Cimke: Theatre studies

Ladies of Lascaris : Christina Ratcliffe and The Forgotten Heroes of Malta’s War

The world premiere of the musical stage play „Star of Strait Street” took place in Valletta on 4 April 2017. It celebrates the life of Christina Ratcliffe, an English singer, and dancer who became an aircraft plotter in Malta in the Second World War. She worked in the underground Royal Air Force operational headquarters beneath Lascaris Bastion in Valletta. This is Christina’s story and that of other British and Maltese girls employed by the RAF. It is also the story of Philip Glassborow’s hit musical „Star of Strait Street”.

Dancing Queen : Marie De Médicis’ Ballets at the Court of Henri IV

Under glittering lights in the Louvre palace, the French court ballets danced by Queen Marie de Médicis prior to Henri IV’s assassination in 1610 attracted thousands of spectators ranging from pickpockets to ambassadors from across Europe. Drawing on newly discovered primary sources as well as theories and methodologies derived from literary studies, political history, musicology, dance studies, and women’s and gender studies, Dancing Queen traces how Marie’s ballets authorized her incipient political authority through innovative verbal and visual imagery, avant-garde musical developments, and ceremonial arrangements of objects and bodies in space.

Death in Modern Theatre : Stages of Mortality

Death in modern theatre offers a unique account of modern Western theatre, focusing on the ways in which dramatists and theatre-makers have explored historically informed ideas about death and dying in their work. It investigates the opportunities theatre affords to reflect on the end of life in a compelling and socially meaningful fashion.

Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs

Ingmar Bergman is worldwide known as a film and stage director. Yet no-one has attempted to compare his stage and screen activities. In Between stage and screen Egil Törnqvist examines formal and thematical correspondences and differences between a number of Bergman’s stage, screen, and radio productions. In the prologue Bergman’s spiritual and aesthetic heritage and his position in the twentieth century media landscape is outlined. In the epilogue the question is answered to what extent one can speak of Bergman’s directorial ‘method’ irrespective of the chosen medium.