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Protest in the Playhouse: Two Twentieth-Century Audience Riots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Athenaide Dallett
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Abstract

Theatre historians are now reconsidering traditional attitudes towards ‘theatre riots’ of the past, in the light of the new perception of ‘mob’ activity pioneered by the social historian George Rudé. Here, Athenaide Dallett looks at two more recent audience revolts – the well-documented riots at the opening of Synge's The Playboy of the Western World in Dublin in 1907, and the indignant response of Berkeley students in 1968 to the Living Theatre's presumption in Paradise Now, in lecturing them about a revolution already taking place on the streets. In both cases, she suggests, riots were provoked by a breach of the contract between performers and audience, taken as legitimating a revolutionary response by such social theorists as Locke and Rousseau. Athenaide Dallett, who recently gained her doctorate from Harvard, teaches at the University of Connecticut at Torrington, and is currently working on a study of the connections between political philosophy and theatre.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 48 , November 1996 , pp. 323 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

Notes and References

1. Scarry, Elaine, ‘Political Theatre and the Structure of Drama’, lecture at Harvard University, 18 09 1990Google Scholar.

2. Locke, John, Treatise of Civil Government, in Sherman, Charles L., ed., Treatise of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (Meredith-Appleton, 1937), p. 148Google Scholar.

3. Ibid.

4. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract, in The Essential Rousseau, trans. Bair, Lowell (NAL-Meridian, 1975), p. 72Google Scholar.

5. Piscator, Erwin, The Political Theatre, trans. Rorrison, Hugh (Eyre Methuen, 1980), p. 173Google Scholar.

6. Worrall, Non, ‘Introduction’ to Synge, J. M., The Playboy of the Western World (Methuen, 1983), p. 20Google Scholar.

7. Ibid., p. 10–12, and Greene, David H. and Stephens, Edward M., J. M. Synge (Macmillan, 1989), p. 255Google Scholar.

8. ‘The Abbey Theatre – “The Playboy of the Western World”’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 28 Jan. 1907, p. 10. The Playboy riots have long been remarked upon in theatre histories, but attention has not been given to the precise ways in which the spectators exercised a right to revolution. Edward M. Greene and David H. Stephens, for instance, emphasize different details reported by the press. I rely centrally on contemporary press accounts for my reconstruction of the audience's actions and opinions, while drawing with appreciation upon Greene and Stephens for information concerning the views and actions of Synge and his fellow members of the National Theatre Society.

9. ‘The Playboy of the West’, Irish Times, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 5.

10. ‘The Abbey Theatre – Uproarious Scenes’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 7.

11. ‘The Playboy of the West’, Irish Times, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 5.

12. ‘The Abbey Theatre – Uproarious Scenes’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 7.

13. Greene and Stephens, op. cit., p. 259.

14. ‘Abbey Theatre Scenes’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 30 Jan. 1907, p. 8.

15. Ibid.

16. ‘The Abbey Theatre – More Uproar’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 31 Jan. 1907, p. 7.

17. ‘The Playboy of the Western World’, Irish Times, 1 Feb. 1907, p. 6.

18. ‘The Abbey Theatre’, Irish Times, 4 Feb. 1907, p. 9.

19. Greene and Stephens, op. cit., p. 264.

20. Ibid., p. 255, and Worrall, op. cit., p. 13.

21. ‘To the Editor of the Freeman's Journal’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 28 Jan. 1907, p. 10.

22. ‘Interview with Mr. W. B. Yeats’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 30 Jan. 1907, p. 8. Yeats's poem, ‘On Those That Have Hated The Playboy of the Western World, 1907’, compares the play's foes to eunuchs beholding Don Juan.

23. Greene and Stephens, op. cit., p. 269.

24. ‘The People and the Parricide’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 6.

25. Greene and Stephens, op. cit., p. 269.

26. Worrall, op. cit., p. 10–12.

27. ‘The People and the Parricide’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 6.

28. Ibid.

29. ‘To the Editor of the Freeman's Journal’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 28 Jan. 1907, p. 10.

30. ‘The Abbey Theatre – Uproarious Scenes’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 29 Jan. 1907, p. 7.

31. ‘Another Prosecution’, Irish Times, 1 Feb. 1907, p. 6.

32. ‘Abbey Theatre Scenes’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 30 Jan. 1907, p. 8.

33. ‘Parricide and Public’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 5 Feb. 1907, p. 6.

34. ‘The “Freedom of the Theatre”’, Freeman's Journal and National Press, 5 Feb. 1907, p. 7.

35. Blau, Herbert, The Audience (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), p. 167Google Scholar.

36. Biner, Pierre, The Living Theatre (Horizon, 1972), p. 26–101Google Scholar.

37. Ibid., p. 42.

38. Ibid., p. 174.

39. Ibid., p. 173.

40. My description of Paradise Now is based upon Biner, op. cit., p. 173–313, and Neff, Renfreu, The Living Theatre: USA (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), p. 206–17Google Scholar.

41. Neff, op. cit., p. 168.

42. Miller, Jeanne, ‘Play and Clothes Fail to Come Off’, San Francisco Examiner, 22 02 1969, p. 8Google Scholar.

43. Ibid.

44. Neff, op. cit., p. 169.

45. Gilmore, Lance, ‘Governor At Meeting’, San Francisco Examiner, 21 02 1969, p. 4Google Scholar.

46. ‘Troops Alert for Action’, San Francisco Examiner, 21 Feb. 1969, p. 4.

47. Gilmore, op. cit., p. 4.

48. Neff, op. cit., p. 168.

49. Miller, op. cit., p. 8.

50. Neff, op. cit., p. 165–6.

51. Biner, op. cit., p. 174.

52. Miller, op. cit., p. 8.

53. Ibid.

54. Neff, op. cit., p.168–9.