Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-256) and index.
Contents:
The theatrical network -- The representation of race on the Georgian stage -- James Hewlett, Ira Aldridge and The Death of Christophe, King of Hayti -- Islamic India restored: El Hyder and Tippoo Saib at the Royal Coburg Theatre -- The North African Islamic states on the British and American stage -- Pacific pantomimes: Omai, or, A Trip Around the World and The Death of Captain Cook -- Colonists, convicts, settlers and natives: La Perouse, Pitcairn's Island and Van Diemen's land!
Summary:
"Harlequin Empire 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."--BOOK JACKET.
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