{"title":"Of Ships and Spectacles: Maritime Identity and the Politics of Authenticity in Regency London","authors":"O. C. Jensen","doi":"10.1177/1748372719851329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719851329","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers three case studies – the first aqua-drama at Sadler's Wells in 1804, the naumachia in Hyde Park of 1814, and the launching of HMS Nelson at Woolwich, also in 1814 – in order to discuss maritime spectacle in Regency London. I identify an essentially political distinction between the representation of ships and the role of sailors, linked to wider questions of authenticity as understood by contemporary London audiences. I argue that the Thames riverscape itself contributed to Londoners' self-identification as nautically literate connoisseurs, unlikely to acclaim spectacles they perceived to be inauthentic. By this reading, the maritime spectacles of early nineteenth-century London constitute a misstep in a longer and more successful history of nautical theatre and melodrama, that remained fundamentally entangled with questions of democratic representation, the real versus the represented, and London's maritime identity.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"1991 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125513628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mutual Profiteering: Sensational Journalism, Society Columns, and Mrs James Brown Potter’s Theatrical Debuts","authors":"E. Curley","doi":"10.1177/1748372718824096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372718824096","url":null,"abstract":"In 1887, amateur theatrical performer Cora Urquhart Brown Potter turned professional amid a maelstrom of international newspaper coverage. Newspapers picked up the story of her career, feeding a desire for salacious gossip at the expense of the elite celebrity cast as a fallen woman. Yet, Potter and the press developed a symbiotic relationship, as her non-traditional path to the stage required that she transform her personal celebrity into a professional one in order to attract audiences and bookings. The papers obliged and, as the story developed and her celebrity transformed, they shifted their coverage of Potter’s journey from society columns, to theatrical columns, to sensational front-page spreads. Potter’s early career paralleled and capitalised on such new developments in the newspaper industry and its messaging. While the press continued to sell her scandal, Potter used the papers to profit from her society past while forging her future as a theatre professional.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"6 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120992421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marianna Zannoni, Il teatro in fotografia. L’immagine della prima attrice italiana fra Otto e Novecento","authors":"Linda Baldassin, Saba Burali","doi":"10.1177/1748372719835374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719835374","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125765554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mediating Melodrama, Staging Sergeant Cuff","authors":"Isabel Stowell-Kaplan","doi":"10.1177/1748372719827274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719827274","url":null,"abstract":"When Sergeant Cuff stepped off the page and onto the stage of the Olympic Theatre in Wilkie Collins’s 1877 adaptation of his own wildly successful novel, The Moonstone, he both joined the earliest ranks of the British stage detective and entered the world of melodrama. Though we might expect the rational figure of a detective such as Sergeant Cuff to be incompatible with the emotional excess of melodrama, in this article I show that such an assumption oversimplifies his relationship to melodramatic emotion and overlooks the surprising compatibility of the detective with melodrama’s epistemological and moral investments. I argue that in distinct contrast to the ambiguity and multiplicity instilled by the novel, Cuff allows for the clear resolution expected on the melodramatic stage, proving himself an agent of and for melodramatic style and substance.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133656333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon","authors":"J. Curry","doi":"10.1177/1748372719826895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719826895","url":null,"abstract":"Dion Boucicault's 1859 sensation melodrama The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana attracted audiences with emotionally charged situations, such as a slave auction, combined with the visual sensation of a realistic depiction of a scene of spectacular danger, the onstage burning of a steamboat. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 2014 adaptation called An Octoroon, while departing significantly from Boucicault's approach to visual storytelling, also uses a visual sensation to create an emotional impact. Jacobs-Jenkins invites an audience to enjoy Boucicault's storytelling, revisiting a melodrama now rarely revived, while simultaneously inviting them to engage with and critique the troubling racial stereotypes of the original.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122646332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jonathan M Hess, Deborah and Her Sisters: How One Nineteenth-Century Melodrama and a Host of Celebrated Actresses Put Judaism on the World Stage","authors":"C. Levick","doi":"10.1177/1748372719828557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719828557","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128914386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, the Geological Sublime, and the Romantic Theatre","authors":"Alexis Harley","doi":"10.1177/1748372719826485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719826485","url":null,"abstract":"Across the three volumes of his influential Principles of Geology (1830–33), Charles Lyell demonstrates that the scale of earth history is out of all proportion to human temporality. Lyell makes the case that geologists should assume a viewing position outside the drama of geological action. He repeatedly represents this distance through the figure of the theatre, invoking Romantic critiques of theatrical naturalism that aligned with developments in natural philosophy. At the same time, Lyell deployed technologies from the contemporary stage in his public lectures, and in personal correspondence, he reveals promiscuous tastes across genres, forms and sites of performance. Ultimately, I argue, these apparent inconsistencies point to the role of his subjectivity in a project that is deeply ambivalent about human points of view.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116759551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Victor Emeljanow (1938–2018)","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/1748372719833876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719833876","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127435263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Theatrical Ecologies and Environments in the Nineteenth Century","authors":"Patricia Smyth","doi":"10.1177/1748372719830001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372719830001","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film is dedicated to the memory of two distinguished scholars, Michael R. Booth, who died in October 2017, and Victor Emeljanow, who died in April 2018. Michael had intended to present a paper at the City, Space, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century Performance conference organised by this journal in conjunction with the University of Warwick and held at the Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava, Venice, in June 2018. As it turned out, the conference was dedicated to his memory, a tribute that we felt was apt given Michael’s pioneering work on the representation of urban environments on the nineteenth-century stage. Victor was also expecting to attend the City, Space, and Spectacle conference. The paper he had intended to give was presented by his longtime friend and colleague Jim Davis, who has also edited the version that appears in this issue. This special issue is dedicated to the theme of ecologies and environments, and most of the articles that follow originated in our symposium, Theatrical Ecologies and Environments in the Nineteenth Century, which took place on 1 July 2017 at the University of Warwick. In our call for papers, the theme was construed broadly to include proposals that addressed the impact of theatre and early film on the environment, ecological themes in theatre and performance, and the application of ecological methodologies to the interlacing economic, cultural, and social networks of theatrical production. While the interdisciplinary turn of recent decades has encouraged approaches to the subject that highlight the connectedness of theatre and performance history to other spheres, we wanted to invite participants to think specifically about what ecological themes or methodologies might bring to our understanding of nineteenth-century performance. As we wrote in our call for papers, ecocriticism is a live issue in both theatre studies and nineteenth-century studies, but remains an under-examined area in","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124001621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Actress in Nature: Environments of Artistic Development in Victorian Fiction and Memoir","authors":"Victoria Wiet","doi":"10.1177/1748372718823663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1748372718823663","url":null,"abstract":"This essay provides a new approach to reading actress memoirs in light of the influence of environmental thinking on Victorian culture more broadly and acting theory in particular. By demonstrating that actress autobiographies were written within a discursive domain that understood human temperaments and biographical trajectories to be fundamentally shaped by social and physical surroundings, I examine how renowned actresses narrate the conditions within which their temperament developed. In order to do so, I first examine the entanglement of environment and character in novels about actress protagonists in order to develop a framework for analysing the narrative qualities of actress memoirs. This essay focuses specifically on the trope of the ‘wild’ girl who, undisciplined by parents or teachers, develops a sensitive yet wilful and even anti-social temperament that enables her to become an actress praised for her authentic displays of spontaneous emotion.","PeriodicalId":286523,"journal":{"name":"Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128366148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}