Our Moonlight Revels

“A deeply satisfying and magisterial account of the great play.”—Comparative Drama

“One of the most sophisticated and satisfying single-volume production histories yet to appear.”—Shakespeare Quarterly

“No other Shakespeare play has proved so susceptible to adaptation, and no other study of Midsummer's performance history can boast a comparable breadth or sophistication.”—Theatre Survey

“This remarkable, elegant work examines paradigmatic moments in the rich performance history of Shakespeare’s play, from its early modern origins in the mid 1590s to postmodern stagings in the 1990s. . . . [Williams’s] writing is so lucid and engaging that his book should appeal to a broad readership—from novice Shakespeareans, to eager readers of history, to pedants.”—Choice

“Our Moonlight Revels will not only remain the standard work on productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for some time to come, it will also serve as a model for scholars engaged in the demanding task of constructing a production history. In tracing major productions 'in their cultural moments,' Williams has essentially written a cultural history of the West through the lens of a single play.”—Bruce A. McConachie, University of Pittsburgh

“This is the best stage history available for any play by Shakespeare. And since Shakespeare has the longest and broadest history of any writer in English, it is also the best stage history available for any English play. Rather than being embarrassed by the ephemerality of theatre, Williams pounces upon it as evidence of what Barthes called the 'network of obsessions' of a particular cultural moment. To do this requires not only the highest standards of specifically theatrical scholarship but the capacity to integrate that information into a larger cultural perspective. It also requires a verbal command and subtlety which can describe or suggest the living richness of a performance.”—Gary Taylor, Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies, University of Alabama

“Williams' much needed book will be recognized as the study of what may be the most astonishing and multivalent work in the entire Shakespeare canon. He has given us a significant new orientation to the playwright's dramatic scripts and to the uses that have been described for them. In the process he has reminded us of the many Shakespeares who've been appropriated, in a kaleidoscopic diversity of ways, by eras subsequent to the 'Age' that Ben Jonson believed his fellow author to have transcended.”—John F. Andrews, president, the Shakespeare Guild

“The method Williams uses is highly sophisticated. His wide reading and detailed research in numerous archives provide a base for a cultural performance history that integrates theatrical recovery with the specifics of time and place. He weaves evidence from promptbooks, pictures, press reviews, and historical documents expertly. There can be little doubt that this work will be an important contribution to Shakespeare studies and to theatre history.”—Dennis Kennedy, Samuel Beckett Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies, Trinity College, Dublin

“The further one reads in this lucidly written history, the more fascinating the subject and its treatment become, and the more one accedes to the cogency of Williams' overview. This is theatre history with the blinkers off—theatre history of the most enlightened kind, intelligent, patient, and thorough in its inventory and evaluation of source material, incisive yet fair (and sometimes memorable) in its critical judgments, and comprehensive in its embrace of pertinent evidence and materials.”—Joseph Donohue, University of Massachusetts, Amherst