The Performing Century

In this final volume of the Redefining British Theatre History series, now available in paperback for the first time, an innovative and wide-ranging collection of essays brings together leading scholars from Britain and America. The Performing Century looks at modes of performance and forms of theatre in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, placing drama and performance in the social and cultural contexts of the rapid transformations in nineteenth-century society. From the vogue for fairy plays to the acting styles of melodrama, from the work of the impresario George Edwardes to the solo comic performances of Charles Matthews, from launching ships in Belfast to royal weddings in England, from the representation of economics in drama to the work of a parliamentary committee in regulating theatres, from the Boxing Day audiences for pantomimes to the nature of circus, the authors bring new perspectives to bear on familiar material and radically redefine the meaning of theatre and performance in the nineteenth century.

ISBN 0230250408   Pages 288 ISBN13 9780230250406 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 575 Publisher Palgrave Macmillan   Published in Basingstoke Imprint Palgrave Macmillan   Series title Redefining British Theatre History Format Paperback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 23 Jun 2010   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 792.094109034   Spine width (mm) 20 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

		List of Illustrations
		Notes on the Contributors
		Series Introduction: Redefining British Theatre History by Peter Holland
		Introduction: the Performing Society by Peter Holland		1
Part I		Performance Occasions		11
1		Boxing Day by Jim Davis		13
2		What are Fairies For? by Tracy C. Davis		32
3		Communal Performances: Royal Ritual, Revolution and National Acts by Emily Allen		60
4		George Edwardes and Musical Comedy: the Transformation of London Theatre and Society, 1878-1914 by Thomas Postlewait		80
Part II		Performance Anxieties		103
5		Nation and Neighbourhood, Jews and Englishmen: Location and Theatrical Ideology in Victorian London by Heidi J. Holder		105
6		Theatre History and Capital on the Victorian Stage by Jane Moody		121
7		Modernity, Geography and Historiography: (Re)-Mapping Irish Theatre History in the Nineteenth Century by Mark Phelan		135
Part III		Repertoires		159
8		The Death of Tragedy; or, the Birth of Melodrama by Jeffrey N. Cox		161
9		Fitting the Bill: Acting Out the Season of 1813/14 at the Sans Pareil by Gilli Bush-Balley		182
10		Charles Mathews, Low Comedian, and the Intersections of Romantic Ideology by Edward Ziter		198
11		The Persistence of Closet Drama: Theory, History, Form by Catherine Burroughs		215
12		Shakespeare and the Music Hall by Richard Schoch		236
13		What Is a Play? Drama and the Victorian Circus by Jacky Bratton		250
		Index		263

'The Performing Century: Nineteenth-Century Theatre's History is a fine collection of essays, and unlike some other such collections is likely to be of lasting value.' - Early Popular Visual Culture 'This collection of essays marks the distance travelled in the last two decades in scholarship on nineteenth-century theatre. Thirteen essays, collectively and individually, weave history and historiography together in what are uniformly exemplary demonstrations of 'new theatre history'. The volume also reminds us that it is in this formerly most maligned of theatre-historic fields that some of the most interesting, innovative and critically engaged work is being done.' - Katherine Newey, Theatre Research International

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