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UMI Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 NEGOTIATION AND LEGITIMATION: THE BRITISH PERIODICAL PRESS AND THE STAGE 1832-1892 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Scott Phillips, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1999 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. Alan Woods, Adviser Dr. Thomas Postlewait Adviser Dr. Esther Beth Sullivan Department of Theatre UMI Number: 9931669 Copyright 1999 by Phillips, Matthew Scott Ail rights reserved. UMI Microform 9931669 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Matthew Scott Phillips 1999 "The manager who first invented the term Legitimate Drama,' was certainly a clever manager, and one who well knew his public. That term seems to act on some minds almost like a spell; by its own mere force, it has created a conviction ... that plays which can be so called have a certain claim on public patronage " Anonymous, "Poets and Players," Frasier's Magazine Nov. 1851: 51 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the ways in which the eclectic magazine press of nineteenth-century Britain contributed to the definition of theatrical legitimacy. While the influence of magazines predates the nineteenth century, it was in the 1800s that mass distribution of periodicals became possible and an explosion in periodical readership occurred. The technology for mass distribution made possible an increase in the influence of the magazine press several orders of magnitude beyond that which it had enjoyed in the eighteenth century, and allowed periodicals to assiune a major role as social arbiters and formulators of opinion. The dissertation examines the role of the periodical press in the legitimation of certain types of performance and certain categories of theatre, and specifically the ways in which the process of theatrical legitimation was bound to the concept of middle-class respectability. Employing several hundred theatre-related articles from a cross section of the most eclectic and broad-based Victorian magazines as a foundation for its conclusions, the dissertation examines the rhetorical strategies employed by the eclectic press throughout the nineteenth century, most particularly the mid- and late-century, which served to imbue certain forms of theatrical entertainment with an aura of cultural legitimacy. II The study demonstrates a number of insights into the role of the press as a definer of taste and a formulator of opinion. It is undeniable that audience demographics changed markedly during Victoria's reign, that theatre-going became much more acceptable to people whose parents and grandparents would never have approved of doing so themselves, and that the vocation of the actor became, as the century drew on, more and more a profession into which a gentleman or respectable woman might enter. In this sense, the British stage underwent a remarkable transformation-some would suggest rehabilitation- during the nineteenth century. But these demographic and social trends were dependent upon rhetorical definitions, the nature of the term "respectability," and the parameters of the "legitimate". The rhetoric of the press is not hard data. One cannot interpret the words of a periodical writer without taking into consideration the underlying ideological constructs behind those words. A study of the rhetoric of the press suggests that the nineteenth-century theatre's rehabilitation took place as much on the printed page as it did in actual practice. The demographic changes so central to the history of the nineteenth-century London stage were, of course, very real, but it was the rhetoric of respectability and legitimacy that provided the paradigm through which those trends were understood, and it was the press which played a major role in defining that paradigm. Ill Dedicated to Morgan L. and Maijorie J. Phillips my parents and first teachers IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser. Dr. Alan Woods, who has supported and encouraged me since my very first day as a masters candidate at The Ohio State University. I will be forever grateful for his mentorship. Thanks also goes to Drs. Beth Sullivan and Thomas Postlewait for their time and effort as members of my dissertation committee, and for their many comments, suggestions and words of encouragement I am most grateful to Dr. Martha Garland, whose class in Victorian history provided the idea for this dissertation. Her class was one of my most memorable at OSU. I would also like to recognize the fine collection of nineteenth-century periodicals held by the Ohio State University Library, and hereby express my appreciation for its open-stack policy, without which my research would have been very difficult indeed. Finally, I must express my appreciation and gratitude for my family, my parents Dr. Morgan L. Phillips and Maijorie J. Phillips for their unconditional support, for my wife Margaret and her tremendous patience, and my sons Samuel and Maxwell for allowing me to hog the computer. VITA August 27, 1961 ..............................................................Bom- New Haven, Connecticut 1983 B.A., Theatre, Ohio Wesleyan University-, Delaware, Ohio 1983-1984................................................................... Conservatory Training, Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, New York, New York 1986-1990 ...................................................................... Development Staff Member, The Goodman Theatre Chicago, Illinois 1990-1995 ......................................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio 1992 ................................................................................M.A., Theatre, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992 ................................................................................Adjunct Instructor of Theatre, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 1993-1996 .....................................................................Theatre Critic, The Columbus Guardian 1996 ................................................................................Adjunct Instructor of Theatre; The Ohio State University, Newark Campus at COTC, Mt. Vernon, Ohio VI 1998................................................................................Adjunct Instructor of Theatre; The Ohio State University, Newark Campus, Newark, Ohio 1996-present ...................................................................Theatre Critic, The Columbus Dispatch PUBLICATIONS 1. Matthew S. Phillips and Joy H. Reilly, Introducing Theatre. 3rd ed.. New York: American Heritage, 1998. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................. ii Dedication........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................v V ita.................................................................................................................................. vi Chapters: 1. Introduction...................................................................................................................1 2. Defining Legitimacy: The Parliamentary Hearings of 1832 and 1892 ................ 28 3. The Periodical Press and Anti-Theatrical Prejudice..............................................64 4. Actors and Acting as Represented in the Victorian Press.....................................101 5. Rational Entertainment, Music Hall, and the Working Class Spectator 161 6. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................204 Bibliography...................................................................................................................212