Tag: play

Back to School Reading List: Drama Edition

Around this time every year, I put together a mini syllabus of Gothic works commonly read in schools. If you missed them in the past, be sure to go back and check out my original Back to School Reading List and my Back to School Reading List: Short Story Edition. This time, I wanted to tackle some theater! Check out the five plays below that bring the Gothic to the stage:

1) Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth coverThough Shakespeare was writing a good few centuries before the Gothic literary movement of the late 1700s, several of his works can be considered proto-Gothics—particularly Macbeth. I’ve discussed this in more detail during my post on The Gothic in Shakespeare, but Macbeth displays many motifs that would later become core tropes of the Gothic novel. For example, one of its main settings is a medieval castle; it features ghosts that have returned to address past wrongs; there are witches with ominous prophecies; and Lady Macbeth prefigures later female villains, both of the femme fatale variety and the Madwoman in the Attic. Many later Gothic writers were strongly influenced by Macbeth, including the author of the very first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole. Continue reading Back to School Reading List: Drama Edition

Dracula, Performed

Dracula was always meant to be adapted to the stage. At the time that he wrote his most famous novel, Bram Stoker was working as the business manager for the Lyceum Theatre in London, owned by his friend, the renowned actor Henry Irving. Irving’s performances were often dark and dramatic, and he was best known for playing charismatic villains. It’s even been suggested that he partially inspired the appearance and personality of the Count in Stoker’s novel. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when Stoker finished his masterpiece, he envisioned Irving playing the titular character in a stage adaptation. He even drafted a script and ran through a staged reading of Dracula, or The Undead at the Lyceum, afterwards eagerly asking Irving what he thought. Irving’s answer, however, shut down any hopes Stoker had for his stage production: he summed up his opinion in one word: “Dreadful.”

Continue reading Dracula, Performed