Production, reproduction, performance: marxism, history, theatre

Abstract

A metatheatrical approach to the dramatic and theatrical dimensions of the ‘story’ of the Henriad presupposes a standpoint outside the normal limits of what has been called ‘stage-centred’ reading. It calls for a project that is doggedly textual in orientation, and is thus antitheatrical: it will generate readings that do not readily lend themselves to performance and that will necessarily draw fire from stage-centred critics. But that, in a perverse way, is my point: that the antitheatricality of the readings I shall give reflects an antitheatricality in the Shakespeare text. (Harry Berger, Jr).