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The rise of absolutism
Entertainments at court
CASE STUDY: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the perils of print culture in New Spain
Realizing absolutism in stage design
Louis XIV and Molière
CASE STUDY: Molière and carnival laughter
Absolutism and neoclassicism in France and England, 1660–1700
Reforming Baroque opera
Absolutism and neoclassicism in the German states and Russia, 1700–1770
The limits of neoclassicism and absolutism in France, 1720–1770
Summary

Part II: Works cited

PART III Theatre and performance in periodical print cultures


Part III timeline
Introduction: Theatre for bourgeois civil society

7 Theatre and sentiment: newspapers, private lives, and the bourgeois public sphere,
1700–1785
Sentiment and periodical print culture
Sentimental drama in England
Pantomime, satire, and censorship in England
CASE STUDY: Censorship in eighteenth-century Japan
Sentiment and satire on the continent
Changes and challenges in sentimentalism
Acting in the eighteenth century
CASE STUDY: Theatre iconology and the actor as icon: David Garrick
Performers and the public
Theorizing acting
Summary

8 Nationalism in the theatre, 1760–1880


Print, theatre, and liberal nationalism, 1760–1800
CASE STUDY: Friedrich Schiller’s vision of aesthetic education and the German dream
of a national theatre
The French Revolution, melodrama, and nationalism
European cultural nationalisms, 1815–1848
Nationalism in Russia and Italy, 1848–1880
Wagner and racial nationalism in Germany, 1848–1880
Liberal and racial nationalisms in the Americas
CASE STUDY: Imagining a white nation: Minstrelsy and U.S. nationalism, 1840–1870
Summary

9 Performing “progress”: From imperial display to the triumph of realism and


naturalism, 1790–1914
Modern imperialisms
Performing imperialism and Orientalism at the great expositions
Distorting science to justify imperial entertainments
Imperialism and Orientalism in British theatre
Variety theatre and music hall
“Internal imperialism” and the origins of jingju (“Beijing Opera”)
Western artists appropriate non-Western imagery
CASE STUDY: Inventing Japan: The Mikado and Madama Butterfly
New media and new ideologies: Photography, science, and positivism
The rise of realist staging
Naturalism on stage
Realism and the rise of producer-directors
Ibsen and Romantic idealism
Chekhov undermines nineteenth-century theatre
Ibsen, Chekhov, and the critique of photography
CASE STUDY: Ibsen’s A Doll House: Problems in Ibsen’s problem play
Summary

10 New media divide the theatres of print culture, 1870–1930


Spectacular bodies on popular stages
CASE STUDY: Retailing glamor in the Ziegfeld Follies
Print culture for stars and playwrights
Audiophonic media after 1870
The emergence of avant-garde theatre
Symbolism and Aestheticism
German Expressionism
CASE STUDY: Strindberg and “The Powers”
Expressionism in the United States
Institutionalizing the avant-garde
Summary

Part III: Works cited

PART IV Theatre and performance in electric and electronic communication culture


Part IV timeline
Introduction: Theatre and the unceasing communications revolutions

11 New theatres for revolutionary times, 1910–1950


War and the movies
Revolutionary predecessors
Theatricalizing the Russian Revolution
CASE STUDY: Lenin’s Taylorism and Meyerhold’s biomechanics
Revolutionary theatres West and East
CASE STUDY: Brecht and the science of empathy
Theatres of anti-imperialism, 1910–1950
Theatrical modernism
Yeats, Pirandello, and the modernist legacy
Theatricalizing modernism
Summary

12 The aftermath of the Second World War: Realism and its discontents in an
increasingly shrinking world, 1940–1970
The impact of the Second World War on the victors and the defeated
Postwar theatre and the Cold War
CASE STUDY: Cultural memories and audience response: A Streetcar Named Desire in
the 1940s
CASE STUDY: Social drama in Kerala, India: Staging the “revolution”
Happenings, protest, and the growth of alternative theatre in the U.S.
Summary

13 Art, politics, or business? Theatre in search of identity, 1968–2000


The 1960s: A historical crossroads
Theatre and electronic media
Theatre, politics, and cultural change
CASE STUDY: Athol Fugard: Theatre of witnessing in South Africa
Questioning the author(ity)
Performance art
The growth of non-commercial theatres
Summary

14 Theatres of local roots and global reach, 1970–present


Local roots, global reach, hybrid play, and social change in “Shakespeare”
Global theatre culture
Theatres of cultural differentiation
Theatre as a zone of contact
CASE STUDY: Imagining contemporary China
The global reach of theatre for social change
Summary

15 Theatre in networked culture, 1990–present


New players
CASE STUDY: Online role-playing games as theatre
Changing platforms for theatre and performance
New performance structures and processes
CASE STUDY: Hip Hop theatre
Summary: Thinking through theatre histories

Part IV: Works cited

Pronunciation guide
Glossary
Index
Figures

Part I Introduction: The Rosetta stone


1.1 Zoumana hunter
1.2 Map: The Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin, West Africa
1.3 Mask worn to represent the character of Gorilla
1.4 The sacred barque of Amun-Ra in a relief from a temple of Seti I
1.5 Fragment from a relief from a tomb at Sakkara (c.1250 BCE)
1.6 Map of Egypt c.1850 BCE
1.7 Map of the Mayan and Aztec empires in Mesoamerica
1.8 Rabinal Achi, or the Man of Rabinal
1.9 Map of the eastern Mediterranean during the fifth century BCE
1.10 Theatrical figures on the Pronomous Vase
1.11 Aerial photo of the Theatre of Dionysus and the Parthenon
1.12 Model of the early classical Theatre of Dionysus at Athens
1.13 Model of the Theatre of Dionysus after its expansion in the fourth century BCE
1.14 The Hellenistic theatre at Epidaurus, 340–330 BCE
1.15 Theatre mask dating from the fourth or third century BCE
2.1 Menander, with three masks of Greek New Comedy
2.2 Roman marble relief showing a performance of masked characters typical of Roman comedy
2.3 Statue of a masked slave character from Roman comedy
2.4 Ground plan of the Theatre of Pompey (55 BCE), Rome
2.5 The Bhagavan or Hermit in a kutiyattam production of The Hermit/Harlot in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 1977
The Bhagavan or Hermit’s wayward student, Shandilya in a kutiyattam production of The Hermit/Harlot in
2.6
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 1977
2.7 Floor plan of a playhouse for Sanskrit theatre in India
Temple theatre, known as a kuttampalam, built for kutiyattam in the Lord Vadakkunnathan (Siva) temple in Trissur,
2.8
central Kerala
2.9 Cross-section of the interior of the theatre in a temple in Trissur
2.10 The Progeny of Krishna, Scene 2
2.11 A Japanese no stage
2.12 No stage plan, indicating locations of musicians, chorus, and attendants
2.13 Zo-onna mask
2.14 Aka-hannya (“red demon”) mask
2.15 Performance of the nō play Dōjōji at the Kanze Theatre, Tokyo, 1962
2.16 Abbot and priests attempting an exorcism in Dōjōji
3.1 Battle of Carnival and Lent (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
3.2 Performers of the Guatemalan Rabinal Achi wearing masks
3.3 Purim celebrations
3.4 The Three Marys at the Tomb (1425–35), altarpiece by Jan and/or Hubert van Eyck
3.5 Prayer book illustration of an early Corpus Christi ritual (c.1320)
3.6 Detail from a painting of a city procession honoring the visit to Brussels in 1615 of Spain’s Archduchess Isabella
Scene from the medieval play The Martyrdom of St. Apollonia, from the Livre d’Heures pour maître Etienne Chevalier
3.7
(c. 1452–1456)
3.8 Setting for a Passion play in Valenciennes, France, 1547
3.9 Plan of the mansions and playing area for the morality play The Castle of Perseverance, c. 1400–1425
3.10 Scissors dancer from Peru
3.11 Map showing extent of Christian and Moorish territories in 1490
3.12 Stonework depicting a sexualized Lucifer tempting Christ
Drawing made in 1942 of a Native American as a Spanish Christian saint on a horse in a moros y cristianos production
3.13
on Christmas Day at San Felipe Pueblo
3.14 Qur’an fragment
3.15 A nineteenth-century performance of Ta’ziyeh
3.16 A Ta’ziyeh commemorative performance
3.17 Effigy of Ravana, the ten-headed demon-king
3.18 A Ramlila svarup on Hanuman’s shoulders
Part II Introduction: A woodblock print of a Western European printing shop
4.1 Thirteenth-century (Song dynasty) music drama (zaju)
4.2 “Mountebank distributing his wares on the stage”
4.3 Scene from the 1457 French farce, La Farce de Maître Pierre Pathelin
4.4 Late sixteenth-century engraving showing three stock characters from the commedia dell’arte
4.5 Artist’s impression of the interior of the seventeenth-century Spanish playhouse, El Corral del Principe (c. 1697)
4.6 A plan of the new Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
4.7 A 1596 drawing of the interior of the Swan Theatre, London
4.8 Detail from a painting showing Okuni, the dancer who originated kabuki
4.9 Japanese bunraku puppets
A performance of the popular kabuki play, Shibaraku (Wait a Moment!), in Tokyo’s Nakamura Theatre in the mid-
4.10
nineteenth century
4.11 Danjūrō XII as Sukeroku in the kabuki play Sukeroku: Flower of Edo
4.12 Onoe Baikō, in the onnagata (female) role in Fuji Musume (The Wisteria Maiden)
4.13a and b Tamasaburō as the courtesan Agemaki in the kabuki play Sukeroku, and as Lady Macbeth
Faustus (played by Edward Alleyn) conjures a devil on the title page for a seventeenth-century edition of The Tragical
5.1
History of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe
5.2 Interior of the reconstructed Globe Theatre, London
5.3 Sketch of a set by Laurent Mahelot for Pierre Du Ryer’s Poliarque et Argénis
5.4 The “Mousetrap” scene from the 2008 production of Hamlet by the RSC

6.1 Political map of Europe, c.1730


6.2 Setting for a comic scene by Sebastiano Serlio, from De Architettura, 1569
6.3 Costume designed by Inigo Jones for The Masque of Queens (1609)
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in 1666 as a lady-in-waiting for the viceregal court in Mexico City, and as a nun in the Order
6.4
of San Jerónimo
Cut-away drawing by Gustaf Kull of the chariot-and-pole machinery for changing flats at the Drottningholm Court
6.5
Theatre in Sweden
6.6 Giacomo Torelli’s setting for Act II of Pierre Corneille’s Andromède at the Petit-Bourbon Theatre, 1650
6.7 Plan of the Salle des Machines, designed by Gaspar Vigarani
6.8 Scena per angolo stage setting designed for a chariot-and-pole theatre by Giuseppe Galli Bibiena
Detail from the painting Village Festival in Honor of St. Hubert and St. Anthony by Pieter Brueghel the Younger
6.9
(1564?–1637)
6.10 Orgon and Tartuffe in Molière’s Tartuffe
6.11 The stage of Dorset Garden Theatre, London
6.12 Aphra Behn
6.13 Portrait of Carlo Broschi (Farinelli)
6.14 Margrave’s theatre in Bayreuth, Germany
6.15 Touring players on their temporary stage before an audience in a market square in Munich in 1780
Part III Introduction: The first page of the first issue of The Spectator, 1711
7.1 A Scene from The Beggar’s Opera (1729) by William Hogarth
7.2 Kabuki actor
7.3 Scene from The Quarrel of the Theatres
7.4 Scene from Friedrich Maximilian Klinger’s The Twins
7.5 “Terror.” From J.J. Engel, Ideen zu Euer Mimik (1812)
7.6 Mr. Garrick in the Charakter of Richard the 3rd (1746), engraving by Charles Grignion
7.7 Mr. Garrick in Hamlet, James McArdell, 1754
7.8 Mr. Garrick in the Character of King Lear, James McArdell
7.9 Garrick and Hogarth, or The Artist Puzzled. Color print by R. Evan Sly, 1845
8.1 The Weimar Court Theatre interior in 1798
8.2 A scene from Pixérécourt’s The Forest of Bondy (1843)
8.3 Henry Irving in his production of The Bells at the Lyceum Theatre, London, 1871
8.4 Political map of Europe in 1820
James Robinson Planché’s antiquarian design for the king’s costume in Charles Kemble’s 1824 production of
8.5
Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1
8.6 Contemporary illustration of the Hernani riots
8.7 Tommaso Salvini as Othello
8.8 Political map of Europe in 1880
8.9 Floor plan for Wagner’s Festival Theatre at Bayreuth

8.10 Political map of South America in 1825


8.11 Henry Johnson posed as Barnum’s “What Is It?” (c.1872)

8.12 Cover for sheet music performed by Bryant’s Minstrels in an 1862 minstrel show in New York City
9.1 A view of the buildings and grounds for the Paris Exposition of 1867
9.2 George Leybourne (c.1867)
9.3 Jingju actor as Xiangyu, the king of Chu in The King’s Parting with His Favourite
9.4 Ruth St. Denis performing Egypta, one of her “Oriental dances”
9.5 a and b Examples of Japonisme in art (Van Gogh and Monet)
9.6 English actor/singer George Grossmith in The Mikado (1885)
9.7 Scene from Thomas W. Robertson’s Caste, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, 1879
9.8 Kei Aran performs in the Takarazuka theatre’s production of The Rose of Versailles
9.9 Emile Zola’s The Earth, Théâtre Antoine, Paris, 1902
9.10 Moscow Art Theatre production of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths, 1902
9.11 André Antoine in the Théâtre Libre’s 1892 production of Hauptmann’s The Weavers
9.12 Crowd scene in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at Drury Lane Theatre, 1881
V.S. Simov’s 1898 naturalistic design for Act I of the Moscow Art Theatre’s production of Anton Chekhov’s The
9.13
Seagull
9.14 Scene from Gundegowdana Chaitre, an Indian adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Rangayana Theatre in Mysore, 1995
9.15 Final scene of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Lyttelton Theatre, London, 1982
9.16 Premiere production of A Doll House at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen, 1879
9.17 Trading card depicting the final scene from Ibsen’s A Doll House
9.18 Ibsen’s A Doll House at Center Stage, Baltimore, Maryland, 1991
10.1 U.S. vaudeville star Eva Tanguay
10.2 Dolores (Kathleen Mary Rose Wilkinson)
10.3 Sarah Bernhardt as Marguerite Gautier, 1880
10.4 Poster of Sarah Bernhardt in the title role of the young male poet in Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzacchio
10.5 Adolphe Appia’s design for Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, Orpheus and Eurydice, 1913
10.6 Scene from the 1919 Expressionist production of Transfiguration (Die Wandlung), 1918, by Ernst Toller
10.7 Old Cabot, Abbie and Eben Cabot in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, 1924
10.8 Karl Walzer’s design for a scene from Reinhardt’s production of Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening (1906)
Part IV Introduction: A transistor and a vacuum tube
11.1 Political maps of Europe before (1914) and after (1922) the Great War
11.2 Photograph from the 1905 production of Shaw’s Major Barbara at the Royal Court Theatre, London
Alfred Jarry’s lithographed program for the 1896 Paris premiere of his play Ubu Roi (King Ubu), at the Theatre de
11.3
l’Oeuvre, staged by Aurélien Lugné-Poe
Lyubov Popova’s Constructivist set for Meyerhold’s 1922 production of The Magnanimous Cuckold, by Fernand
11.4
Crommelynck
The “meat mincer” setting, designed by Varvara Stepanova, for Meyerhold’s 1922 production of The Death of Tarelkin,
11.5
by Alexander Kobylin
Image from Triple-A Plowed Under, a 1936 “living newspaper” production by the U.S. Federal Theatre Project about
11.6
the Agricultural Adjustment Act
11.7 Helene Weigel singing as Mother Courage in the first scene of Brecht’s staging of Mother Courage and Her Children
in Berlin, 1949
11.8 Katrin in Scene 11 of the 1949 production of Brecht’s Mother Courage
11.9 The Old Vic production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, 1934
11.10 Stage of the Vieux-Colombier, designed by Jacques Copeau, as adapted for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
12.1 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in a 1970 revival directed by Roger Blin
12.2 Paris premiere production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (Fin de partie) in 1957 at the Studio Champs-Élysées
Peter Hall’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Aldwych Theatre, London,
12.3
1965
12.4 Jo Mielziner’s setting for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, 1949
12.5 Scene from the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955
12.6 Okhlopkov’s production of Hamlet, Mayakovsky Theatre, Moscow, 1954
12.7 A 1993 production of Memories in Hiding by Tooppil Bhaasi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
12.8 The jailed Paramu Naayar in Memories in Hiding
12.9 A 1970 production of Amiri Baraka’s Slave Ship, directed by Gilbert Moses at Theatre-in-the-Church
13.1 Poster for a production of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, at Wyndhams Theatre, London, 1980
13.2 Woza Albert!, Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1982
13.3 Philippine Educational Theatre Association’s 1896, performed in 1995 and 1996
13.4 Ryszard Cieslak in Jerzy Grotowski’s production of Akropolis at the Polish Laboratory Theatre, Wroclaw, 1962
13.5 Premiere production of Weiss’s Marat/Sade, at the Schiller Theatre in Berlin in 1964
13.6 Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Peter Brook with the Royal Shakespeare Company, 1970
13.7 Euripides’ The Bacchae, directed by Klaus-Michael Grüber, Schaubühne Theatre Company, Berlin, 1974
13.8 The Crucible sequence from the Wooster Group’s L.S.D. (… Just the High Points …), directed by Elizabeth LeCompte
“Spaceship” section of Einstein on the Beach (by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s
13.9
Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, New York, December 8, 1984
Final scene of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches from the 1992 production of the
13.10
Royal National Theatre, London, directed by Declan Donnellan
13.11 Peter Hall’s 1984 production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus at the National Theatre
14.1 Touring production of Romeu & Julieta by Grupo Galpão in 2000
14.2 The cast of the musical The Lion King performs at the 62nd Annual Tony Awards in New York, 2008
14.3 A scene from the Colombian Carnival of Barranquilla
14.4 A tourist photographs the performance work Two Amerindians Visit
Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata: the archery tournament for the young cousins, in Part I: The Game of Dice, from the
14.5
1986 production at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris
Dancing chorus members in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulus, in the Les Atrides cycle as staged by the Théâtre du Soleil,
14.6 directed by Ariane Mnouchkine at the Cartoucherie, Paris, 1990

Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, in the Les Atrides cycle of the Théâtre du Soleil, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine,
14.7
Cartoucherie, Paris, 1990
The grandmother in Eréndira, an adaptation from Gabriel García Márquez’s short novel, directed by Amal Allana,
14.8
New Delhi, 2004
14.9 Cover image from playbill for eXtras, Mexico City, 2003
14.10 Butoh dancer Akaji Maro
14.11 Backstage of a wayang kulit shadow-theatre in the city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia
14.12 A SEKA performer in a large mask clowns for Zambian villagers
15.1 Australian performance artist Stelarc in Amplified Body
15.2 Les Frères Corbusier’s Heddatron
15.3 The Realm of Mystara, a role-playing region in Second Life
15.4 Scene from Arthur Kopit’s Wings, University of Kansas’s Institute for Exploration of Virtual Reality, in 1996
15.5 Oedipus Rex as performed in Second Life by the Avatar Repertory Theater, 2010–2011
15.6 A scene from Robert Lepage’s Zulu Time (2001)
15.7 Scene from Sleep No More
15.8 British playwright Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis
15.9 Impossible Theater’s [missed connections]
15.10 B-boys breakdancing in San Francisco, 2008
15.11 Aya de León’s Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip-Hop (2003)
About the authors

Bruce McConachie is Professor and Director of Graduate Students at the University of


Pittsburgh, where he also directs and performs. He has published widely in U.S. theatre
history, theatre historiography, and performance and cognitive studies. Some of his major
books include Interpreting the Theatrical Past, with Thomas Postlewait (University of Iowa
Press, 1989); Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820–1870 (University
of Iowa Press, 1992, awarded the Barnard Hewitt Prize in Theatre History); American Theater
in the Culture of the Cold War (University of Iowa Press, 2003); Performance and Cognition,
with F. Elizabeth Hart (Routledge, 2006); Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to
Spectating in the Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); and Evolution, Cognition, and
Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Professor McConachie is also a co-editor of
the Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance series for Palgrave Macmillan and a
former President of the American Society for Theatre Research.

Tobin Nellhaus is an independent scholar and former Librarian for Performing Arts, Media
and Philosophy at Yale University. He has published mainly on the relationship between
theatre and communication practices, and on critical realism in theatre historiography. He is
the author of Theater, Communication, Critical Realism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and co-
editor (with Susan Haedicke) of Performing Democracy: International Perspectives on Urban
Community-Based Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2001). His articles have
appeared in Theatre Journal, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Journal of Critical
Realism, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, the collections Performance and
Cognition (ed. Bruce McConachie and F. Elizabeth Hart, Routledge, 2006) and Staging
Philosophy: Intersections of Theater, Performance, and Philosophy (ed. David Krasner and
David Z. Saltz, University of Michigan Press, 2006), and elsewhere. He was a Fulbright fellow
at the University of Helsinki, and received a fellowship from the American Council of Learned
Societies.

Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei is Professor Emerita of Theatre at UCLA and was recently a Fellow
at the Institute for Theatre Studies’ International Research Center on Interweaving
Performance Cultures at Berlin’s Freie Universität. In 2014, she was honored by the
Association for Asian Performance as one of the Founding Mothers of Asian Theatre Studies.
She is the author of Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-Garde Theatre of Terayama Shūji and
Postwar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2005), translations from Japanese, and many
articles and essays on Japanese and intercultural performance. Her sixteen original plays
include the award-winning Medea: A Noh Cycle Based on the Greek Myth, the kabuki-
flamenco Blood Wine, Blood Wedding, and (with director Zvika Serper) the Japanese-Israeli
fusion The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds. Her newest play Ghost Light: The Haunting (with
director Penny Bergman) fuses the kabuki Yotsuya Kaidan and Macbeth. She is Associate
Editor of Asian Theatre Journal and Editor of the Newsletter of the Association for Asian
Performance.

Tamara Underiner is Associate Dean for Research for the Herberger Institute for Design and
the Arts at Arizona State University, and Associate Professor in the School of Film, Dance and
Theatre, where she directs the Ph.D. program in Theatre and Performance of the Americas.
She is the author of Contemporary Theatre in Mayan Mexico: Death-Defying Acts (University
of Texas Press, 2004), and has published on indigenous and Latina/o theatre and critical
pedagogy in Theatre Journal, Signs, Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance, TDR, and
critical anthologies from academic presses in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. She is active in the
American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and
the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics.
Preface to the third edition

The third edition of Theatre Histories constitutes a major revision. Our overarching aims for
the book are the same, including global coverage, case studies on particular developments or
issues in theatre history, discussions of historiographical approaches, and a focus on
communication practices. For this edition, however, we sought four particular goals that
proved transformative: to address the connections between communication and theatre more
sharply; to reexamine the narratives or themes of each chapter; to rebalance the amount of
discussion on some topics; and to keep the book at roughly the same length to control costs.
As a result, material has been extensively reorganized and re-thought. The chapters of this
edition seldom match those of the second – most of them differ in their chronological
coverage and sometimes their themes. The material in the second edition’s lengthy Part
introductions has moved into regular chapters, and each Part now has a brief introduction
which establishes overall contexts and keynotes. Similarly, we decided that instead of a
chapter on popular entertainment, we would distribute those topics among other chapters. The
second edition’s Preface, which addressed some of the functions of a book introduction, has
been replaced with a fuller General Introduction that explains several central issues in
historiography and orients students to the book’s goals, focus, and structure. To accommodate
expanded discussion of some topics, material that we felt was useful but no longer central was
transferred to the website, to keep it available to instructors. The substantial percentage of the
book that was absorbed by bibliographies has been much reduced, to allow more space for the
chapters: we include the media resources and the works actually cited within the book, and we
list other consulted works on the Theatre Histories website.
We reshaped Part I of Theatre Histories most substantially. Topics that were in three
different chapters now appear in one, and coverage of ritual has been greatly reduced. There
were several reasons for these changes. We wanted to move to discussions of theatre sooner,
and in the process, sharpen the focus on how theatre is affected by changes in communication.
In addition, although the material on ritual was meant to illuminate the sorts of performance
appearing in oral cultures, due to its quantity it seemed to offer inadvertent support for the
now much-doubted theory that ritual (or alternatively, religion) is theatre’s origin. However,
instructors who want to address ritual and the development of language in more detail will
find those discussions on the website.
The apparent quieting of the “theory wars” within theatre studies and our desire to give
instructors more flexibility when addressing topics in theatre history led us to loosen the
relationship between case studies and theoretical approaches. In this edition, some case studies
introduce a specific approach, but others do not. Likewise, some of what we previously called
“Interpretive approaches” are now independent of a case study; but between expanding the
range of topics that the “Interpretive approaches” sections could encompass, and realizing that
the phrase “interpretive approaches” could be misconstrued as meaning the analysis of theatre
history consists merely of opinions, we decided to rename those segments “Thinking through
theatre histories.” They now discuss not only historiographical methods and perspectives, but
also narrative strategies and particular historiographical problems. Readers may notice that
there is no section explicitly on feminist approaches (of which, of course, there are many).
However, women’s activities and gender issues (including feminist and queer theory) are
addressed throughout the text and in some of the case studies.
The third edition provides several new case studies; we moved others to the website
(corrected as needed) so instructors who want to use them can do so. In several instances, the
new edition has a condensed version of a case study and we have put the full version on the
website. In the course of Theatre Histories’ revisions and online resource development, we aim
to build a repertory of case studies and other materials which instructors can select in order to
shape their courses in a manner that is both flexible yet consistent with the overall approach
taken in this book.
Readers of Theatre Histories’ first and second editions will notice a different roster of
authors for the third. Such turnover was intended from the book’s beginnings. Gary Jay
Williams and Phillip B. Zarrilli took the opportunity to step down; Tobin Nellhaus and Tamara
Underiner came on board. The new team adopted two connected goals for our revision
process: more collaboration and greater coordination. Toward the former, we took numerous
steps. All of the authors had a voice in major content and organizational decisions. Rather than
have a single author take sole responsibility for one of the book’s Parts, each author was
assigned chapters in at least two Parts. Nearly every chapter became the product of combined
authorship, bringing new perspectives throughout. The contributors are shown in each
chapter’s byline. And once all of the chapters were near their final form, we all read and
commented on each other’s work. To provide unity within this extensive collaboration, we
established the role of General Editor.
In the midst of our collaboration, however, we of course have our individual outlooks. We
agree on the main principles of theatre historiography, but we have differing views on how to
weigh the many factors that shape theatre at any particular time, and we have our own
interests within theatre history. We believe that these differences in themselves help this book
achieve its goals. Thus the plural in “theatre histories” refers to several things: the multiplicity
of performance practices in the world, both geographically and chronologically; the diversity
of theories, facets, emphases, and goals in theatre historiography; and the mix of perspectives
and personalities that contributed to the making of Theatre Histories’ third edition.
All of us, however, owe a deep debt of gratitude to the authors who are no longer involved
in the book. Specifically, Phillip B. Zarrilli’s contributions are embedded in Chapters 1–4 and
12, and work by Gary Jay Williams appears in Chapters 6–9 and 12–15. In addition, both of
them wrote materials in the previous editions that are now available on the website. Readers
will continue to hear their voices in this new edition of Theatre Histories.
Bruce McConachie
Tobin Nellhaus
Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei
Tamara Underiner
Acknowledgments

The authors want to express again our gratitude to Routledge’s Talia Rodgers, Publisher, for
her belief in and long support of this project, from conception through this third edition. Talia’s
support of this new approach to creating a theatre history text has been an act of faith. We
also want to thank Suzanne Richardson, Development Editor, who assisted us through the
numerous complexities of producing this new edition, and the rest of Routledge’s textbook
production staff.
A history of this scope is possible in great part, of course, because of the specialized works
of many dedicated scholars. We are indebted to them; we have drawn on them often and
happily. Their works are cited in this text and in the extended bibliographies on our website.
Many of our colleagues have been especially supportive. We especially wish to thank for
their advice and encouragement Jay Ball, Daniel Banks, Jason Bush, Claire Conceison, Dave
Escoffery, Faye C. Fei, Lance Gharavi, Richard Hornby, David Jortner, Margaret Knapp,
Marianne McDonald, David Mayer, Paul Murphy, Stuart Sillars, Julia Walker, Andrew
Weintraub, E.J. Westlake, Gary Jay Williams, S.E. Wilmer, W.B. Worthen, and Jiayun Zhuang.
Simon Williams was initially involved in this project and provided valuable contributions at an
early stage. We have listened to and benefited from the external reviewers of our work,
including our critics; they have helped us serve our readers better. We look forward to future
conversations with our readers.
We are grateful to our students, who have been there at every stage of the journey, helping
to shape what we think is a necessary new step for thinking about theatre and performance
history. We have each benefited also from the long-term research support of our universities:
the University of Exeter, the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of Pittsburgh,
the Catholic University of America – Washington, DC, the University of California – Los
Angeles, and Arizona State University.
We have also had the strong, enduring support of families and partners. Their considerable
sacrifices made it possible for the work to get done, and we express our heartfelt thanks to all
of them, including Gerry Magallan, Stephanie McConachie, and Richard Hornby.
Routledge would like to thank all those archives and individuals who have given permission
to reproduce images in this textbook. In a few rare cases, we were unable, despite the utmost
efforts, to locate owners of materials. For this we apologize and will make any corrections in
the next reprint if contacted.

Bruce McConachie
Tobin Nellhaus
Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei
Tamara Underiner
General introduction

Tobin Nellhaus

The goals of Theatre Histories


Theatre Histories aims to introduce the history – or as we will explain, histories – of theatre,
drama, and performance. The meaning of that sentence may seem obvious: the book presents
information about people, plays, and performance practices such as acting, costumes, and
staging. But we also have two other goals. One is to consider theatre’s relationships with some
of its many social contexts. The other is to raise questions about the meaning of evidence and
events, and discuss different ways of interpreting them. Raising such questions often entails
“unpacking” facts and statements because they contain more (or perhaps less!) than meets the
eye.
For example, as the first sentence of this introduction shows, we will often use two or three
terms, sometimes in combination, to describe our focus: “theatre,” “drama,” and
“performance.” The three terms overlap each other, but one can distinguish them reasonably
clearly.
“Drama” is generally used to describe plays, collectively or in the singular. Occasionally it’s
used more broadly in order to refer to what is performed (fictional characters and actions,
even if based on historical people and events), as distinct from how it is performed; the drama
might not be a script at all, just ideas and character types in the performers’ minds. For some
people, “drama” carries the narrower sense of plays as literary works, printed texts to be read
as “dramatic literature,” apart from performance; however, for the authors of this book, the
connection to performance is essential.
By “theatre” we usually mean live performances by skilled artists for live audiences, usually
of drama or something drama-like. Such performances engage the spectators’ imagination,
emotion, intellect, and cultural perspectives, at varying levels. They may or may not take place
in buildings built specifically for theatrical performance. Sometimes the audience members are
also the performers. In theatre, everyone involved is aware that the performance presents a
fiction. True, occasionally people use “theatre” to describe performances which attempt to lead
observers into thinking that what they are watching is not fictional, or situations in which
spectators observe other people as though (unbeknownst to them) they are fictional
characters; but for the purposes of this book, these cases apply the term “theatre”
metaphorically.
The term “performance” generally refers to embodied presentation on stage (or with
surrogates for the body, such as puppets). However, the term has a special meaning today in
the field of performance studies to include all the ways in which humans represent themselves
in embodied ways. Scholars apply that sense of “performance” not only to the staging of plays
but also to religious rituals, state ceremonies, carnivals, political demonstrations, athletic
contests, the customs of a family dinner table, the ways people portray themselves in social
media, and many other activities. In that sense, theatre is but one of many kinds of
performance.
Occasionally Theatre Histories employs this broader sense of “performance.” We think it is
natural and enlightening to make connections between theatre and other types of
performance. For that reason, even though Theatre Histories is not a performance studies
textbook, we consider a wide range of performances – from Japanese puppetry to productions
of plays by Samuel Beckett, from the dance-dramas of India to early twentieth-century high-
fashion musical revues, and from ancient Greek drama to the Hip Hop plays created globally.
We believe the juxtapositions among these will attune the reader to appreciate better the wide
spectrum of theatre and performance in many cultures.
The scope of “theatre history” in Theatre Histories must also be unpacked. Knowing about
theatre globally is vital today. For example, it is not unusual for playwrights, directors, and
designers to be inspired by the theatre of other cultures (possibly ancient ones), and sometimes
actors are expected to know or quickly absorb foreign acting methods. In addition, cultures
today are constantly crossing national borders and influencing each other, such as the
importation of K-Pop music and Bollywood movies into Western countries, or the
performance of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in China and the adoption of rap music
across the planet. For those reasons we strive to provide an understanding of theatrical
performance around the world, throughout its known existence. We also believe that isolating
the study of Western from non-Western theatre does not serve students well. For that reason,
most chapters in Theatre Histories include theatre from various parts of the world, with a few
exceptions where thematic or other reasons made it unfeasible.
In our view, the history of theatre involves more than actors, performance spaces, plays, and
staging. Theatrical performances occur within society. Thus Theatre Histories often discusses
political, cultural, economic, and other social issues, and how they affected theatre, drama, and
performance. The relationships among these various social dynamics, and between them and
theatre, are extremely complex. However, Theatre Histories will pay one element special
attention: a society’s communication practices (its uses of speech, handwriting, printing, and
electronics). We discuss this focus in more detail below.
Writing theatre history involves more than accumulating facts. Historians have to make
decisions about what information is most important, and develop an understanding of how
events are related. In other words, the process of writing about history – historiography –
always involves interpretations of the past. One of the goals of Theatre Histories is to provide
not just information about theatre, and not just our own interpretations of that information,
but also an understanding of how interpretations come into being – how history is written –
in order to enable students to evaluate historical writing. The remainder of this introduction
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