Research Catalog

Performing Shakespeare in the age of empire / Richard Foulkes.

Title: Performing Shakespeare in the age of empire / Richard Foulkes.
Author: Foulkes, Richard.
Publication: Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PR3099 .F68 2002	Off-site

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Description

x, 235 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

"During the nineteenth century the performance of Shakespeare's plays contributed significantly to the creation of a sense of British nationhood at home and the extension of her influence overseas, not only in her own empire but also in North America and Europe. This was achieved through the enterprise of the commercial theatre rather than state subsidy and institutions. Britain had no National Theatre, but Shakespeare's plays were performed up and down the land from the fashionable West End to the suburbs of the capital and the expanding industrial conurbations to the north. British actors also travelled the world to perform Shakespeare's plays, while foreign actors regarded success in London as the ultimate seal of approval. In this book Richard Foulkes explores the political and social uses of Shakespeare through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, and the movement from the business of Shakespeare as an enterprise to that of enshrinement as a cultural icon." "With the prospect of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death in 1916 the campaign for a Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre gathered pace. This was promoted as a benefit to the whole English-speaking world and the equal of the state theatres of Europe, but it fell victim to the outbreak of war, which coincided with a decline in traditional Shakespeare and exposed the nation's lack of any institutional stage." "The achievements of leading Shakespearian actors, managers and directors, not only from Britain (Macready, Phelps, Irving, Tree and Granville Barker), but also Europe (Saxe-Meiningen, Modjeska, Bernhardt, Salvini) and North America (Forrest, Cushman, Aldridge and Booth), are set in the context of national and international events, alternative forms of patronage, and the forces of nationhood and imperialism, to reveal the intricate and fascinating story of the performance of Shakespeare's plays across the globe during this period of apparently limitless British ascendancy."--Jacket.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-227) and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

The hero as actor: William Charles Macready -- Equerries and equestrians: Phelps, Kean and Astley's -- A babel of bardolaters: the 1864 tercentenary -- Made in Manchester: Charles Calvert and George Rignold -- The fashionable tragedian: Henry Irving -- The imperial stage: Beerbohm Tree and Benson -- The national arena: Granville Barker, Louis Calvert and Annie Horniman -- The theatre of war: the 1916 tercentenary.

ISBN

0521630223

LCCN

^^2001037957

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library