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Art, Folly, and the Bright Eyes of Children: The Origins of Regency Toy Theatre Reevaluated

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Gordon S. Armstrong
Gordon S. Armstrong
Affiliation:
Teaches in the Department of, Theatre at the University of Rhode Island
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Extract

Regency toy Theatre flourished in England in the years between 1811 and 1830. At the height of its popularity thousands of middle and working class youths, together with their upper class “betters,” escaped the grim realities of industrial London for the joys of staging — and playing all the parts of — The Fairy of the Oak, or Harlequin's Regatta (1811), Ferdinand of Spain, or Ancient Chivalry (1813), Bluebeard (1824), or even more exotic pieces such as “The Grand New Spectacle called Korastikan, Prince of Assassins” (1824).

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , November 1985 , pp. 121 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1985

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References

NOTES

1 Information for this paper was researched in part in the Harvard Theatre Collection of the Pusey Library, Harvard University, courtesy of the generous cooperation of Ms. Jeanne Newlin, Ms. Martha Mahard, and their invaluable associates.

2 The standard histories on the subject of toy Theatre are Wilson, A. E., Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured (London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1932)Google Scholar, and Speaight, George, The History of the English Toy Theatre (Boston: Plays, Inc., 1946, 1969).Google Scholar

3 Wilson, , Penny Plain, p. 33.Google Scholar

4 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 13.Google Scholar

5 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

6 Mayhew, Henry, London Labour and the London Poor (1851; London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1967)Google Scholar. Reprinted as London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. I–IV (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1968).Google Scholar

7 Wilson, , Penny Plain, p. 34.Google Scholar

8 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 92.Google Scholar

9 This plate follows the London stage production of Harlequin and Asmodeus at Covent Garden during the Christmas season of 1810. The production was a hit and was affectionately known as “Cupid on Crutches.”

10 This may very well be the plate t hat West announced as his first plate, or first series of plates, in the interview with Henry Mayhew published in 1851. See also Mayhew, Henry, The Unknown Mayhew, ed. Thompson, E. P. and Yeo, Eileen (New York: Random House, Inc., 1971) pp. 283–88.Google Scholar

11 William West, in Henry Mayhew, Letter XXXVIII–25 February 1850, Morning Chronicle, reprinted in “New Light on the Juvenile Drama,” ed. Morice, Gerald and Speaight, George, Theatre Notebook, 26 (October, 1971-July, 1972), 115–21.Google Scholar

12 Mayhew, , “New Light,” pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

13 Mayhew, , “New Light,” pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

14 Mayhew, , “New Light,” p. 115.Google Scholar

15 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 11.Google Scholar

16 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 13.Google Scholar

17 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 15.Google Scholar

18 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 17.Google Scholar

19 Hauser, Arnold, “A Flight from Reality,” The Social History of Art (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1958), p. 71.Google Scholar

20 Hauser, , Social History, p. 76.Google Scholar

21 Mayhew, Henry, “The London Street-Folk,” London Labour, III, 316Google Scholar. The section is sub-titled: “Cyclopedia of the Conditions and Earnings of Those that Will Work, Those that Cannot Work, and Those that Will Not Work.

22 Mayhew, , London Labour, III. 389.Google Scholar

23 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, pp. 142. 144, 208.Google Scholar

24 Mayhew, , “New Light.” p. 120.Google Scholar

25 The Columbia Encyclopedia (New York: Columbia University Press. 1963), ed. W. Bridgewater and Seymour Kurtz, p. 1723.Google Scholar

26 Speaight, , Toy Theatre, p. 100.Google Scholar

27 Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured,” The Magazine of Art, April, 1884, reprinted in The Victoria, an Original Pollock Toy Theatre (London: Pollock's Toy Theatres, 1972), p. 6.Google Scholar

28 Mayhew, , “New Light,” p. 119.Google Scholar