An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance chronicles the history and development of theatre from the Roman era to the present day. As the most public of arts, theatre constantly interacts with changing social, political and intellectual movements and ideas, and Robert Leach's masterful work restores to the foreground of this evolution the contributions of women, gay people and ethnic minorities, as well as the theatres of the English regions, and of Wales and Scotland.
Highly illustrated chapters trace the development of theatre through major plays from each period; evaluations of playwrights; contemporary dramatic theory; acting and acting companies; dance and music; the theatre buildings themselves; and the audience, while also highlighting enduring features of British theatre, from comic gags to the use of props.
This first volume spans from the earliest forms of performance to the popular theatres of high society and the Enlightenment, tracing a movement from the outdoor and fringe to the heart of the social world. The Illustrated History acts as an accessible, flexible basis for students of the theatre, and for pure fans of British theatre history there could be no better starting point.
Author(s): Robert Leach
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: xxii+638
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Prologue: The Romans in Britain
Part one: Theatre before theatres
Timeline
1 The earliest British performances
2 Performing power
3 Playing and performing
4 The Christian epic
5 Didactic drama
6 Outdoor performance
7 The beginnings of professional theatre
8 Secular drama
9 Theatre in Scotland before 1600
10 Indoor performance
11 Theorising Tudor theatre
12 Fooling and clowning
13 The struggle for control
Select bibliography
Interlude: The Queen’s Men
Part two: Open Air Public Theatres
Timeline
14 Queen Elizabeth and the drama
15 The first permanent theatres
16 Plays and players in the 1570s and 1580s
17 Jigs and jig-makers
18 1587–94: The making of ‘Elizabethan’ theatre
19 Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men
20 The Admiral’s Men at the Rose Theatre
21 Staging in the open air playhouse
22 Acting in the open air playhouse
23 Elizabethan and Jacobean
24 Life of the Globe
25 Popular theatres, 1600–42
26 Popular audiences in the open air theatres
Select bibliography
Interlude: The boy companies of St Paul’s and the Chapel Royal
Part three: Cavalier theatre
Timeline
27 The Stuart monarchy and the theatre
28 A Game at Chess
29 The King’s Men at the Blackfriars Theatre
30 Beeston’s Boys and the Sons of Ben
31 Playgoing in the private theatres
32 Theatre at the courts of King James and King Charles
33 Theatre when the theatres were closed
34 The Restoration narrative
35 The Royal Patents
36 The Restoration playhouse
37 Plays on the Restoration stage
38 Restoration actors and acting
39 The Restoration audience
40 The end of Cavalier theatre
Select bibliography
Interlude: Dramatick opera
Part four: Theatre and bourgeois society
Timeline
41 A Glorious Revolution
42 New age, new plays
43 The actors’ co-operative
44 Immorality and profaneness
45 London theatre in the reign of Queen Anne
46 Augustan drama
47 Theatre practice in the first half of the eighteenth century
48 Provincial theatre, 1660–1740
49 Theatre in the reign of George I
50 Pantomime and ballad opera
51 After The Beggar’s Opera: London theatre in the 1730s
52 1737
Select bibliography
Interlude: Eighteenth century amateur theatricals
Part five: Theatre and Enlightenment
Timeline
53 After 1737
54 The patent theatres, 1737–77
55 Garrick and acting: Romantic realism
56 The Scottish Enlightenment and theatre
57 Mavericks
58 Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg and the stage picture
59 The provincial circuits
60 The London theatres of Sheridan and Kemble
61 Defining the nation: Plays and playwrights of the late eighteenth century
62 Siddons and acting: Romantic classicism
63 Whose theatre?
Select bibliography
Interlude: Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee
Glossary
Index
