Actor in Costume

AOIFE MONKS is Lecturer in Theatre Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. She has published on the work of the Wooster Group and Deborah Warner and global performances of Irishness.

• Introduction: The Dress RehearsalDressing-Up: The Actor's Body and CostumeDressing the Audience: A History of Fashion at the TheatreRe-dressing the Actor: Modernist CostumeCross-dressing: Authenticity and IdentityUndressing: The Disappointments of NudityDressing the Immaterial: The Problem of GhostsEpilogueAfter-Effects: Costume and the Memory of Performance.

'This lively, ambitious, and readable book frames costume as an essential element in the understanding and imagination of theatrical embodiment; much more than a treatment of costume design and history, The Actor in Costume makes an immediate difference to our thinking about performance today.'- W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA 'The Actor in Costume achieves its aim in...offering fresh ways to think about theatre through the fundamental process of costuming.' - TLS '...an exploration of theatrical signification that takes costuming as its point of reference...the book is a very engaging conversation-starter that proposes a new and vital way of talking about theatrical costuming, an approach that accords to stage wear the theoretical and historical weight it surely deserves.' - Contemporary Theatre Review