Elizabethan Fat
CAN’T imagine a better introduction to Elizabethan drama than the current BBC series from 1YC on Elizabethan Theatre. The combination of scholarship and first-class acting talent makes each programme, no matter how familiar the play, exciting and alive. The general sessions, such as The Golden Round, about Shakespeare’s concept of
kingship, are more effective in their dramatised illustrations than a whole series of lectures on each topic. The resounding force of Robert Harris’s Faustus, Sir Lewis Casson’s Macbeth and John Laurie’s Hieronimo also gave me a real theatrical thrill, and I couldn’t help wondering whether the Elizabethan plays aren't popular with actors less for their literary or even dramatic value than because they offer such lovely fat parts. Another reflection the _ series stimulated was that Elizabethan drama is really Shakespeare, who carries on his broad back a host of lesser men, without a fraction of his craftsmanship. Nothing I have heard so far in this series disturbs my conviction that, outside of Shakespeare, the theatre of Elizabeth I fostered, in tragedy, some admirable poets, but only one real
aramatist.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550401.2.22.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 818, 1 April 1955, Page 10
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183Elizabethan Fat New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 818, 1 April 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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