Staging the Ghost Story: Shadows in the Limelight

This monograph takes as its focus the relationship between the theatre and the ghost story, that is, tales of the supernatural as narrative itself takes centre stage. The ghost story on stage has not been subject to any past historical study, which is remarkable when the genre itself raises pertinent questions about the relationship between representation and liveness, the limits of the natural in the theatre (and stage naturalism), the challenges of embodiment, theatrical effect and structure, and the power of storytelling. Moreover, it asks us to consider the importance of the theatrical medium itself in the dissemination of the ghost story.