Harlequin Empire:
Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment
David Worrall
The Enlightenment World
978 1 85196 851 0: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 536 6
David Worrall explores the presentation of foreign cultures and ethnicities on the popular British stage from 1750 to 1840. Under the 1737 Licensing Act, Covent Garden, Drury Lane and regional Theatres Royal held a monopoly on the dramatic canon. Excluded from polite dramatic discourse, non-patent theatres produced harlequinades, melodrama, pantomimes and spectacles. Worrall argues that this illegitimate stage was the site for a plebeian Enlightenment. Discussions about natural and civil rights, voyage and discovery, and Britain’s relationship with other cultures were relentlessly enacted.
Romantic period drama is a growing field for study. Worrall combines thorough historical analysis with an enjoyment of the vitality and diversity of the works discussed.
Sample pages
Readership
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Empire and Colonial Studies, History of the Theatre
Contents
Chapter 1: The Theatrical Network
Chapter 2: The Representation of Race on the Georgian Stage
Chapter 3: James Hewlett, Ira Aldridge and The Death Of Christophe, King Of Hayti
Chapter 4: Islamic India Restored: El Hyder and Tippoo Saib at the Royal Cobourg Theatre
Chapter 5: The North African Islamic States on the British and American Stage
Chapter 6: Pacific Pantomimes: Omai, Or, A Trip Round The World And The Death Of Captain Cook
Chapter 7: Colonists, Convicts, Settlers And Natives: La Perouse, Pitcairn’s Island and Van Diemen’s Land!
Reviews
'This book is extensively documented and benefits from Worrall's thorough research of dramatic subgenres.
Summing Up: Recommended'
– CHOICE
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