WITCH OF EDMONTON: Theatre Review (original) (raw)

Having a “bad tongue”: Oaths and curses in the Witch of Edmonton

In the witch of Edmonton, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford transport the reader to a world where words are not merely used as tools for describing settings, anchoring the play and its characters in a specific time and place, or narrating actions. They also bring the reader into a world of witches and devils, where words are more than the sum of their meanings; they also possess the power to affect the physical world and shape the doom or destiny of those who utter them. The sombre consequences of having a "bad tongue" will be tragically faced by the two main protagonists of this play: Frank Thorney and Elizabeth Sawyer. On one side of the scale of justice, the vows, oaths and numerous lies of a young man will slowly and irremediably lead him to his ruin; on the side of the scale, a poor and socially alienated old woman pledges her soul to the devil in order to have revenge on her tormentors, but her imprecations and curses will only accelerate her own fall. While both protagonists suffer the consequences of their actions and are eventually punished by the society that engendered them, their journey is quite distinct. The goal of this essay is thus to attempt to determine, with the help of speech act theory, which of their decisions precipitated their fall and how their own words triggered it.

Women, Marriage, Property and Law: Contextualizing The Witch of Edmonton

Early Theatre

Changes in marital property and marriage negotiations, the economy, and personal relations in early modern England form the backdrop for key elements of The Witch of Edmonton. This essay draws on recent scholarship surrounding these changes to provide historical context for analyzing the play. It argues that the commercialization of economic relations and the emergence of trusts facilitated a shift away from customary arrangements (such as dower) towards more contractual ones (such as jointures). Meanwhile, increased reliance on credit and legal instruments, such as bonds, produced record levels of litigation, contributing to legalistic thinking and cynicism about legal agreements.

Theatre and/as Witchcraft: A Reading of The Late Lancashire Witches (1634)

Early Theatre, 2014

's The Late Lancashire Witches (1634) is a journalistic play so clearly inspired by judicial records of the contemporary trial that it has been characterized as a commission from the privy council, destined to further the case of the prosecution-but opinions diverge as to the authors' obedience to or challenge of political authority. This close reading reexamines the ambiguous subversiveness of the play, highlights the pervasive destabilization of patriarchal authority, and shows how by equating witchcraft with theatre the play may expose the fictitious bases of the trial. On the other hand, the reciprocal notion that theatre is witchcraft epitomizes the playwrights' exploitation and promotion of the public theatre's resources.

Witchcraft and ‘Bitchcraft’: A Portrayal of the Witch Character in

Perceiving Evil, 2015

that revolves around a group of witches who dwell in a private school owned and run by Cordelia. This teacher is the prototype of the good witch. She is also the daughter of Fiona Goode, the so-called 'supreme' among the witches' community, meaning she is the most talented and powerful witch alive. This character, played on screen by Jessica Lange, is the most vivid embodiment of the evil mother that haunts traditional fairy tales: she is egocentric and her ultimate goal is to keep her physical appearance intact. Undoubtedly the universe within the series appears markedly feminine and overtly addresses gender issues which range from the traditional relation that femininity has with patriarchy to the way female characters are depicted in fairy tales. Within this framework, the purpose of this chapter is to examine how gender issues are dealt with in the series, namely the relation between peers, the bond between mothers and daughters, and the ways femininity develops taking into account the obstacles brought by the counter-power of patriarchy. In this context, it will be challenging to explore how the witch characters are grounded on female stereotypes and clichés, and how they express female anxieties and fears that have roots in the past and continue to afflict them in the present. This analysis also aims at exploring how the traditional fairy tale conventions are manipulated, parodied and subsequently integrated into the filmic narrative. In an original fashion, we can say that American Horror Story: Coven engenders an eerie atmosphere, offering the spectator a universe where the horrors of the past meet the terrors of the present in a harmonious and dark account.

Writing, Performing, Gendering the Wicked Witch of the West

2009

While the fairy take The Wizard of Oz depicts women in positions of power, I argue that the dichotomy between the good witch(es) and the Wicked Witch, in both L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel and MGM’s 1939 film, validates one kind of femininity and stigmatizes as masculine, monstrous, and “other” the woman who strays from her gender role. Second-wave feminism as well as postmodernism have re-evaluated the figure of the witch as “other,” leading to the two contemporary texts, Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, Wicked, The Life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and the 2003 Broadway musical, Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch is no longer portrayed as a villain. However, while Maguire’s novel fundamentally questions identity categories, the Broadway musical merely uses the Wicked Witch character to validate a new kind of femininity, that of the post-feminist model of “girl-power.” In this paper, I explore how the Wicked Witch is or is not portrayed as “other” in these four texts, and ho...

Theatre Studies in Quebec at the Crossroads

Theatre Research in Canada Recherches Theâtrales Au Canada, 2014

that eminent historian of Canadian theatre, the late Patrick B. O'Neill, but she too brings sophisticated Performance Studies and Indigenous Studies frames and methods into play in ways that infinitely enrich both her work and our understanding. And Jenn Stephenson's book is firmly grounded in the analysis of dramatic literature, but is also deeply informed by literary, theatrical, and cultural theory, and draws productively on her applied understanding of plays in performance. The fact that the association was able to honour three excellent books in 2013 is in itself a Good Thing (in the early years that might have exceeded the total number of books published). The fact that each of these books integrates the subjects and methods of our earliest and most recent histories as a field in such sophisticated ways is even better.