Shakespeare: The Director's Cut

By Michael Bogdanov
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World renowned Shakespearian Director Michael Bogdanov's provocative and witty essays on Shakespeare's plays. Volume I covers Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale.

"For 30 years Michael Bogdanov has been the most consistently interesting and provocative of British directors of Shakespeare. Now he has written a series of incisive essays on the plays--not comments on his many productions, but introductions to the works that show the result of his long acquaintance with them. The essays, based in social thought and theatrical savvy, make Shakespeare accessible and immediate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers."
Dennis Kennedy, Beckett Professor of Drama, Trinity College Dublin, author of Looking at Shakespeare, Foreign Shakespeare, and editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance

"Michael Bogdanov is the Tyrone Guthrie of our day, and his signature is all over the work of many younger directors. He is at once scholar, provocateur, puritan and Lord of Misrule."
Michael Pennington

"This collection of cutting-edge essays is a valuable addition to Shakespeare studies, and to theatre studies more generally. Michael Bogdanov's cuts are always incisive, razor-sharp, and applied with an unerring hand. Never dogmatic or programmatic, Bogdanov approaches each play attentive to its novelty and its nuances, alive to its urgency and impact, attuned to its language and its lore. As a director acutely aware of critical conventions - enough to want to overturn them - Bogdanov is uniquely positioned to combine theoretical acuity with a practitioner's knowledge of what works on the page and in performance, while never losing sight of what is most politically resonant and socially engaged. The meat is moist closest to the bone, and these are choice cuts from a master butcher."
Willy Maley, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of Glasgow

Shakespeare: The Director's Cut volume 2 - The Histories

By Michael Bogdanov
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Michael Bogdanov, the internationally renowned Shakespearian Director turns his attention to Shakespeare's histories, drawing comparisons with current political intrigues, infighting and lust for power. An introduction by the author and essays on Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 and Richard III, revealing why Shakespeare's take on politics and power is still relevant today.

"In Act Two of The Director's Cut, Michael Bogdanov puts the Bardathon behind him and cuts to the chase by placing Shakespeare's history plays at the heart of the here-and-now, both as theatrical productions and as political interventions, profoundly pertinent to our present predicament. This is the four hundred year hurdle, and Bogdanov is going for gold. The sequel surpasses the original. The second cut is the deepest. Claiming Shakespeare as "our contemporary" can be a means of domesticating drama, denying history, and cultivating the amnesia of empire, by conveniently closing down the distance between the first Elizabethan reign and the second. No such complacency or complicity characterises Bogdanov's hardy enterprise. His purpose in regarding Henry and looking for Richard is to shake us out of our torpor. If September the 11th was a wake-up call for Tony Blair then he must have slept through Shakespeare. The stage direction for this book should read: Alarum. Enter Bogdanov."
Willy Maley, Professor of Renaissance Studies, Glasgow University

Title	Price	ISBN	Availability
Shakespeare: The Director's Cut Vol 2	HB: £8.99	0-9545206-8-8 9780954520687	October 2005
Shakespeare: The Director's Cut Vol 2	PB: £6.99	0-9549625-9-1 9780954962593	October 2005