Synopses & Reviews
In eighteenth-century England, actresses were frequently dismissed as mere prostitutes trading on their sexual power rather than their talents. Yet they were, Felicity Nussbaum argues, central to the success of a newly commercial theater. Urban, recently moneyed, and thoroughly engaged with their audiences, celebrated actresses were among the first women to achieve social mobility, cultural authority, and financial independence. In fact, Nussbaum contends, the eighteenth century might well be called the "age of the actress" in the British theater, given women's influence on the dramatic repertory and, through it, on the definition of femininity.
Treating individual star actresses who helped spark a cult of celebrity—especially Anne Oldfield, Susannah Cibber, Catherine Clive, Margaret Woffington, Frances Abington, and George Anne Bellamy—Rival Queens reveals the way these women animated issues of national identity, property, patronage, and fashion in the context of their dramatic performances. Actresses intentionally heightened their commercial appeal by catapulting the rivalries among themselves to center stage. They also boldly challenged in importance the actor-managers who have long dominated eighteenth-century theater history and criticism. Felicity Nussbaum combines an emphasis on the actresses themselves with close analysis of their diverse roles in works by major playwrights, including George Farquhar, Nicholas Rowe, Colley Cibber, Arthur Murphy, David Garrick, Isaac Bickerstaff, and Richard Sheridan. Hers is a comprehensive and original argument about the importance of actresses as the first modern subjects, actively shaping their public identities to make themselves into celebrated properties.
Review
"This is an exceptional work of mature scholarship by two internationally distinguished senior specialists in the history of theatre. . . . What Milhous and Hume have done is to assemble more information and evidence on this subject than ever produced before and to bring illuminating critical analysis and order to this immense body of material."
Synopsis
Historians of British theater have often noted that the eighteenth century was an age not of the author but of the actor. In Rival Queens, Felicity Nussbaum argues that the period might more accurately be seen as the age of women in the theater, and more particularly as the age of the actress.
Synopsis
A great deal of bibliographic and historical scholarship has been devoted to English drama up to 1660, but after the renaissance scholarship grows scant: late seventeenth-century plays have received little such attention, and eighteenth-century plays hardly any. This ground-breaking study by two internationally renowned scholars in theater history asks fundamental questions that have often been previously ignored--Who published plays? What was the cost of publication, the risk, and the potential profit? What did single plays cost, and what did play collections cost? How much market existed for used copies and at what prices? What did playwrights earn from publication, and how important was it to their income? What was the function of illustrations in published plays, and what can we learn from these illustrations?
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This study, a significantly expanded version of the Panizzi Lectures delivered by the authors at the British Library in 2011, will become a vital work in the field, laying the groundwork for a generation of future scholarship.
About the Author
Judith Milhous is Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professor Emerita in Theatre at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her publications include the two-volume co-authored history Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London. Robert D. Hume is Evan Pugh Professor of English Literature at Penn State University. He is the author and editor of many works on English theater and opera, including, most recently, Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham.