2,73 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: WS
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
This comic romp through the lives of literary masters William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes charts their influence on the modern world. It contrasts the fortunes of two contemporaries whose native countries – England and Spain – went from alliance to enmity in a short space of time.
2016 marked the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two of the world’s most famous authors, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes.
Pioneering writer and director, Asa Palomera (“a powerhouse on Melbourne’s independent theatre scene”): “I’ve tried to bring forth the sheer humanity of theirs, to present them as it were in their under wears, to show that the emotions we feel from their work are as human as the emotions they, in turn, experienced when they were alive.”
Productions of The Curious Lives of Shakespeare & Cervantes: Adam House Theatre (Edinburgh, 2010), Bloomsbury Theatre (London, 2010), Thai premiere (Bangkok Theatre Festival, 2014). Staged reading at Tara Theatre (London, November 2016).
“this well-charted account of key events in each of their lives moves at a relentless pace … dynamic narration…the audience never loses touch.”
--Scotsman
“The private lives of creative geniuses have long fascinated literary groupies in search of clues about where inspiration comes from… Asa Gim Palomera’s restless piece of imagined history [treats] the two writers as equals with an awful lot in common, despite the age gap that nevertheless saw both men shuffle off this mortal coil within 11 days of each other.” --Herald
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 60
Ähnliche
Asa Palomera
Asa Palomera is a Korean/American playwright and director. Trained at New York’s TISCH School of the Arts, she started her theatre career both on and off Broadway under the producer Joseph Papp. As an artiste-in-residence at the Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, she pioneered the Pagoda Dance Company. She also established the Modern Theatre Company in Thailand, before expanding the company to Costa Rica and New York.
After moving to Melbourne, she started both the Spiral Theatre Company and the Women of Asia Company that produced Monologues and The Prodigal Daughter which won the ‘City of Melbourne Award for Original Play’ and was invited to open at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The Curious Lives of Shakespeare & Cervantes was produced in a short run at Edinburgh’s Adam House Theatre and then at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London in 2010 before returning to Asia. It was staged in association with the Embassy of Spain, the British Council (Singapore) and the National Library Board of Singapore.
First published in the UK in 2016 by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd
67 Grove Avenue, Twickenham, TW1 4HX
The Curious Lives of Shakespeare and Cervantescopyright © 2016 Asa Palomera
Production: Simon Smith
With many thanks to Yvett Saliba and Matthew Rhys-Daniel.
All rights are strictly reserved.
For rights enquiries including performing rights, contact the publisher: [email protected]
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
In accordance with Section 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Asa Palomera asserts her moral rights to be identified as the author of the above work.
This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.
Ebook conversion by Swift ProSys.
ISBNs:
978-1-911501-13-8 (print)
978-1-911501-14-5 (ebook)
Introduction
In 2005 on the fourth centenary of the publishing of Don Quixote, I overheard a conversation that showed the lack of knowledge about Cervantes and his works in the English-speaking world. A lady was talking about the superiority of literature written in English to any other, particularly Spanish, saying that learning the language was ‘not worth it to read the literature’. Surprised at this wholesale dismissal, I tried to find out about her knowledge of Spanish literature, using Cervantes as the touchstone. She blithely confessed never having heard of him and enquired about what he had written. When Don Quixote was mentioned she asked “What else?”
Then and there I decided to compare the lives of the two geniuses that died on the same date, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, to give in a short lecture an idea about their lives and works and their influence on world literature. When I finished writing it I showed it to Asa who immediately proposed to dramatize it, selected period music and set to work using the information I had collected as a guideline.
The work was premièred at the Beckett theatre at the Malthouse complex in Melbourne to a capacity audience, on the first night of the Age Writer’s Festival in 2005. Yet on coming out of the show I again overheard somebody asking “Would you really put this chap Cervantes in the same league as Shakespeare?”
The show must go on.
Federico Palomera
Past Productions
First Performed: Malthouse Beckett Theatre, Melbourne, Australia at the Age Melbourne Writer’s Festival in 2005.
Transfered to: Chapel off Chapel 2005.
Cast: Sarah Couche, David Dawkins, Erin Dewar, Daniella Luchetti, Shireen Morris and Trevor Vaughn.
Restaged: Edinburgh Theatre Company, for the National Gallery of Scotland in November 2009 to coincide with the gallery’s major summer exhibition, The Discovery of Spain.
Transferred to: Adam House, Edinburgh 21–23 January 2010.
Transferred to: Bloomsbury Theatre London 14–15 June 2010.
Cast: Louise Brady, Paul Comrie, David Dawkins, Scott J Gordon, Erika Rowan and Hanna Stanbridge.
Restaged: Singapore, GenerAsia Theatre Co. for World Book Day, in partnership with Singapore National Library, the British Council and the Embassy of Spain. National Library, 24 April 2013.
Cast: Nadia Abdul Rahman, Manuel Cabrera II (guitar), Riccardo Cartelli, Aaron Kahled, Ateeqah Mazlan, Filomar Tariao and Caitanya Tan.
Transferred to: Bangkok Theatre Festival, 15–16 November 2014.
Cast: Nadia Abdul Rahman, Manuel Cabrera II (guitar), Aaron Kahled, Charis Vera Ng, Prem John, Andrea Carmela Singco and Filomar Tariao.
THE CURIOUS LIVES OF SHAKESPEARE & CERVANTES
by Asa Palomera
This version of the play was read by actors at Tara Arts Centre, London on 22 November 2016, directed by Sarah Chew.
Main Characters
William Shakespeare
Miguel de Cervantes
Lope de Vega
Anne Hathaway
Catalina de Palacio
Queen Elizabeth/Actress 3
and many minor characters
3 Male / 3 Female
All actors double roles.
Entrance music: Fantasia para un Gentile Hombre by Joaquin Rodrigo
Six actors enter in 17th century costumes using dance steps of that period. They carry their own stools and sit in two rows of three.
Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and an ancient shield on a shelf, and keeps a skinny nag and has a greyhound for racing. An occasional stew, beef more often than lamb, hash most nights, eggs and abstinence on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, sometimes a squab as a treat on Sundays, these consumed three fourths of his income.
On the 23rd of April 1616 William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, two of the greatest writers the world has known, passed away.
A… men…
Yet, in a twist not unworthy of the Comedy of Errors, although the date coincided, the day in reality did not, an irony that both authors would have keenly appreciated. England was under the Julian calendar while Spain had already switched to the Gregorian calendar, which was eleven days ahead.
The lives of Cervantes and Shakespeare have many similarities, though they sometimes seem to be an inverted reflection of one another.
Shakespeare grew rich: Cervantes remained poor. Both men lived in a season of glory and power for their countries, but Shakespeare’s Protestant England was waxing when Cervantes’ Catholic Spain was waning. Cervantes collected taxes to have the Spanish Armada attack England. Shakespeare had occasion to celebrate its defeat. Shakespeare was celebrated by his contemporaries, like Ben Johnson.
I confess thy writings to be as such as neither man nor muse can praise too much.
Cervantes was derided by his peers, like Lope De Vega.
There is no poet as bad as this Cervantes, not one so foolish as to praise his ‘Don Quixote’.
