SHAKESPEARE IN PERFORMANCE: ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

First edition. Hardcover. Publisher's original yellow boards, with titles in black to the upper boards and spine. With 25 black and white illustrations throughout. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, with a small crease to the tail of the spine. The contents are clean throughout, and without inscriptions or stamps.

'Rutter's book writes a performance history of the play [Antony and Cleopatra] from 1606 to the present. She analyses each adaptation's view on power, race, masculinity, regime change, exoticism, love, dotage and delinquency in alignment with a new present. Rutter identifies the play's characteristic writing and performance strategies to argue that just as 'oxymoron' is its definitive linguistic habit, so 'wrong-footing' is the action it replays in scene after scene. [...] Written with a sharp theatrical intelligence in a lively and accessible style, this book will interest students, academics, actors, directors and general readers alike' (publisher's blurb).