The Harlequinade: An Excursion

Harley Granville-BarkerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 85K words
Chapters: 9

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Harlequinade: An Excursion by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harley Granville-BarkerAuthor: Granville-Barker, Harley, 1877-1946,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 1, 2005

Editor's review

The Harlequinade: An Excursion, co-written by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harley Granville-Barker, is a short play built around the Harlequin figure of the Italian commedia dell'arte tradition. Granville-Barker was a major director, playwright and critic in the history of British theatre, and this work reflects his interest in stage form and performance traditions. It is short, written in English, and carries a light, playful theatricality, making it a good introductory text for understanding how modern British drama reworked commedia motifs. The Gutenberg electronic edition is easy to search and cite, and suits theatre scholars, readers of English literature and amateur companies looking for material. Read it within the tradition of harlequinade, paying attention to stock character types, masked performance and play-within-a-play structures, rather than expecting the psychological depth of realistic drama.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars and students of modern British theatre and the commedia dell'arte tradition
Readers in English literature focusing on dramatic texts
Members of amateur theatre companies seeking short, performable scripts
Enthusiasts of stage motifs such as Harlequin and harlequinade

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting the character depth of a long realistic novel
Readers with no interest in commedia background who just want a story
Readers who need a Chinese translation and do not read the English original

Reading tips

Start by learning the basic character types of Italian commedia dell'arte; the script will then read much more smoothly.
Read the text as a stage play, imagining blocking, masks and physical movement as you go.
Note how the conventions of harlequinade are rewritten, and keep brief comparative notes.
If using it for performance, read the whole play first to establish the tone, then mark dialogue and movement scene by scene.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a novel or a play?

This is a dramatic text related to harlequinade, co-written by Calthrop and Granville-Barker and built around the clown figure of the commedia dell'arte tradition. Approach it as a script or stage text, focusing on dialogue, scenes and performance cues rather than expecting the psychological portrayal of a novel.

Can I read it without knowing about Harlequin?

Yes, but it is worth spending a little time on the basic features of harlequinade, such as stock characters, masks, improvisation and chase-and-slapstick routines. With that background, the parody and formal play in the text are much easier to recognize; otherwise the plot may seem slight and the characters flat.

Is it suitable for amateur theatre companies to stage directly?

It is short, with relatively concentrated characters and scenes, so in principle it suits amateur companies. Before staging, however, read the whole play to confirm cast size, props and staging requirements, and note the language and period style; adapt it as needed rather than copying it wholesale and losing the stage rhythm.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Harley Granville-Barker Author · British · 1877–1946

Harley Granville-Barker (1877–1946) was a British playwright, director and drama critic, born in London and died in Paris. A former manager of the Court Theatre, he actively staged works by Ibsen, Shaw and others, and was a central figure in Edwardian theatre reform in Britain. His plays often draw on social reality and family ethics, with tight structure and carefully wrought dialogue, focusing on individuals under the pressure of morality and institutions; his representative works include The Voysey Inheritance and Waste (1907), the latter unfolding as a tragedy in four acts. He also wrote the five-volume Prefaces to Shakespeare and, through his stage practice, deeply influenced twentieth-century theatre. The collection holds three of his works, including Three Plays by Granville-Barker, Waste: A Tragedy, In Four Acts and The Harlequinade: An Excursion.