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The White Devil
''The White Devil'' (full original title: ''The White Divel; or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano. With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan'') is a tragedy by English playwright John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1634). According to Webster's own preface to the 1612 Quarto Edition"To the Reader" the play's first performance in that year was a notorious failure; he complained that the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication, and satire made it a poor fit with the repertory of Queen Anne's Men at the Red Bull Theatre, where it was first performed. It was successfully revived in 1630 by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre and published again in 1631. Background The story is loosely based on an event in Italy thirty years prior to the play's composition: the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni in Padua on 22 December 1585. Webster's dramatisation of this event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Webster
John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies '' The White Devil'' and ''The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and career overlapped with Shakespeare's. Biography Webster's life is obscure and the dates of his birth and death are not known. His father, a carriage maker also named John Webster, married a blacksmith's daughter named Elizabeth Coates on 4 November 1577 and it is likely that Webster was born not long after, in or near London. The family lived in St Sepulchre's parish. His father John and uncle Edward were Freemen of the Merchant Taylors' Company and Webster attended Merchant Taylors' School in Suffolk Lane, London. On 1 August 1598, "John Webster, lately of the New Inn" was admitted to the Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court; in view of the legal interests evident in his dramatic work, this may be the playwright. Webster married 17-year-o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragedy, tragic and comedy, comic forms. Most often seen in drama, dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. Tragicomedy, as its name implies, invokes the intended response of both the tragedy and the comedy in the audience, the former being a genre based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis and the latter being a genre intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter. In theatre Classical precedent There is no concise formal definition of tragicomedy from the classical antiquity, classical age. It appears that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had something like the Renaissance meaning of the term (that is, a serious action with a happy ending) in mind when, in ''Poetics (Aristotle), Poetics'', he discusses tragedy with a dual ending. In this respect, a number of An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claire Bloom
Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles in plays such as ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Doll's House'', and '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and has starred in nearly sixty films. After a childhood spent in England (and in the US for two-and-a-half years during the Second World War), Bloom studied drama in London. She debuted on the London stage when she was sixteen and took roles in various Shakespeare plays. They included ''Hamlet,'' in which she played Ophelia alongside Richard Burton. For her Juliet in ''Romeo and Juliet'', critic Kenneth Tynan stated it was "the best Juliet I've ever seen". After she starred as Blanche DuBois in ''A Streetcar Named Desire'', its playwright, Tennessee Williams, stated, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom". In 1952, Bloom was cast by Hollywood film star Charlie Chaplin to co-star alongside him in ''Limelight''. During her film career, she has starred alongsi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Macnee
Daniel Patrick Macnee (6 February 1922 – 25 June 2015) was a British film and television actor. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he began his acting career in Canada. Despite having some small film roles, Macnee spent much of his early career in playing small roles in American and Canadian television shows. In 1961, he landed the role of secret agent John Steed in the British television series '' The Avengers''. The show was a success running for eight seasons from 1961 to 1969 and was revived in 1976 as ''The New Avengers''. The show was a major breakthrough for Macnee and led to his roles in many films including '' This Is Spinal Tap'' and ''A View to a Kill'' as well as continuing to appear in both British and US television shows up until 2001. Early life and career The elder of two sons, Macnee was born in Paddington, London, England, on 6 February 1922; [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Griffith
Hugh Emrys Griffith (30 May 1912 – 14 May 1980) was a Welsh film, stage, and television actor. He is best remembered for his role in the film '' Ben-Hur'' (1959), which earned him critical acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Some of his other notable credits include ''Exodus'' (1960), ''Mutiny on the Bounty'' (1962), '' Tom Jones'' (1963), and ''Oliver!'' (1968). Early life Griffith was born in Marian-glas, Anglesey, Wales, the youngest son of Mary and William Griffith. He was educated at Llangefni County School and attempted to gain entrance to university, but failed the English examination. He was then urged to make a career in banking, becoming a bank clerk and transferring to London to be closer to acting opportunities. Just as he was making progress and gained admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he had to suspend his plans in order to join the British Army, serving for six years with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in India and the Burma Camp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Benthall
Michael Pickersgill Benthall CBE (8 February 1919 – 6 September 1974) was an English theatre director. Michael Benthall was the son of the British businessman and public servant Sir Edward Charles Benthall and of the Hon. Lady Benthall, ''née'' Ruth McCarthy Cable, daughter of Ernest Cable, 1st Baron Cable. As an undergraduate at Oxford University, Benthall met Robert Helpmann, who had been fulfilling an invitation to dance there. The two men formed a romantic relationship that was to last for 36 years. The couple lived and worked together quite openly, until Benthall's death at age 55 in 1974. His first connection with the Old Vic was during the 1944 season when the company, owing to enemy action, had been forced to relocate to the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) where Benthall directed a production of ''Hamlet'' jointly with Tyrone Guthrie. Benthall provided the scenario for two ballets by Arthur Bliss: ''Miracle in the Gorbals'' (1944), and ''Adam Zero'' (1946) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duchess Theatre
The Duchess Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, London, located in Catherine Street near Aldwych. The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 and is one of the smallest West End theatres with a proscenium arch. It has 494 seats on two levels. It is a Grade II Listed Building. The Duchess Theatre was purchased in 2005 by Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer forming part of the Nimax Theatres group. History The Duchess Theatre was designed by Ewen Barr and constructed by F. G. Minter Ltd for Arthur Gibbons. The theatre is built with the stalls below street level, both to overcome the scale of the site and to maintain the rights of neighbours to ancient lights. The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 with a play called ''Tunnel Trench'' by Hubert Griffith. The interior decoration scheme was introduced in 1934 under the supervision of Mary Wyndham Lewis, wife of J. B. Priestley. The original interiors were Art Deco in style, designed by Marc Henri and Gaston Lav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members of the socialist Fabian Society, such as George Bernard Shaw, who was a founding director. Today, the magazine is a print–digital hybrid. According to its present self-description, it has a liberal and progressive political position. Jason Cowley, the magazine's editor, has described the ''New Statesman'' as a publication "of the left, for the left" but also as "a political and literary magazine" with "sceptical" politics. The magazine was founded by members of the Fabian Society as a weekly review of politics and literature. The longest-serving editor was Kingsley Martin (1930–1960), and the current editor is Jason Cowley, who assumed the post in 2008. The magazine has recognised and published new writers and critics, as well as e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the Representation (arts), representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The term first appears in the eponymous work ''Hamburg Dramaturgy'' (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing composed this collection of essays on the principles of drama while working as the world's first dramaturge at the Hamburg National Theatre. Dramaturgy is distinct from play writing and directing, although the three may be practiced by one individual. Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturge, to adapt a work for the stage. Dramaturgy may also be broadly defined as "adapting a story to actable form." Dramaturgy gives a performance work foundation and Dramatic structure, structure. Often the dramaturge's strategy is to manipulate a narrative to reflect the current Zeitgeist through cross-cultural signs, theater- and film-historical references to genre, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in several adapted literary classics. Early life Hardwicke was born in Lye, Worcestershire (now West Midlands) to Edwin Webster Hardwicke and his wife, Jessie (née Masterson). He attended Bridgnorth Grammar School in Shropshire. He intended to train as a doctor but failed to pass the necessary examinations."Hardwicke, Sir Cedric Webster" ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, |
Viola Tree
Viola Tree (17 July 1884 – 15 November 1938) was an English actress, singer, playwright and author. Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty's Theatre. Later she appeared in opera, variety, straight theatre and film. Biography Tree was born in London, the eldest of three daughters of Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his wife, the actress Helen Maud Tree, ''née'' Holt.''The Times'', obituary, 16 November 1938, p. 9. Her aunt was author Constance Beerbohm and an uncle was Max Beerbohm. She was educated privately in London and in Europe. Her sisters were Felicity Tree and Iris Tree. She also had seven illegitimate half-siblings, the products of her father's many infidelities, among them the director Carol Reed and Peter Reed, whose son became the actor Oliver Reed. Stage and film career Originally, Tree planned a career as a singer, but entered the family profession in 1904. She made a very successful Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Maschwitz
Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE (10 June 1901 – 27 October 1969), sometimes credited as Holt Marvell, was an English entertainer, writer, editor, broadcaster and broadcasting executive. Life and work Born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, and descendant of a traditional German family, Maschwitz was educated at Arden House preparatory school, Henley in Arden, Repton School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. As a lyricist, Maschwitz wrote, often credited to his pseudonym "Holt Marvell," the screenplays of several successful films in the 1930s and 1940s, but is perhaps best remembered for his lyrics to 1940s popular songs such as "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" (music by Manning Sherwin) and "These Foolish Things" (music by Jack Strachey, reinterpreted in 1973 by Bryan Ferry on his first solo album of the same name). According to the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Maschwitz had a brief romantic liaison with British cabaret singer Jean Ross, and their r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
