Modernist Disguise

Ron J. Popenhagen is Professor of Visual Culture and Performance at California State University. He formerly lectured in Theatre at the University of Southern California and the Sydney University Conservatorium of Music. Dr Popenhagen is a specialist in Actor-Training, Mise en scène, Masks and Masquerade. He has published on French and Swiss actors, choreographers, directors, playwrights and scenographers, and also on Irish literature. Popenhagen has staged opera and theatre productions of Cocteau, Ionesco, Molière, Shakespeare and Wilde in Australia and the States. He has toured devised theatre projects to festivals in Adelaide, Ankara, Edinburgh, Houston, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Vilnius. Ron has written, devised and directed theatre projects for the Australian Theatre for Young People and toured ‘Informances’ for Young Audiences, Inc. to American cities.

• Acknowledgements Introduction1. Impressions of the Covered Body2. Facing Change and Changing Masks3. Re-formed and Uni-formed Bodies4. Feigned and Distorted Bodyscapes5. Actor-Effigies and Photo-Portraits6. Fractured and Effaced Façades7. Other Places BibliographyIndex

Spanning modernism this book affords a refreshed lens on masquerade as character play, embodiment and theatricality. A timely argument for amplified attention to disguise, bodyscapes and performative aspects of the image in this chaotic and unpredictable world.