrance, a play he wrote and performed about the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho. Sancho fulfilled the author’s desire to perform in a costume drama and bring awareness to black contributions to Britain. Developed as a monologue, the play conveys the extraordinariness of Sancho who was a musician, writer, actor, valet to the duke of Montagu, grocer, and was the first Afro-Briton to vote in a parliamentary election. Joseph recounts some of the challenges of bringing the play to the stage as well as the contributions of musicians, producers, choreographers, costumers, and lighting and set designers. He describes the audience reaction to the play revealed in post-show question and answer sessions which helped him see modern parallels with the political disenfranchisement of blacks in the US. Joseph positions Sancho as not only bringing awareness to the life of one remarkable black man, but helping break the monotone view of British historical drama and expanding our understanding of black lives of the past.

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