Title: Mediated Performances: Negotiating the Theater of War on the Late Eighteenth-Century Stage and Page
Abstract: Mediated Performances: Negotiating the Theater of War on the Late Eighteenth-Century Stage and PageMary Robinson's two-act farce Nobody (Drury Lane, 1794) features humorous scene in which Nelly Primrose, bumbling servant woman, reads the newspa- per to her aristocratic employer, Lady Languid:Theatre Royal Drury Lane-Just imported large Quantity of Spirits-A certain Lady of the Monde-Stray'd from Field near Hackney-with Twelve waggon Loads of Flannel Shirts-for our gallant Troops on the Continent (I hope they'll arrive safe with all my Soul) At Cassino's last Ball-no one was more Admir'd for Beauty-than the Arabian Savage & the Kangaroos-The best Concert this year was perform'd by the Brunswick & the Vengeur (I suppose that was French Tune) The Piece concluded with Rule Britania-Gone Off, large quantity of Indian Crackers-whoever will bring them back?1Nelly's reading across the width of the newspaper page rather than vertically down column would no doubt have provoked audience laughter, but her misreading is less nonsensical than it may seem. In fact, it reveals striking as- sociations between the playhouse (Drury Lane), fashionable life and scandal Excellent Spirits, the Beau Monde, Mrs. Cassino's last Ball, a cer- tain Lady . . . stray'd), nationalism and war Troops, patriotic hymns, the 1794 naval battle between the English Brunswick and the French Vengeur), and colonialist spectacle (the Arabian Savage, Kangaroos, and Indian fire- works). Through the newspaper 's dazzling juxtaposition of reports, Robinson exposes the modern, complex cultural matrix of dramatic, social, and imperial performance.It is this very phenomenon that Daniel O'Quinn addresses in his insightful new study Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium 1770-1790 (Johns Hop- kins, 2011). In this book, he contends that the mediation of political and the- atrical events, both on the dramatic stage and newspaper page, became way for British imperial culture to negotiate the anxiety and loss that resulted from losing the war with America. Carefully situating his argument within histori- cal trajectory, he reveals how the close of the Seven Years' War, the rise of the dominant four-page newspaper such as the Morning Chronicle and the Morning Post, and the public demand for entertainment resulted in the increased inter- play between martial events, theatrical productions, and journalistic reportage. It was in this highly mediated environment, O'Quinn argues, that the theater and the press worked in tandem, not only to inform their audiences about the transatlantic military crisis but also to reflect upon the intimate link between political and public life. At time when British colonial identity was fracturing, the theater and the press became integral in conceptualizing and articulating anew what it meant to be Briton.As O'Quinn shows, the recalibration of British subjectivity in the years dur- ing and after the loss of the American colonies was dependent, in particular, upon reconfiguration of aristocratic sociability-one that exorcized effete and dissipated masculinity in favor of potent and virtuous male governance un- marred by bellicosity. In many ways, it entailed-a la David Garrick's Miss in Her Teens (Covent Garden, 1747)-a rejection of Fribble and Flash for the he- roic Captain Loveit. But, as O'Quinn demonstrates throughout his monograph, such maneuver was neither as straightforward nor as simple as Garrick's afterpiece might suggest. Indeed, it involved complex cultural negotiations in number of social arenas both at home and abroad. O'Quinn documents this transition through an interdisciplinary and multilayered examination of London stage plays (by dramatists such as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Han- nah More, Arthur Murphy, Charles Dibdin, John Home, Hannah Cowley, and George Colman the Younger), performance events (from theatricals, to outdoor festivals, to musical concerts), media commentary (newspaper reports and po- litical cartoons), music (by George Friedrich Handel), and poetry (by William Cowper). …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot