1st Edition

The Birth of Modern Theatre Rivalry, Riots, and Romance in the Age of Garrick

By Norman S. Poser Copyright 2019
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Birth of Modern Theatre: Rivalry, Riots, and Romance in the Age of Garrick is a vivid description of the eighteenth-century London theatre scene—a time when the theatre took on many of the features of our modern stage. A natural and psychologically based acting style replaced the declamatory style of an earlier age. The theatres were mainly supported by paying audiences, no longer by royal or noble patrons. The press determined the success or failure of a play or a performance. Actors were no longer shunned by polite society, some becoming celebrities in the modern sense.

    The dominant figure for thirty years was David Garrick, actor, theatre manager and playwright, who, off the stage, charmed London with his energy, playfulness, and social graces. No less important in defining eighteenth-century theatre were its audiences, who considered themselves full-scale participants in theatrical performances; if they did not care for a play, an actor, or ticket prices, they would loudly make their wishes known, sometimes starting a riot.

    This book recounts the lives—and occasionally the scandals—of the actors and theatre managers and weaves them into the larger story of the theatre in this exuberant age, setting the London stage and its leading personalities against the background of the important social, cultural, and economic changes that shaped eighteenth-century Britain.

    The Birth of Modern Theatre brings all of this together to describe a moment in history that sowed the seeds of today’s stage.

    List of figures

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

    Chapter 1: Dawn of an Era

    Chapter 2: Garrick in love

    Chapter 3: The cultural context

    Chapter 4: The Licensing Act

    Chapter 5: The actors’ strike

    Chapter 6: An Irish interlude

    Chapter 7: A visit to the theatre

    Chapter 8: A community of friends and rivals

    Chapter 9: Garrick onstage

    Chapter 10: The actor as celebrity

    Chapter 11: Garrick rules at Drury Lane

    Chapter 12: Shakespeare mania

    Chapter 13: The English Aristophanes

    Chapter 14: Foote and the dangerous duchess

    Chapter 15: A turbulent spirit

    Chapter 16: The Macbeth riots

    Chapter 17: End of an era

    Epilogue

    Bibliography

    Biography

    Norman S. Poser is Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn Law School. His previous books include Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason and Escape: A Jewish Scandinavian Family in the Second World War.

    "This book vividly reconstructs their (the actors) lives, careers and occasional scandals." Times Higher Education

    "The Birth of Modern Theatre is a vivid and easy to read account of eighteenth-century London and how this era marked the beginning of theater as we know it today." Broadway World

    "The Birth of Modern Theatre is frequently an engaging read, as one would expect from a compendium of juicy thespian lore, including the flooding of Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee and the amputation of Foote’s foot: these, truly, are anecdotes not of an age, but for all time." James Horowitz, Sarah Lawrence College