Absence and Memory in Colonial American Theatre: Fiorelli's Plaster

ISBN-13: 9781403971005 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 322 str.

Odai Johnson

Opis

In the case of colonial theater in America, much of what we know about performance has come from the detractors of theater and not its producers: anti-theatrical legislation, sermons, petitions, and prohibitions against the theater, all of which have resulted in a history told as a contest of Puritan and Player. Yet such a narrative hardly accounts for the flourishing theatrical circuit established between 1760 and 1776 (nineteen theatres in seven colonies and the Anglophone Caribbean). This study explores the culture's social support of the theater in the material evidence it left behind as well as the immaterial evidence: the culture's memory of theater, and its enormous desire for it.

Recenzje

"With Absence and Memory in Colonial American Theatre, Odai Johnson has written a book that scholars of American Theatre and early American History have been waiting for. He explores histories and lives that have remained largely unknown until this point. Johnson challenges previous misconceptions about the development of the colonial stage, and through meticulous research, helps to fill in numerous gaps in the historical record. Moreover, his imaginative framework and narrative allow the work to transcend a simple historical account of events, offering a creative new paradigm for theatre research." - Heather S. Nathans, University of Maryland

"Odai Johnson demonstrates that our historical memories and narratives on American colonial theatre and society have shaped the evidence to tell a distorted story of anti-theatricalism, counter to the far more interesting and complex history that emerges here. With this book, Odai Johnson establishes himself as a theatre historian we all must read." - Thomas Postlewait, Ohio State University

Spis treści

PART ONE: (IM)MATERIAL WITNESSES Working Up from Post-holes Mr. Sauthier's Maps The Anatomy of Desire The Countenance of Mr. Douglass Mrs. Warren's Profession Assuming the Wall PART TWO: CARE-TAKERS OF MEMORY Spoiling Nice Stories Case Studies The Burning of the Lena Edwin Silent Travelers, Silent Journals The Perfect Storm

O autorze

ODAI JOHNSON is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington's School of Drama, USA. He is the author of Rehearsing the Revolution, co-author of The Colonial American Stage, a Documentary Calendar, and numerous articles on the American theatre.