Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One

Chapter One Performing Pastoral: A New Form of Poetic Representation

Chapter Two Light them at the Fiery Glow-Worm’s Eyes: Max Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Part Two

Chapter Three Shakespeare-InspiredNature-Theaters: MinackandtheWillowGlobe

Chapter Four Wandering in Woods: The Natural Place for the Play

Part Three

Chapter Five Green Atmospheres: Nature Playing (Along, Sometimes)

Chapter Six Shakespeare for a Changing Climate


Afterword
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

A groundbreaking ecological study of Shakespeare in outdoor performance.

About the Author

Evelyn O'Malley is Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter, UK.

Reviews

For O'Malley, coming to terms with our connection to the world around us - to the atmosphere, the landscape and the creatures with which we share it - is crucial to combating the climate crisis.
*Times Literary Supplement*

Among the major merits of the work, together with its topicality, is the unprecedented choice of leaving room for the voice of the public through reports and direct testimonies, often absent from academic literature.
*Mimesis Journal (trans. by Bloomsbury Academic)*

Drawing on the latest developments in ecocritical theory and extensive fieldwork at outdoor theatres throughout the UK, O’Malley offers a savvy and hard-headed appraisal of open-air Shakespeare as a forum for ecological advocacy. This book advances numerous concepts and arguments that will have a decisive impact on the study of open-air performance in the Anthropocene. For anyone who plans to perform in or attend an outdoor production, Weathering Shakespeare is essential reading.
*Todd Borlik, University of Hudderfsfield, UK*

There are important familiar points to be made about the value of this book: its original focus on contemporary outdoor Shakespeare is a significant contribution to our understanding of theatre today. More important though, is its careful, slow, local and holistic attention to performance. By examining the creative worlding or collective weathering that goes on between players, audience, text and location, O’Malley’s study is exemplary of what theatre scholarship should do in the age of ecological crisis.
*Jennifer Mae Hamilton, University of New England, Australia*