Carrying All Before Her : Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage, 1689-1800 / Chelsea Phillips.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Phillips, Chelsea, author.

Series:

Performing celebrity.

Performing Celebrity

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pregnant women in the theater--England--History--18th century.

Pregnant women in the theater.

Theater--England--London--History--18th century.

Theater.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Newark, DE : University of Delaware Press, [2022]

Summary:

The rise of celebrity stage actresses in the long eighteenth century created a class of women who worked in the public sphere while facing considerable scrutiny about their offstage lives. Such powerful celebrity women used the cultural and affective significance of their reproductive bodies to leverage audience support and interest to advance their careers, and eighteenth-century London patent theatres even capitalized on their pregnancies. Carrying All Before Her uses the reproductive histories of six celebrity women (Susanna Mountfort Verbruggen, Anne Oldfield, Susannah Cibber, George Anne Bellamy, Sarah Siddons, and Dorothy Jordan) to demonstrate that pregnancy affected celebrity identity, impacted audience reception and interpretation of performance, changed company repertory and altered company hierarchy, influenced the development and performance of new plays, and had substantial economic consequences for both women and the companies for which they worked. Deepening the fields of celebrity, theatre, and women's studies, as well as social and medical histories, Phillips reveals an untapped history whose relevance and impact persists today.

Contents:

1. Inheriting greatness : Susanna Mountfort Verbruggen and Anna Oldfield

2. Pregnant sensibility : Susannah Cibber and George Anne Bellamy

3. Conceiving genius : Sarah Siddons

4. Prolific muse : Dorothy Jordan

Conclusion : celebrity pregnancy, then and now.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781644532508

1644532506

9781644532515

1644532514

OCLC:

1289371528