Introduction: Shakespeare’s Original Stage Conditions, Their Afterlives, and Universality

The Introduction establishes the intellectual framework for the book. First, I outline the value of studying original stage conditions as a way of understanding more fully how material conditions shaped the writing, performance, and reception of Shakespeare’s plays. I pursue these questions, not in the spirit of archeological recovery but in the spirit of a consciously naive form of defamiliarization: highlighting what remains unfamiliar as possible windows of interpretation and speculation. From here I introduce the second element of my book: studying how original stage conditions resurface in reconfigured, inventive, and exciting ways in productions of Shakespeare across the globe. I emphasize, however, that studying original conditions is not driven by an attempt to recover the “authentic” Shakespeare and thus to use “fidelity” as a criterion of evaluation; rather, I use the afterlives of original conditions to explore how productions negotiate their connection with the past and revitalize Shakespeare by reimagining his works. In the process, I put forward a new way of thinking of Shakespearean universality as something that evolves as new productions reimagine his plays.