Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:36:08.118Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

Conclusion

Get access

Summary

This book has been at pains to demonstrate both the diversity of the Georgian repertoire's treatment of race, and the extent of its cultural presence. In London, despite a hostile regulatory regime, the burletta houses' separation from the canon of spoken drama created persistent counter-narratives concerning Britain's contacts with other nations and peoples. Belatedly, such transformations provided the pre-conditions which permitted the first black actor to perform on a British stage. However, despite the daunting scale of Georgian theatricality, and the extent of the networks along which its texts flowed, it is necessary to insist that the cultural meaning of drama is primarily located at the site of the performance venue and only secondarily present in the hermeneutics of reading. The sheer volume of contemporary theatre engendered unpredictable environments of performance which often had clear bearings on race and nationality. In John Henry's, A School for Soldiers; or, the Deserter. A Dramatic Piece in Four Acts. Performed in the Island of Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica, 1783), the entire cultural context of slavery is completely eliminated as Mrs Mildmay, one of the white residents, celebrates how ‘our inveterate enemies the French, have been obliged to leave this city’ as ‘our very friendly allies the English’ enter Kingston. Hector, her male friend's unobliging reply is, ‘For my part, I do not like the English; I am a good patriot, you understand me madam?’ With the mid-1780s abolition movement in Britain preparing to render traffic in slaving less straightforward, if far from suppressed, Hector's patriotism is firmly directed towards the United States of America. In the author's copy at the Huntington Library, the volume is inscribed with John Henry's manuscript note that ‘This piece is now performing in America (with many alterations) adapted to the Meridian of the U.S. and the Scene laid in Philadelphia’. With several British army officers and officials in the subscription list, it was time to move one's patriotism towards a nation more at ease with slavery.

Type
Chapter
Information
Harlequin Empire
Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment
, pp. 189 - 190
Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

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 Dropbox.

Available formats
×

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.

Available formats
×