DOCSLIB.ORG

Durham E-Theses

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses Spectacular drama in urban entertainment: the dramatisation of community in popular culture Chaney, David Christopher How to cite: Chaney, David Christopher (1985) Spectacular drama in urban entertainment: the dramatisation of community in popular culture, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10497/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Spectacular Drama in Urban Entertainment; the dramatisation of community in popular culture David Christopher Chaney ABSTRACT This is a study of some of the many types of entertainment that have been called spectacular, of the cultural significance of certain conventions in ways of transforming space and identity. Forms of spectacular drama both require and celebrate urban social relations, they constitute essential parts of the popular cultural landscape. They display an idealisation of ways of picturing collective experience. Although I note continuities in forms of spectacular drama through different eras, it is differences in the ways in which our sense of collective life or community is experienced and expressed that provide for very different understandings of forms of spectacular display. I describe and discuss forms of spectacular drama in the fifteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have chosen the fifteenth century as it was a period when there was a flourishing range of dramatic entertainment but no theatres. The principal features of the culture that I stress are the looseness of the dramatic frame. In contrast, the nineteenth century is a period of both urban expansion and theatrical supremacy. In the course of the century the population became urbanised and the growing cities became spectacular stages for new forms of social experience. I describe a broad framework of popular entertainment which provided many forms of spectacular experience, but concentrate upon the theatrical form of melodrama and forms of pictorial realism. In the chapter on the twentieth century I am principally concerned with the implications of processes of massification - both of society and culture. I argue that the democratic individualism of consumer culture and mass leisure has made the vocabulary of identity and community peculiarly problematic. The theme is that spectacular drama in contemporary culture has become more insistent and more public and yet our participation and response has been increasingly privatised. SPECTACULAR DRAMA IN URBAN ENTERTAINMENT: the dramatisation of community in popular culture DAVID CHRISTOPHER CHANEY Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Durham 1985 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. s4 IS APR. 1986 CONTENTS Page CHAPTER ONE Introduction; Spectacular Drama 1 CHAPTER TWO Spectacular Dramaturgy in a Culture Without Theatres 43 CHAPTER THREE The City Triumphant: The Nineteenth as a Spectacular 86 Century 122 Part One 142 Part Two 159 Part Three 181 Part Four 200 Part Five Part Six CHAPTER FOUR The City Dissolved; Spectacular Reality in Part One Mass Entertainment 2 36 Part Two 285 Part Three 324 CHAPTER FIVE Conclusion 373 Acknowledgements A number of people have helped me to write this thesis. Jim Beckford read the first complete draft and not only raised some very helpful points and questions but also gave some invaluable reassurance. Laurence Hazell has been more than a friend, and only he and I know how often in late-night discussions ideas have been found inter-related with values. Judith Chaney has consistently given love and consideration. Many others have helped and supported sometimes by discussing thoughtsand listening tolerantly, sometimes by simple encouragement and spiritual massage: Steve Hester, Annie Hudson, Mo Mowlam, Colin Painter, Mike Pickering, Dave Jost, Susan Williams and Robin Williams. A list is too bald but I hope that in each and every case, and with all my other firends, the person knows how much I have valued their friendship and help. While I have been writing this thesis I have been in love with Gillian Marrion, this, and she, have not helped my work except in the sense of some words by Hemingway which I have seen quoted: 'I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to make it absolutely perfect, or if not that then wonderful; then you write for who you love whether she can read it or not and whether she is alive or dead.1 Above all else I want to acknowledge all the ways in which being with Sophie have made it worthwhile - and dedicate it to her. None of the material contained in this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other university. I am the sole author of all this thesis. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotations from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. CHAPTER ONE - Introduction: Spectacular Drama 'But it was wonderful only as a spectacle, since it meant nothing (Bowles 1982 p.313) -2- In this thesis I will suggest some ways in which forms of popular culture, in particular forms of entertainment which contemporaries could describe as spectacular, relate to differences in the experience of membership of different types of social formation. In this chapter I will clarify what is involved in conceptualising the project in this way. I shall begin by picking out some terms that are central to my account. A premis of my approach is that a major theme in human experience is the nature of the community to which individuals are primarily oriented. The web of personal relationships involving each individual can be unravelled through differences in degree and type of interlocking rights and obligations, but they also cohere through some sense of a world that is shared in common. The relationships between habitat and its inhabitants provide grounds for the cultural organisation and expression of collective identity. One example would be the ways in which we can read a landscape as an inscription of cumulative enterprise: 'A landscape is the most solid appearance in which a history can declare itself We read upon the face of the landscape the pasts which it has borne in order to create our present.' (Inglis 1977 p.489). A central theme in the following work will be differences in ways of dramatising cultural as well as physical landscapes, and the imagery of community through contrasts in social and physical horizons. The ^emeinschaft-^essellschaft distinction is of course well established in the social-anthropological literature, and I do not intend to take any time exploring that original distinction or its later developments. I will, however, employ the moral sense of interdependence between types of experience of community and individuality postulated in that distinction to elucidate the presuppositions and rewards of dramatic representation. -3- An analogous theme, which has been privileged in Marxist perspectives, is that the organisation of productive relationships - the relationship between individual labour and the fruits of that labour - is of central significance in explaining human self-conception and structural relationships within a collectivity. I do not wish to pit this theme against my emphasis upon a sense of community and rank them in terms of significance, nor to suggest that they are the only two, but rather argue that sense of community is of particular significance in structuring images of desireable action. It is an integral part of this approach to argue that the language, in the widest possible sense, used to express the norms for and attitudes towards actions as members of communities is inherently political. This does not mean that the language must be associated with formally organised competing interest groups, and indeed may be associated with 'non-political' grounds for association such as religion, sex and age; but will be political in that it expresses competing views over possible tensions between the legitimate and the desireable. Of fundamental importance in patterning changes in the meaning of community has been the development of a distinction between public and private worlds, and this will be a persistent point of reference in my account. A second premis of my approach is that it is through dramatisation that the community as shared experience is most commonly articulated. I have mentioned the importance of landscape as one form of record of collective activity, and one way of understanding dramatic force is to see it as a social transformation of space: 'The art in the caves of southwest Europe and the stories of the Aborigines about the landmarks in their range are means of transforming natural spaces into cultural places: ways of making theatres.' (Schechner 1976 p.43). It is in the self- consciousness of drama that the raw materials of personal experience are -4- framed in ways that make them available for communal understanding: 'Just as a farm is a field where edible foods are grown, so a theatre is a place where transformations of time, place, and persons (human and nonhuman) are accomplished.' (Schechner op.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • CYMBELINE" in the Fllii^Slhi TI CENTURY
    "CYMBELINE" IN THE fllii^SLHi TI CENTURY Bennett Jackson Submitted in partial fulfilment for the de ree of uaster of Arts in the University of Birmingham. October 1971. University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. SYNOPSIS This thesis consists of an Introduction, followed by Part I (chapters 1-2) in which nineteenth- century criticism of the play is discussed, particular attention being paid to Helen Faucit's essay on Imogen, and its relationship to her playing of the role. In Part II the stags-history of Oymbcline in London is traced from 1785 to Irving's Lyceum production of 1896. Directions from promptbooks used by G-.P. Cooke, W.C. Macready, Helen Eaucit, and Samuel ±helps are transcribed and discussed, and in the last chapter the influence of Bernard Shaw on Ellen Terry's Imogen is considered in the light of their correspondence and the actress's rehearsal copies of the play. There are three appendices: a list of performances; transcriptions of two newspaper reviews (from 1843 and 1864) and one private diary (Gordon Crosse's notes on the Lyceum Gymbeline); and discussion of one of the promptbooks prepared for Charles Kean's projected production.
    [Show full text]
  • Tyrannyofdocs Fulltext
    THEATRE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION Founded in 1937, Theatre Library Association supports librarians and archivists affiliated with theatre, dance, performance studies, popular enter- tainment, motion picture and broadcasting collections. TLA promotes profes- sional best practices in acquisition, organization, access and preservation of performing arts resources in libraries, archives, museums, private collections, and the digital environment. By producing publications, conferences, panels, and public events, TLA fosters creative and ethical use of performing arts ma- terials to enhance research, live performance, and scholarly communication. Theatre Library Association meets annually to conduct its business in the fall of each year. It presents a plenary and related programming during the annual meeting of the American Society for Theatre Research, and fre- quently cooperates with other professional and scholarly organizations in the sponsorship of symposia, events, and publications. Theatre Library Association publishes BROADSIDE, an online newsletter, and Performing Arts Resources, a monograph series, as well as conference com- pendia. It is governed by a constitution which provides for officers and an execu- tive board of directors elected by the membership. OFFICERS AND BOARD MEMBERS, 2011 Kenneth Schlesinger, President Diana King Lehman College/CUNY University of California, Los Angeles Nancy Friedland, Vice President Stephen Kuehler Columbia University Harvard University David Nochimson, Executive Francesca Marini Secretary Stratford Shakespeare
    [Show full text]
  • "Theater and Empire: a History of Assumptions in the English-Speaking Atlantic World, 1700-1860"
    "THEATER AND EMPIRE: A HISTORY OF ASSUMPTIONS IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING ATLANTIC WORLD, 1700-1860" BY ©2008 Douglas S. Harvey Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________________________ Chairperson Committee Members* ___________________________________* ___________________________________* ___________________________________* ___________________________________* Date Defended: April 7, 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Douglas S. Harvey certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: "THEATER AND EMPIRE: A HISTORY OF ASSUMPTIONS IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING ATLANTIC WORLD, 1700-1860" Committee ____________________________________ Chairperson ___________________________________* ___________________________________* ___________________________________* ___________________________________* Date Approved: April 7, 2008 ii Abstract It was no coincidence that commercial theater, a market society, the British middle class, and the “first” British Empire arose more or less simultaneously. In the seventeenth century, the new market economic paradigm became increasingly dominant, replacing the old feudal economy. Theater functioned to “explain” this arrangement to the general populace and gradually it became part of what I call a “culture of empire” – a culture built up around the search for resources and markets that characterized imperial expansion. It also rationalized the depredations the Empire brought to those whose resources and labor were coveted by expansionists. This process intensified with the independence of the thirteen North American colonies, and theater began representing Native Americans and African American populations in ways that rationalized the dominant society’s behavior toward them. By utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, this research attempts to advance a more nuanced and realistic narrative of empire in the early modern and early republic periods.
    [Show full text]
  • Hippodrama, Or ‘Old’ Circus?: Legacy and Innovation in Contemporary Equestrian Performance
    21 Kim Baston La Trobe University, Australia ‘New’ hippodrama, or ‘old’ circus?: legacy and innovation in contemporary equestrian performance The hippodrama existed as a popular spectacle during the nineteenth century, an entertainment marrying the equestrian acts that were staples of the early modern circus with a grander narrative purpose. As such it was denigrated by the guardians of ‘legitimate drama,’ such as Leigh Hunt, as an example of the triumph of the taste of the masses over the claims of the intellect. Within circus, equestrian performances waned in importance during the twentieth century, ceding prominence to wild animal and spectacular aerial acts. While animal performance within circus has also declined, there has been a recent resurgence of equestrian companies. In the contemporary equestrian spectacle the relationship of horse with human is radically re-defined, based on an ‘equal’ or ‘reciprocal’ sharing of the theatrical space, emphasising non-human animal agency and de-emphasising suggestions of coercion. Yet these spectacles retain strong traces of the traditional divisions of equestrian acts within the circus, from the formal movements of Haute École to ‘liberty’ acts. This article investigates the shifting narratives surrounding - the contemporary equestrian spectacle. Kim Baston is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University and she also lectures on circus history and culture at the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) in Melbourne, Australia. Keywords: hippodrama, equestrian acts, Cavalia,
    [Show full text]
  • The Opening Scene of Henry M. Milner's Equestrian Drama Mazeppa (1831) Contains an Unmistakable Echo of William Shakespeare'
    The opening scene of Henry M. Milner’s equestrian drama Mazeppa (1831) contains an unmistakable echo of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as, on battlements lit by ‘the uncertain glimpses of the moon‘, a cautious sentinel calls out, ‘Who goes there?’i The play is characterised by such recycling and repurposing. It is a theatrical adaptation of Lord Byron’s poem Mazeppa (1819) that also borrows from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. In so doing, it engages in more than one type of adaptation. The shift from Byron’s poem to Milner’s equestrian spectacle altered the meaning of the poet’s work, from an exploration of one man’s solitary and potentially meaningless ordeal to a vivid portrayal of a densely populated social world in which, thanks to his ride on the wild horse, Mazeppa rises from lowly page to avenging prince. The inclusion of allusions to, and reworkings of, Shakespeare, situated the play within a tradition of Shakespearean adaptations on the illegitimate English stage. This tradition enacted a form of cultural contest between popular and elite theatre, as has been explored by Jane Moody and others,ii but since Milner’s was not explicitly an adaptation of Shakespeare it complicates this opposition. Milner’s Mazeppa is therefore particularly useful to illustrate the negotiation of cultural values that takes place in the act of adaptation. The theatrical Mazeppa thrived: its first season in 1831 was an immediate success and the play ran for several hundred performances at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre in London. It was revived for many years subsequently in both England and America, including a famous production that starred the celebrated Adah Isaacs Menken, who played the role of Mazeppa for American audiences in 1861 and for English audiences two years later to great acclaim.iii This demonstrates that the particular adaptations made in the course of the transition from poem to theatrical presentation were very successful.
    [Show full text]
  • The Horse in European History, 1550-1900
    THE HORSE IN EUROPEAN HISTORY, 1550-1900 by Tatsuya Mitsuda, B.A. (Keio), M.Phil. (Cantab.) Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of History University of Cambridge 2007 Je hais tout autre voiture que le cheval Montaigne Acknowledgements At the dinner table, when polite conversation turns to the inevitable etiquette of exchanging hobbies and interests, people are often surprised – and some disappointed – to hear, that I have had very little to do with horses. What’s more, I probably never will. My years spent in Japan, England and Germany – which are countries invariably passionate about their horses – seem to lead some people to suspect that I would be too. Not that there have been a lack of opportunities to become interested, of course. During childhood, my parents were keen to take me pony-riding in the countryside, at the ‘Mother’s Farm’ in Chiba, near Tokyo. But my recollection of this experience is far from fresh, and pictures that my parents have thrust in front of me to jog my memory depict a mounted child exuding a sense of utter indifference. When, some years later, I visited Sandown racecourse, in Surrey, albeit to play Par-Three golf in the areas inside the racetrack, it did not dawn on me that horses galloped around the same space on meeting days. Much later, when friends at university wanted to take me to racecourses in and around Tokyo, to experience the roars of thousands of punters urging their thoroughbreds on, I had better things to do.
    [Show full text]
  • How Stage Performances from Ivanhoe Brought Scott's Characters to the Widest Audiences
    The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture．Vol 13.2．June 2020．69-97. DOI: 10.30395/WSR.202006_13(2).0004 “. anything like the words”: how Stage Performances from Ivanhoe Brought Scott’s Characters to the Widest Audiences Barbara Bell ABSTRACT The publication of Ivanhoe and its rapid uptake by the theatres of his day came hard on successful stage adaptations of earlier novels, particularly Guy Mannering and Rob Roy. Amidst the highly structured format of the Georgian theatre industry, divided between the Patent houses, able to perform the spoken word, and the Minor houses, supposedly confined to music, dance, mime and the nebulous burletta, the Scott adaptations were almost uniquely placed to cross class and genre divides as a form of parallel contemporary reception. They were already causing shifts in the theatre industry when Ivanhoe appeared and audiences at a range of venues now had particular expectations of the work of playwrights with this material. This article aims to place adaptations of Ivanhoe within their overall theatrical contexts, to trace their debts one to another, to look at their stage careers beside those of other Scott adaptations and to trace their progress throughout the nineteenth century across different types of venues and genres, from parlour music to hippodrama. KEYWORDS: dramatization, British Theatre, illegitimate theatre, nineteenth-century hippodrama, working-class audiences, Patent Houses, Jewish characters, Sir Walter Scott, Waverley Novels Received: January 20, 2019; Accepted: January 15, 2020 Barbara Bell, an independent researcher, United Kingdom ([email protected]). 70 The Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture．Vol 13.2．June 2020 I.
    [Show full text]
  • Romanticisms, Nation and Empire
    Università degli Studi di Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ Corso di Laurea in Comunicazione Linguistica e Interculturale Curricula: Mediazione Interculturale/Italiano per Stranieri Letteratura Inglese I a.a. 2014-2015 Prof. Franca Dellarosa [email protected] Romanticisms, Nation and Empire Brish Theatrical Culture, 1760s-1830s Periodization: 1760s-1830s ò Theatre in the “Georgian”* era ò *The Georgian era is a period of British history, which includes the reigns of the Kings of the House of Hanover: George I, George II, George III, and George IV, thus covering the period from 1714 to 1830, and including the sub-period of the Regency, defined by the Regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III. Often, the short reign of King William IV (1830 to 1837) is also included. Periodization: 1760s-1830s ò Theatre in the “Romantic”era ò e.g. :“English Romantic Theatre (1760/1830): Texts, Theories and Stage” An Inter-University Research Project (Universities of Bologna, Bari, Florence, Parma, Pavia, Roma La Sapienza) ò “The aim of this research project is to re-evaluate the production of British Theatre and Drama between 1760 and 1830 in the belief that the theatrical culture and production of the 'Romantic' period made a substantial contribution, often of the highest standard, to the history of Western theatrical tradition. This research project, therefore, aims at compensating for or, better, overthrowing a prejudicial evaluation that has for a long time blamed Romantic theatre for the definitive decline of the great dramatic tradition which had existed since the classical era.” A Theatrical Evening in Late Eighteenth-/Early Nineteenth-century London Inkle and Yarico: playbill of the first performance, August 4, 1787) “The hour is fairly early, the curtain a 6:30 one, and there are no assigned seats in the pit […].
    [Show full text]
  • Why Circus Works
    WHY CIRCUS WORKS How the values and structures of circus make it a significant developmental experience for young people. Reginald Bolton, B.A. (hons.), Cert. Ed. This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Murdoch University, Perth, in 2004 I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains, as its main content, work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. ....................……………............... (Reginald Bolton) Acknowledgements Sincere thanks go to my excellent supervisor, Dr. Jennifer de Reuck, and to the Murdoch University librarian, Grant Stone, both of whom cheerfully and provocatively urged me on throughout this three and a half year project. My colleagues in corridor TP3, Georgina Wright and Cheryl Miller in the Division of Arts administration and the helpful staff at the Murdoch library and cafeteria have made this a pleasurable experience – not the wearisome journey that is often associated with PhD research. Cherree Innes has been the fearless and efficient interface between me and the computer, and without her, you would not be able to read this now. Twenty-two institutions and two hundred and nineteen individuals are acknowledged in appendix 1 for their interviews. I wish to thank them and many others who have spared time to help my enquiry. Ho Wing Wah (Loretta) has been pursuing a course parallel with mine, and besides her kind translating of some Chinese texts, her friendship and encouragement have been inspirational. Abstract Why Circus Works How the values and structures of circus make it a significant developmental experience for young people Circus is increasingly being used as a developmental and remedial activity for children.
    [Show full text]