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Shakespeare and Nineteenth-Century Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Theodore J. Shank
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Extract

Although there was probably more drama written in English during the nineteenth century than in any previous century, the most popular dramatist of the period had been dead for two hundred years. The frequent presentations of Shakespeare's plays on the nineteenth-century stage caused certain problems—he had written for a different audience and a different theatre. The new audience found much in Shakespeare's plays to admire; but of special interest were the romantic and melodramatic aspects of the plays and the spectacle with which some of the managers interlarded them—the processions, the battles, the crowds, the tableaux, and especially the magnificent costumes and scenery.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 4 , May 1963 , pp. 59 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1963

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References

NOTES

1. McDowell, Arthur, Realism: a Study in Art and Thought (London: Constable, 1918)Google Scholar; and.NED.

2. Shank, Theodore J., “Theatre for the Majority: Its Influence on a Nineteenth Century American Theatre,” Educational Theatre Journal, XI, No. 3 (October, 1959), 188–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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4. Ibid., pp. 84–86.

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6. Quoted in Winter, , op. cit., p. 83.Google Scholar

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12. Quoted in Duerr, Edwin, “Early Stage Decoration in the American Theatre, 1772–1872,” unpublished thesis (Cornell University, 1931), pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

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20. This production was presented at the Park Theatre in 1846.

21. Albion (New York), January 10, 1846.

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25. This is on the authority of Charles H. Shattuck who said in a paper presented at the American Educational Theatre Convention in New York City, August, 1961, “In 1846, through the collaboration of George Ellis, the Drury Lane prompter, Kean obtained a copy of Macready's prompt-book and Telbin's w'atercolor scene designs [for King John].”

26. Quoted in Matthews, Brander, “The Conventions of the Drama,” Scribner's Magazine, XXIII (1898), 500.Google Scholar

27. Quoted in Odell, , Annals of the New York Stage, VI, 210.Google Scholar

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29. Quoted in Odell, , Annals of the New York Stage, VI, 291.Google Scholar

30. Cf. Kean, Charles, Shakespeare's Play of a Midsummer Night's Dream Arranged for Representation at the Princess Theatre (London: John K. Chapman and Co., 1856), p. ivGoogle Scholar; and Odell, , Annals of the New York Stage, VII, 131–132.Google Scholar

31. Quoted by Duerr, , op. cit., p. 197Google Scholar, from Laura Keene's preface to a later published version of the play.

32. Clyde Blakeley, Walter, “A Study of Staging Techniques of Charles Kean's Tempest with Comparative Notes on Other Nineteenth Century Productions of The Tempest,” unpublished thesis (Ohio State University, 1955), pp. 100–102.Google Scholar

33. Times (New York), December 10, 1858.

34. Ibid., February 8, 1869.

35. Quoted in Duerr, , op. cit., p. 214.Google Scholar

36. Turner, Godfrey, “Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations,” The Theatre, June, 1880, p. 350.Google Scholar

37. Quoted in Winter, William, Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1894), p. 46.Google Scholar

38. Charles Kean was elected a Fellow of this society in 1857, according to Strange, Edward F., “The Scenery of Charles Kean's Plays and the Great Scene Painters of His Day,” Magazine of Art, XXVI (September, 1902), 516.Google Scholar

39. “Behind, Below, and Above the Scenes;” reprinted in Appletons’ Journal, III (May 28, 1870), 591.

40. Winter, , Shakespeare on the Stage, second series, p. 275.Google Scholar

41. Felheim, Marvin, The Theatre of Augustin Daly (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Odell, , Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, II, 439.Google Scholar

43. Quoted in White, Natalie E., “Shakespeare on the New York Stage, 1891–1941,” unpublished dissertation (Yale University, 1946), p. 51.Google Scholar

44. Herald (New York), February 22, 1874. Quoted in Odell, , Annals of the New York Stage, IX, 397.Google Scholar

45. Tribune (New York), November 20, 1898.

46. Information on Daly's rearrangement of the text is based on his promptbook and presented in Felheim, , op. cit., pp. 266–268Google Scholar; and in Mangan, Nora Aileen, “Augustin Daly as a Producer of Shakespearian Drama,” unpublished thesis (University of Washington, 1937), pp. 205–223.Google Scholar

47. Mangan, op. cit., passim.

48. Tribune (New York), November 4, 1875.

49. Evening Post (New York), February 9, 1875.

50. Ibid.

51. Montgomery, George Edgar, “A Revival of Shakespeare's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream,’” The Cosmopolitan, V, No. 2 (April, 1888), 101–102.Google Scholar Dioramas had also been used by other managers in Henry V and in Antony and Cleopatra.

52. Quoted in Felheim, , op. cit., p. 221.Google Scholar Some managers actually staged events for which Shakespeare intended only a verbal description as when Charles Kean in Henry V showed the French camp at night with men playing dice while it was being described by the Chorus. Odell, , Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, II, 355.Google Scholar