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13 - Dickens and theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

John O. Jordan
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Summary

Dickens and theatre? It comes down to what you might mean by “and.” If you mean something like: could Dickens come into the theater as a participant, I'd say, certainly not. Oh yes, he tried. But early on he found he couln't. And thereafter he didn't.

That may seem surprising. Dickens is by every standard account the most theatrical of Victorian novelists. This Companion would be thought considerably less companionable if it lacked a chapter on Dickens and theatre (though perhaps not this chapter on Dickens and theatre). All his life Dickens paid fierce, unremitting attention to other people’s plays and to other people’s performances. What he saw he regularly purloined, and then transformed into fiction. He probably knew as much about the practical work of theaters as anyone working on a nineteenth-century stage. (Here I should point out that, following the practice in theatre studies, I am spelling as theatre anything like a playhouse, particularly a professional playhouse, and as theater, the practice or theory of performance.) Acting obsessed him. He supported actors experiencing financial hard times and even dreamed of the great actor Macready as his desirable double. His novels were quickly adapted to the stage, not just as they appeared, but, through the vagaries of serial publication, often even before they appeared (in book form).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Dickens and theatre
  • Edited by John O. Jordan, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521660165.014
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  • Dickens and theatre
  • Edited by John O. Jordan, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521660165.014
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Dickens and theatre
  • Edited by John O. Jordan, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521660165.014
Available formats
×