Lady Macbeth in America / Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History (PDF)

GAY SMITH is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theater at Wesleyan University, USA.

"A highly readable performance history of Lady Macbeth...[full of]a rich and compelling set of historical anecdotes that are rewarding in their own right." - Women's Studies "Leaves the reader satisfied after reading. The object of research is fascinating and not only comprehensible; it rather makes the readers ask themselves why a study into the field (at least on this scale) has not been undertaken before . . .Smith s analyses are ample proof of her excellent, detailed, and fascinating research in the field. The book is a worthy contribution to the discussion of whether Shakespearean studies and up-to-date Cultural Studies can link and shows that Shakespearean allusions are as strong in English-language (and other) cultural contexts as ever." - www.theaterforschung.de

"Tracing the path of an iconic Shakespearean character through American theatrical and political history, Smith discovers Lady Macbeth s ghostly double in the terrifying politicianess. Ruthless and predatory, such a fiend-like Queen supposedly schemes behind the scenes to promote her husband's political ambitions, no matter how evil. When that career involves being President of the United States, as it does in a number of vivid case studies in this readable and quotable book, from Abigail and John Adams to Hillary and Bill Clinton, opposition propaganda and Shakespearean drama join forces to haunt the popular imagination with the ultimate specter of illegitimate government - the sexually manipulative yet paradoxically unsexed First Lady. Smith combines meticulous production history and cultural interpretation to remind us that the politicization of Shakespeare is not for an age but for all time." - Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater and English, Yale University

"Smith has not only shaken every vestige of dust off our idea of Lady M, but by honoring her most rigorous mediums, goes on to make a compulsively readable case for her political immediacy in American discourse." -