The Shakespeare Hut: A Story of Memory, Performance and Identity, 1916-1923

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Description

This book tells the forgotten story of the Shakespeare Hut, a vast, mock-Tudor building for New Zealand Anzac soldiers visiting London on leave from the front lines. Constructed in Bloomsbury in 1916, the Hut was to be the only built memorial to mark Shakespeares Tercentenary in the midst of war. With a purpose-built performance space, its tiny stage hosted the biggest theatrical stars of the age. The Hut is a vivid and unique case study in cultural memory and performance of Shakespeare. One extraordinary building brings together Shakespeares place in First World War theatre, in emerging new post-colonial identities, the story of Shakespearean performance in the twentieth century and in the struggle for womens suffrage. Grant Ferguson transports you to the Hut and its lively, idiosyncratic world. From a feminist-led stage to a hub of Indian intellectual and political debate, from a Shakespeare memorial to an Anzac social club, this is the story of a building truly at a crossroads.

Reviews

A fascinating, multi-faceted narrative of cultural changes negotiated in a unique cultural space, including new national identities arising from the old British Empire, feminism, modernism and the afterlives of Shakespeare. * Copplia Kahn, Professor of English, Emerita, Brown University, USA *

Author Bio

Ailsa Grant Ferguson is Principal Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Brighton, UK.