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ENTERTAINING THE EMPIRE: THEATRICAL TOURING COMPANIES AND AMATEUR DRAMATICS IN COLONIAL INDIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

TOBIAS BECKER
TOBIAS BECKER*
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
*
Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Koserstraße 20, 14195 Berlin, Germany[email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that theatre in colonial India – both in the form of touring companies and amateur dramatics – offered much more than mere entertainment: first, it was an important social space where the British diaspora constituted itself as a community. Secondly, it served as a lifeline to the home country. By watching theatrical performances either brought to them straight from London or which they performed themselves, colonial Britons felt in touch with their homeland. Finally, theatre not only allowed colonial audiences to participate in the metropolitan culture; it inadvertently helped to unify the British empire. Whether living in London, the provinces, or a colonial city, all British subjects consumed the same popular culture, forming in effect one big taste community. Theatre, therefore, lends itself to a discussion of central issues of imperial history, as, for example, the relationship between the metropolitan centre and the imperial periphery, the colonial public sphere, social and racial hierarchies, the perception of the ‘Other’, and processes of cross-cultural exchange and appropriation.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 699 - 725
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Kerstin Lange, Len Platt, and Andreas Weiß, as well as to the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts

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