{"id":487,"date":"2019-11-27T18:17:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T18:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/?p=487"},"modified":"2022-02-05T13:23:31","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T13:23:31","slug":"queer-shakespeare-desire-and-sexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/queer-shakespeare-desire-and-sexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Edited by Goran Stanivukovic<\/strong>
424 pp. The Arden Shakespeare (Bloomsbury)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviewed by Sky Gilbert<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his excellent study, Homoerotic Space,<\/em>\nStephen-Guy Bray suggests that consumers of texts\u2014even of the famous classical\ntexts central to Renaissance notions of culture, history and identity\u2014interpret\ntexts as they move through them, according to their own \u201cinterest and desires.\u201d\nIf a famous classical text is a public space open to all in the Renaissance who\ncould read Latin, a reading that highlighted its h\u03bfmo-eroticism, a reading that might inform a new poem,\nwould turn that place into a space (7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of requiring a text to have queer content in\norder to give oneself permission to read it that way, Bray suggests that any\ntext can be \u201cqueer,\u201d if we, as queers, can read ourselves into it. In Homoerotic\nSpace<\/em>, Bray analyzes the\nways that pastoral poetry particularly lends itself to queer interpretation, by\nproviding us with settings, hints, conditions and semantic prompts steering us\nin that direction.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality, <\/em>edited by Goran Stanivukovic for the Arden Shakespeare series, may have\nbeen inspired by Bray\u2019s work, as the introduction praises the \u201cqueer resourcefulness\nof Shakespeare\u2019s text\u201d (2). As well, this collection features Bray\u2019s fine essay\n\u201cLocating Queerness in Cymbeline<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final paragraph of Bray\u2019s essay neatly sums up the\npoint: \u201cI would characterize the narrative as hetero-normativity and the method\nof conveying it as queer\u201d (136). Bray is not the first to suggest that\nmarriage\u2014though nearly always the ending<\/em> of Shakespeare\u2019s comedies\u2014is\nfar from the ideological conclusion<\/em>. But Bray goes one step further,\nsuggesting that Cymbeline <\/em>\u201cqueers\nwhat our sense of dramatic representation means\u201d (131). And, here, he applies\nan essential Shakespearean trope in a new queer way. Shakespeare\u2019s rhetoric\nreturns ceaselessly to the paradox of outside vs. inside, what appears<\/em>\nvs. what is<\/em> (\u201cSeems\u2019 madam. Nay, it is\u201d [I.2.79]). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This unrelenting unreliability of appearances is our\nessential dilemma as queers, as, for instance, gay men have male bodies but\ndon\u2019t act the way males \u201cshould.\u201d Thus, Bray utilizes a definition of queerness\nthat is both somatic and somewhat universal for queer people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirk Quinsland\u2019s essay in this recent volume, \u201cSport of Asses: A Midsummer Nights Dream<\/em>,\u201d is also grounded in both Shakespearean scholarship and a definition of queer that involves sex and sexuality. He takes an early modern historical fact, the oft-noted homophobia of anti-theatricalists (that is, Gosson and Prynne), to frame A Midsummer Nights Dream <\/em>as a defence of queer unbridled sensuality. He says the mechanicals\u2019 amateur production, featuring a gaggle of working class, semi-adult bachelors in a filthy travesty is a \u201cmeta-theatrically anti-homophobic strategy for exposing anti-theatrical homophobia\u201d (70). But, even more importantly, Quinsland warns that defining queer as \u201cbeyond sexuality\u201d risks a monumental irrelevance: \u201cif queer simply refers to confusion and cannot be defined, why use the term at all? One might merely adopt \u2018non-normative\u2019 or \u2018confusing\u2019 as theoretical terms\u201d (71). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This irrelevance is clearly applicable to recent queer\nscholarship. Mel Y. Chen, a theorist at the forefront of trans theory,\nco-authored an essay entitled \u201cHas the Queer Ever Been Human?\u201d with Dana\nLuciano in 2015, in which they expand the definition of queer to include\ninanimate objects. I think Shakespeare would have had an affinity for Chen\u2019s\nattitude to the universe (if not her claim for its queerness). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often categorized as a humanist, Shakespeare is\nnonetheless prone to denigrating mankind by emphasizing its material origins\n(\u201cthis quintessence of dust\u201d [2.2.332]). And Chen\u2019s notion that God exists in\neverything\u2014sentient or not\u2014is pagan and pan-theistic, and I have long contended\nthat Shakespeare\u2019s work is populated more with superstition, magic, fairy\nsprites, ghosts and witches than with good old-fashioned, Christian redemption.\nBut, as a definition of queer, Chen\u2019s theory is so expansive as to be meaningless:\n\u201cQueer ecology and many other queer engagements with the non-human also emerge\nin the contemporary context as a response to precarity, as the effects of the\nclimate crisis extend that condition to encompass all humanity and numerous\nother species as well. All <\/em>Life, we might say, is precarious life\u201d\n(193).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the essays in this volume fall victim to such\ndangerously expansive notions of queer. Vin Nardizzi\u2019s \u201cAfterword\u201d equates\nPuck\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ll put a girdle round about the earth\u201d (II.1.178) with globalization.\nHis argument would be stronger if he referenced the dominant tropes in Shakespeare\u2019s\nwork instead: for, in both The Merchant of Venice<\/em> and The Sonnets<\/em>,Shakespeare persistently\nmakes commerce appear superficial by juxtaposing it against images of\nprofoundly paradoxical neo-platonic love and beauty. Whether this makes\nShakespeare queer\u2014in the expansive sense of \nenvironmentalism\u2014is another thing altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Nardizzi, John S. Garrison in \u201cGlass: The Sonnets\u2019<\/em> Desiring Object\u201d obliquely\nreferences Chen, quoting Tristan Garcia: \u201chumans turn to the world of objects\nto reinforce ontological claims of superiority.\u201d In his valorization of glass as\nqueer object, Garrison mentions glass\u2019s \u201crefusal to be singularly categorized\u201d\n(52). He seems to conclude that glass is queer because it offers us so many\npossible ways to see ourselves. Also like Nardizzi, Garrison ignores previous\nscholarship on predominant tropes in Shakespeare\u2014for instance, C.H. Hobday\u2019s\narticle \u201cWhy the Sweets Melted\u201d (Oxford Journals, 1965). Hobday\u2019s detailed and\nexhaustive analysis asserts convincingly that Shakespeare\u2019s mirrors are often\nassociated with flattery\u2014and of course as a corollary\u2014with\nrepresentation, and \u201cseeming vs. being.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa E. Sanchez\u2019 essay \u201cAntisocial Procreation in Measure for Measure<\/em>” directly\nquotes Chen: \u201cmany of queer theory\u2019s foundational texts . . . work to unsettle\nthe default forms of the humanness they unfold\u201d (276). Like Kathryn Schwarz\u2019s\n\u201cHeld in Common: Romeo and Juliet<\/em> and\nthe Promiscuous Seductions of Plague,\u201d Sanchez defines queer sexual activity as\nnot reproductive and\/or related to death. This expansive definition of queer proves very little. Most profound\nwriters, I would suggest, are interested in death and non-reproductive sex\n(where would theatre be without these two?)\u2014yet not all great writers are queer. (Schwarz, by the way, gets my award\nfor the most incomprehensible sentence in this often obfuscatory collection: \u201cCan an infinitely multiple interpenetration transect boundaries with\nenough force to challenge instrumental dispositions?\u201d [260])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christine Varnado also\ndirectly references Chen in \u201cQueer Nature, or the\nWeather in Macbeth<\/em>,\u201d again expanding the usage of the word queer \u201cbeyond its usual\nreferents of persons, genital sex acts and social identities\u201d (178). Varnado\u2019s\ntheory splits hairs. She contends that Macbeth\u2019s suggestion that \u201c\u2018Nature\u2019s germen . . . tumble altogether\u2019 . . . can easily be read as an image of destruction or anti-generativity . . . in which the natural order of germination is thwarted or undone. However\n, in the new reading of the play which I am advancing, \u2018Nature\u2019s germen\u2019 . . . [is] the seminal image . . . where such irreducible eruptions are also part of an \u2018absolutely\nrule-bound economy\u2019 of queer generation\u201d (194).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, Varnado interprets the weather in Macbeth<\/em>\u2014not in the usual way, as a natural rebellion in response\nto Macbeth\u2019s evil\u2014but, instead, as an aspect of our queer world. I\u2019m not sure how important this\ndifferentiation is. After all, since Varnado ignores \u201cpersons, genital sex\nacts and social identities,\u201d she also ignores the witches\u2019 beards, Macbeth\u2019s reluctance to act violently until goaded by his wife and Lady\nMacbeth\u2019s urge to trade her breastmilk for \u201cgall,\u201d thus ignoring early modern insecurities\naround masculinity\u2014another significant Shakespearean\ntrope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early modern men had insecurities that were similar\u2014but not identical\u2014to ours. The fear of\nbeing gay was replaced by a fear of being undone by heterosexual passion. Alan\nSinfield speaks of \u201ca fall into impotence of\npowerlessness, a loss of manly strength, and even of identity\u201d (159). And\nGreenblatt speaks of \u201cA pleasure that serves its own end, that claims to be\nself-justifying rather than instrumental, purposeful and generative, is\nimmoderate and must be destroyed\u201d (177).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Varnado, both Stanivukovic in his own essay,\u201c\u2018Two\nlips, indifferent red\u2019: queer styles in Twelfth\nNight<\/em>,\u201d and Simone Chess in \u201cMale Femininity\nand Male to Female Cross-dressing in\nShakespeare\u2019s Plays and Poems\u201d rip\nShakespeare\u2019s work out of the context of early modern sexuality. Stanivukovic\nclaims Twelfth Night<\/em> is about \u201cthe\narbitrariness of any attempt to attach desire to a gendered body, by promoting\nit as a force that brings different kind of staged bodies together and outside the heterosexual matrix\u201d (169). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would suggest Orsino\u2019s attraction to Cesario does\nnot exist \u201coutside the heterosexual matrix\u201d but rather very much\nin response to the fear of Orisino\u2019s effeminacy, triggered by his uncontrolled\npassion for Olivia. Simone Chess quotes trans-writer Julia Serano who says \u201cI\nrecoil from the idea of femme gender expression as \u2018ironic and campy,\u2019 as a form of drag . . . because it plays into the popular assumption that femininity is artificial\u201d (230). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for Serano, Shakespeare necessarily criticizes feminine \u201cartificiality\u201d\u2014consistent with his obsession with the dangerous superficiality of\nbeauty. Chess asks \u201cWhere are the feminized men and MTF crossdressers in\nShakespeare?\u201d (228), ignoring the fact that most of Shakespeare\u2019s tragic heroes are\neffectively crossdressers anyway: Hamlet cannot take revenge like a man, Lear\nis destroyed by his three daughters and Othello (like Macbeth and Antony) is manipulated and destroyed by his love for a \u201cmere\u201d woman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The danger of beauty\u2014a recurring theme in Shakespeare\u2019s work\u2014is fundamentally related to another one of Shakespeare\u2019s obsessions: neo-platonism\u2014and the notion that beauty sometimes deceives us. John\nVyvyan says: \u201cthe soul is born to do a definite work\u2014to reshape the world into the likeness of heaven; that\nit already possesses the heavenly pattern in its\nown self-nature . . . concealed by the\nphysical form; and that it will only be re-discovered by the insight of true love\u201d (45). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David L. Orvis\u2019s essay \u201cWhich Is the Worthiest Love in Two Gentleman of Verona<\/em>?\u201d says\n\u201crather than elevate the discourse from erotic love to godly love, from eros<\/em> to agape<\/em>, Proteus\u2019 revelations reinforce\nthe impossibility of telling one from the other\u201d (47). This analysis certainly\nexemplifies the neo-platonist view\u2014 but how is this particularly queer? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ian Frederick Moulton\u2019s \u201cAs you Like It or What You Will<\/em>: Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets<\/em> and Beccadeli\u2019s Hermaphroditus<\/em>\u201d centres on a futile comparison between Beccadilli\u2019s dirty epigrams and Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets<\/em>. The epigrams are clearly pornographic\u2014unlike Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets\u2014<\/em>which, though sometimes sexual, are, in contrast, not pornographic at all, but obsessed with neo-platonic questions about the true nature of love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eliza Greenstadt\u2019s \u201cStrange Insertions in The Merchant of Venice<\/em>\u201d alludes extensively\nto the biblical allegory of the ewes and the wands, where Shylock speaks\nobscurely of Jacob\u2019s story in which \u201cThe skillful shepherd peeled me certain wands.\/ And in the doing of the deed of kind\/ He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,\/ Who then\nconceiving did in weaning time\/ Fall parti-colored lambs\u201d (1.3. 81-85). This inscrutable reference makes sense in terms of\nneo-platonism, which Greenstadt neglects to mention. For, waving the speckled\nwands in front of the mono-coloured ewes results in the ewes giving birth to\nspeckled lambs, and the outside is thus identical to the inside; a neo-platonist romantic\nideal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these essays\ncontain such extensive research that one hesitates to argue, while, at the same time, one feels obligated to ask\u2014why bother?\nValerie Billings in \u201cThe Queer Language of Size in Loves Labours Lost<\/em>\u201d manages to convince\nus that the play is filled with images of diminution related to sexuality, but\nfails to reference one of the dominant themes of the play; that masculinity is\ndiminished when men are subsumed by their overpowering desire for women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Holly Dugan in \u201cDesiring H: Much Ado About\nNothing<\/em> and the Sound of Women\u2019s Desire\u201d provides an exhaustive list of the many possible meanings of the\naspirate consonant \u201cH,\u201d by concluding\n\u201dits pronouncement might contain a queer exhalation that\u2019s hard to explain but equally hard to dismiss\u201d (152). Yes, Shakespeare\u2019s language is polysemous,\noverwhelmingly so. And your point is . . . ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really did not want to\ndislike this collection.\nBelieve me, I welcome interpretations that might expand our knowledge and discussion of the\nqueering of Shakespeare\u2019s work. Instead,\nthis collection offers the demoralizing spectacle of misguided queer critics\nmangling Shakespeare\u2019s poetry in order to fit it into the often brutal,\nsadistically obscure and even nonsensical vice that\nis contemporary queer theory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Harold Bloom once stentoriously stated, \u201cShakespeare does not fit very well into Foucault\u2019s archives\u201d (7). Ill-thought\nout, lazily researched and depressingly dogmatic collections like this might\nforce even the most sympathetically queer reader to agree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/strong><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare and the I<\/em>nvention of the Human<\/em>. Riverhead Books,\n1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bray, Stephen-Guy. Homoerotic Space<\/em>. U of Toronto P, 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greenblatt, Richard. Renaissance Self-Fashioning<\/em>. U of Chicago P, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luciano, Dana, and Mel Y. Chen. \u201cHas the Queer\nEver Been Human?\u201d GLQ<\/em>: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay\nStudie<\/em>s, <\/em>vol.21, no. 2-3, 2015, pp. 183-207.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night\u2019s\nDream.<\/em> RSC Shakespeare, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare, WIlliam. Hamlet<\/em>. Folger, 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice<\/em>. Signet Classic,\n1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinfield, Alan. Shakespeare, Authority, S<\/em>exuality<\/em>. Routledge, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vyvyan, John. Shakespeare and Platonic Beauty<\/em>. Chatto and Windus, 1961. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\"\"
 \n\n\n\n

*<\/a>Sky Gilbert <\/strong>was co-founder and, for 18 years, artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre\u2014North America\u2019s largest gay and lesbian theatre. A prolific playwright, he has also published eight novels and three collections of poetry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a dissertation on \u201cNoel Coward and The Queer Feminine.\u201d A fellow at the University of Toronto\u2019s Sexual Diversity Studies Program, he is a professor at the University of Guelph where he teaches both practical and academic theatre courses, including Sexuality and the Stage, Gender and Shakespeare, Theatrical Cross Dressing and Male Femininity in Playwriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2019 Sky Gilbert
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":413,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/the-fictional-lives-of-shakespeare\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":0},"title":"The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"November 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"By Kevin Gilvary245 pp. Routledge Reviewed by Luke Prodromou* Shakespearean biography, as a sub-genre of biographical writing, is unique and idiosyncratic: at the heart of the enterprise of writing the life of England\u2019s greatest writer is a paradox; while more biographies of Shakespeare have been written than of any other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/11\/Prodromou-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":202,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/on-dramaturgy-of-care-and-encounter-in-the-theatres-of-multilingualism-interview-with-ayham-majid-agha\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":1},"title":"On Dramaturgy of Care and Encounter in the Theatres of Multilingualism: Interview with Ayham Majid Agha","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"October 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Yana Meerzon* Abstract This dialogue between a Syrian theatre director, Ayham Majid Agha, who is currently residing in Berlin, and a theatre scholar, Yana Meerzon, focuses on the challenges and advantages of working in the multilingual performance context of a cosmopolitan metropolis such as Berlin. The artist discusses the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Essays"","block_context":{"text":"Essays","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/essays\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/Ayham-Majid-Agha-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/Ayham-Majid-Agha-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/Ayham-Majid-Agha-featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/Ayham-Majid-Agha-featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":495,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/the-theatrical-career-of-samuel-morgan-smith\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":2},"title":"The Theatrical Career of Samuel Morgan Smith","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"December 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"By Bernth Lindfors339 pp. Africa World Press Reviewed by Robin Breon* On August 7, 1867, one of the world\u2019s greatest Shakespeareans breathed his last. While on a tour to Poland, Ira Aldridge became ill after a rehearsal of Othello with a local company in Lodz. As was his custom when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/Robin-Breon.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":534,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/theatre-at-the-crossroads-trends-and-challenges-of-georgian-theatre-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":3},"title":"Theatre at the Crossroads: Trends and Challenges of Georgian Theatre Today","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"December 3, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Natalia Tvaltchrelidze* Abstract The paper overviews recent tendencies in the theatre life in Georgia. In particular, it presents the latest statistical data and audience research on theatre; it discusses theatre festival life in Georgia and the latest trends in the productions of young directors in the country.Keywords: Georgia, theatre, festivals,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National Reports"","block_context":{"text":"National Reports","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/national-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image5-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image5-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image5-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image5-3.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/dance-and-age\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":4},"title":"Dance and Age","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"October 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Margareta S\u00f6renson* Abstract Dancers \u201cdie\u201d young. This is what most people think, and if the reference is classical ballet, it might be the case. Yet, the examples of Ohno, Manning, Ek, Fonteyn, Bausch show quite the opposite:\u00a0that there is still life for a dancer who is no longer young. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/10\/featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":827,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/modern-scottish-theatre-emerging-from-the-shadow-of-the-reformation\/","url_meta":{"origin":487,"position":5},"title":"Modern Scottish Theatre: Emerging from the Shadow of the Reformation","author":"Sky Gilbert","date":"December 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark Brown* Abstract Scottish theatre has, arguably, enjoyed its richest period over the last half-century. This paper will seek to explain Scotland\u2019s relative lack of a historical theatre tradition and to explore the key elements in what the author proposes has been a \u201cEuropean modernist renaissance\u201d on the national stage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National Reports"","block_context":{"text":"National Reports","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/category\/national-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image8-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image8-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image8-4.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/12\/image8-4.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2019\/11\/CS-20-Bk-Cvr-Sky.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1174,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/1174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}