An Alternative History of Shakespearean Acting: Contexts, Practices and Cultural Authority

What are the qualities of a ‘Shakespearean actor’? Who has access to this identity? And can ‘Shakespearean’ ever be a meaningful descriptor for acting identities without reinforcing conservative cultural assumptions?An Alternative History of Shakespearean Acting provides a variety of perspectives from theatre history, disability studies, performance studies, critical race studies and global Shakespeares, among others, to address these core questions.The book confronts the overwhelmingly white, male, able-bodied and English-speaking emphases of many histories of Shakespearean acting, and asks how actors who do not fit into these identity categories might be recognised as ‘Shakespearean’.It offers a provocative alternative to biographical approaches to Shakespearean acting, arguing that such approaches have tended to obscure the systemic association of Shakespearean performance with cultural imperialism.Addressing the idea of the Shakespearean actor in the context of its long-lasting ent