Shakespeare in Performance

AM's Shakespeare in Performance provides a useful resource for exploring how Shakespeare's works have been interpreted from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The database uses prompt books - scripts of the plays marked up for performance - to memorialize how Shakespeare's works have been interpreted over time, cultures, and actors. While Shakespeare's work is undoubtedly enduring, the ways his works are performed are not.

The aforementioned prompt books that the database relies on are from the world renowned Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The Folger library contains prompt books in many shapes, sizes, and in varying degrees of depth. These prompt books - some of which are the only record of a stage performance - are well-worn, marked up, and increasingly fragile. The digitization of these prompt books provides a gift to future generations; instead of losing these prompt books to natural wear and tear and decay, the books will endure as a record of an important history.

The database contains over 1,000 prompt books of Shakespeare's plays, including books owned by actors such as the eminent Laurence Oliver. The prompt books pertain to 34 Shakespeare plays, but are not heavily weighted toward one play. Of the total number of prompt books, 10 percent are geared toward Hamlet.

The database also contains a useful feature that allows users to stack prompt books side-by-side for comparison purposes. This is an especially interesting social experiment. It is a well-accepted fact that some of Shakespeare's views were ahead of his time. It is interesting to follow what was acceptable in the seventeenth century and contrast it with what became acceptable in the twentieth century. This comparison also allows the researcher to determine what aspects of Shakespeare's work are enduring and to develop theses as to why this is the case.

The collection was developed by Henry and Emily Folger, noted Shakespearean actors. Mr. and Mrs. Folger's keen eye and attention to detail is a coup for the student researcher. In addition to collecting myriad prompt books, the Folgers also collected a tremendous number of ancillary materials related to performances including playbills, newspaper clippings, theatrical account books, photographs, sketches, costumes, props, cue sheets, lighting plans, and correspondence by and between Shakespearean actors.

Overall, the Shakespeare in Performance database is a useful resource for both Shakespeare historians and current actors alike. It is a welcomed addition to a voluminous library of work on Shakespeare that is organized in a concise, clear, manner. This is recommended for academic libraries.

Few broad-range works like this exist, even in printed collections, and none offer global access to these often-fragile materials. Charles Shattuck's The Shakespeare Promptbooks: A Descriptive Catalogue (1965) gives the nomenclature for nearly 2,200 promptbooks with description and physical location. William Halstead compiled 5,000 acting editions and promptbooks in Shakespeare as Spoken (12 volumes, 1977-79) and a two-volume supplement (1983), but these provide text changes only. G. Blakemore Evan edited the eight-volume Shakespearean Prompt-Books of the Seventeenth Century (1996), and Jill Levenson created an online database of 170 promptbooks of Romeo and Juliet productions, freely searchable on the Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (CH, Feb'17, 54-2549) platform. But nothing currently matches the scope of the Shakespeare in Performance digital promptbook collection.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty; professionals/practitioners.

Read full review: http://choicereviews.org/review/10.5860/CHOICE.201279