ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN Victorian performers were drawn from various class backgrounds and enjoyed a unique degree of social mobility. Nevertheless, the living and working conditions of female performers were very different from those of their male colleagues. Their segregation and concentration in low-status jobs, like dancing, guaranteed economic insecurity. Actresses’ attempts to reconcile sexuality and the female life cycle to a physically demanding, itinerant occupation while under constant public scrutiny led to assumptions about their morality—assumptions that were constantly reinforced by theatrical conventions which reflected popular pornographic images. This is an important book that brings fresh perspectives to bear on nineteenth-century theatre. It will be of interest to a wide range of specialists including historians and feminist critics. Tracy C.Davis is Assistant Professor in Theatre and English at Northwestern University. She has written numerous articles on Victorian theatre and is co-editor of Routledge’s Gender and Performance Series. GENDER AND PERFORMANCE Series Editors Tracy C.Davis and Susan Bassnett Gender and Performance is a new series that reflects the dynamic and innovative work being done by feminists across the disciplines. Exploring both historical and contemporary theatre, the series seeks to understand performance both as a cultural and as a political phenomenon. Key issues discussed will include conventions of representation, the politics of the theatre industry, the constructions of gender affecting professionals’ working and personal lives, changing interpretations of gender and the contributions of women to theatre history. ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN Their social identity in Victorian culture Tracy C.Davis London and New York First published 1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1991 Tracy C.Davis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Davis, Tracy C. Actresses as working women: their social identity in Victorian culture. 1. Great Britain. Theatre. Actresses, history I. Title 792.028092 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Davis, Tracy C. Actresses as working women: their social identity in Victorian culture/Tracy C.Davis. p. cm. —(Theatre and gender series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Theatre and society—Great Britain—History—19th century. 2. Women in the theatre—Great Britain—History—19th century. 3. Actresses—Great Britain. I. Title. II. Series. PN2594.D34 1991 306.4’84’082—dc20 90–47664 ISBN 0-415-05652-7 —ISBN 0-415-06353-1 (pbk) ISBN 0-203-20001-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-20004-7 (Glassbook Format) CONTENTS List of figures and tables vii List of illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction xi Part I The Profession 1 THE SOCIOECONOMIC ORGANIZATION OF THE THEATRE 3 Family dynasties, recruitment, and career opportunities for women 6 The Profession’s divisions of labour 19 Wages 24 2 SEX, GENDER, AND SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHY 36 Historiography and the West End actor 36 The Female Surplus Question and the sex ratio 46 The female life 52 Professional welfare 58 3 THE SOCIAL DYNAMIC AND ‘RESPECTABILITY’ 69 Actresses’ defiance of socioeconomic prescriptions 71 Actresses and prostitutes 78 Sexual harassment 86 The quintessential sexual terror 97 v CONTENTS Part II Conditions of work 4 ACTRESSES AND THE MISE EN SCÈNE 105 Costuming the erotic topography 108 Gesture: ‘Every little movement has a meaning of its own’ 115 Figural composition in the mise en scène 122 Erotic verification 131 5 THE GEOGRAPHY OF SEX IN SOCIETY AND THEATRE 137 The erotic neighbourhood outside the playhouse 139 Erotic zones within the playhouse 146 Forestalling the erotic 151 Notes 164 Bibliography 182 Index 192 vi LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES 1 Multiples of increase in selected professional groups, England and Wales 1861–1911 8 TABLES 1 The acting profession in England and Wales, from census enumerations 1841–1911 10 2 Sex ratios of performers, 1841–1911 11 3 Actors in the principal cities of Britain, adjusted to representation in the general population, 1861–1911 12 4 Occupational groupings of the parents of late-Victorian actors 15 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Collage of pantomime scenes, Days’ Doings, 24 December 1870. 2 Drury Lane pantomime, Robinson Crusoe, 1881, Illustrated London News, January 1882. 3 Drury Lane pantomime, Robinson Crusoe, 1881, Theatre, January 1882. 4 A pantomime chorister, her attendants, dressers, and admirer, Days’ Doings, 24 December 1870. 5 Nellie Farren in the burlesque Ruy Blas, Gaiety Theatre, 1889. 6 Fred Leslie in Ruy Blas, Gaiety Theatre, 1889. 7 Finette in a volupté pose, carte-de-visite, late 1860s. 8 Colonna and her troupe, Days’ Doings, 8 October 1870. 9 Bouguereau, Aurora, realized in the first set of tableaux vivants at the Palace Theatre, 1893. 10 Solomon J.Solomon, Cassandra, realized in the first set of tableaux vivants at the Palace Theatre, 1893. 11 Violet Vanbrugh as Rosalind, c. 1888. 12 Punch cartoon satirizing working-class women’s theatrical aspirations. 13 Song sheet cover for ‘The Six Magnificent Bricks’, 1866. 14 Empire Theatre showing gallery, dress circle, balcony, and pit and stalls levels contentious in LCC hearings in 1893. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Research for this book has been conducted at numerous libraries and archives on two continents. Particular thanks are due to the staffs of the British Library and British Newspaper Library, British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings, General Register Office (Edinburgh), Glasgow University Archives, Greater London Record Office, Guildhall Library, Hackney Archives (Rose Lipman Library), London School of Economics (British Library of Political and Economic Science), Mander and Mitcheson Theatre Collection, Millicent Garrett Fawcett Library (City of London Polytechnic), Mitchell Library (Glasgow), Public Record Office (London), Royal Opera House Archives at Covent Garden, Theatre Museum (London), and the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings. In North America, I am indebted to the Harvard Theatre Collection, Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, the Lilly Library (Indiana University), New York Public Library at Lincoln Centre, Queen’s University at Kingston, University of Calgary, University of Illinois, University of Rochester Archives, University of Toronto, and Yale Center for British Art. Initially, the Webster endowment at Queen’s University enabled me to begin work systematically. Thereafter, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided grants and fellowships at critical moments; this ongoing support was instrumental in providing the encouragement, time, and resources needed to do research. Sections of the text incorporate revisions of articles previously published in the American Journal of Semiotics, New Theatre Quarterly, Nineteenth Century Theatre, Nordic Theatre Studies, Queen’s Quarterly, Theatre History Studies, Theatre Journal, Theatre Notebook, Popular Music, and Theatre Research International. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The personal debts accrued while writing a book are always enormous. The influence of the many feminist scholars and activists who crossed my path—in person or in print—during the conception and writing of this book cannot be overemphasized. In more than one fractious situation they kept me sane, entertained, and impassioned. Without Charlene Senn, Meredith Smye, Mary Laushway Davis, Neville Davis, Miriam Stanford, Jeanne Perreault, Susan Rudy Dorscht, Susan Bennett, Garrie Ellender, Georgia Farrell, Kathleen Foreman, Jeffrey Goffin, Roberta Hamilton, and Susan Irving the task would have been joyless, and probably impossible. Professionally, Susan Bassnett, Michael Booth, Clive Barker, J.S.Bratton, Jim Davis, Jane Steadman, Richard Foulkes, Louis Knafla, David Mayer, Thais Morgan, Thomas Postlewait, and Joseph Roach commissioned, read, or responded to portions of the work in its many manifestations, and I thank them for it. Peter Davis saw the book through to completion, and in so doing was more important, in every way, than he realizes. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material. If any proper acknowledgement has not been made, or permission not received, we would invite copyright holder to inform us of the oversight. x INTRODUCTION This book was initially conceived as a social history of women’s employment in the Victorian theatre. From that over-ambitious beginning, the project grew yet bigger. No single approach proved sufficient to tackle a question relating women’s work on stage to their social existence off stage. Extensive reading in the history of women, social welfare, labour agitation, feminist politics, fine art, theatrical production, popular culture, economics, and Victorian lives strengthened the conviction that the topic is multifaceted and that conventional subject boundaries are meaningless. In order to be faithful to my findings it became clear that the complicated