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A truly exciting study. One of the most enjoyable books I have read in some time … Hawkins’s book is set to become indispensable … Throughout, the writing and scholarship are thoroughly engaging.
A truly exciting study. One of the most enjoyable books I have read in some time … Hawkins’s book is set to become indispensable … Throughout, the writing and scholarship are thoroughly engaging.
A book to be relished and read in full. It is richly researched, astute in its claims, and a model for future scholarship on Shakespearean performance.
Closely researched … Hawkins’s book reveals how costume negotiates a place for the past in the theatrical present.
Ella Hawkins has produced a detailed and insightful study of the ways in which directors, designers and audiences negotiate expectations and beliefs about Shakespeare, England and the past and the present through the use and interpretation of ‘period’ costume. Drawing on key 21st century productions of Shakespeare, the book is a new and brilliant resource for understanding the ways in which costume constructs and signifies meaning on stage and offers a model for thinking about how we can look at ‘period’ costume with new eyes.
Shakespeare in Elizabethan Costume reveals the problems and opportunities offered by ‘authentic’ dress in modern productions, contrasting contemporary stage ‘Jacobethan’ costume with actual clothing from the time of Shakespeare. Backed by fresh research into early modern dress, and interviews with current costume-makers and directors, it is indispensable for anyone interested in costume – in the time of Shakespeare and now – contemporary performance, cultural history and the study of material culture.
Ella Hawkins is a researcher at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on costume design for Shakespeare. She has advised the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Shakespeare Company on representations of Shakespeare’s life and works, and has created content for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.