The Cambridge companion to Victorian and Edwardian theatre / edited by Kerry Powell.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Powell, Kerry.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Cambridge companions to literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--England--History--20th century.

Theater.

England.

History.

Theater--England--History--19th century.

English drama--20th century--History and criticism.

English drama.

English drama--19th century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

xv, 288 pages : illustrations, music ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Victorian and Edwardian theatre

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Summary:

This Companion is designed for readers interested in the creation, production and interpretation of Victorian and Edwardian theatre in its own time and on the contemporary stage. The volume opens with an introduction surveying the theatre of the time followed by an essay contextualizing the theatre within the culture as a whole. Succeeding chapters examine performance, production, and theatre, including the music, the actors, stagecraft, and the audiences themselves, plays and playwriting and issues of class and gender. Chapters also deal with comedy, farce, melodrama, and the economics of theatre.

Contents:

Before the curtain / Nina Auerbach 3

Part 2. Performance and context

1 Actors and acting / Joseph Donohue 17

2 The show business economy, and its discontents / Tracy C. Davis 36

3 Victorian and Edwardian stagecraft: techniques and issues / Russell Jackson 52

4 Music for the theatre: style and function in incidental music / Michael Pisani 70

5 Victorian and Edwardian audiences / Jim Davis, Victor Emeljanow 93

6 Performing identities: actresses and autobiography / Mary Jean Corbett 109

Part 3. Text and context

7 Comedy and farce / Michael R. Booth 129

8 Encountering melodrama / David Mayer 145

9 The music hall / Jacky Bratton 164

10 Theatre of the 1890s: breaking down the barriers / Peter Raby 183

11 New theatres for a new drama / Cary M. Mazer 207

12 The fallen woman on stage: maidens, magdalens, and the emancipated female / Sos Eltis 222

13 Reimagining the theatre: women playwrights of the Victorian and Edwardian period / Susan Carlson, Kerry Powell 237

14 The East-End theatre / Heidi J. Holder 257.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-278) and index.

ISBN:

052179157X

0521795362

OCLC:

51537166

Online:

Publisher description