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Research in the Service of Theatre: the Example of Shakespeare Studies

Masterpieces of theatre are tantalizingly inaccessible, except in print. Before we can see or hear the great plays of past ages, a theatre company has to learn how to produce them in a very different world from that in which they were written. Directors, designers, and actors who are available today are very different from the people first responsible for staging the plays. The buildings and equipment of newly-built theatres make their own distinct and irresistible contributions to any production. Before old texts can be staged problems of meaning, characterization, convention, and stagecraft have to be tackled. How can classics become fully and engagingly alive under such changed conditions? Any responsible theatre should consider establishing its own laboratory in which to conduct the necessary research.