This book offers the first full historical treatment of a music theatre that was once at the centre of London's West End. From the late Victorian period to the early 1920s, musical comedy was the single most popular form of 'legitimate' theatre entertainment. This lively account establishes musical comedy as one of the first industrial cultures and offers fascinating insights into how it functioned ideologically as a celebrated embracing of the modern condition.
Modernists and the Theatre is the first study to examine how theories of modernism intersect with those of the theatre within the works, philosophies and literary lives of six key modernist writers. Drawing on a wealth of unfamiliar archive material and fresh readings of neglected documents, James Moran reveals how these literary figures interacted with the theatre through playwriting, by engaging in philosophical debates and participating in theatrical performances. Chapters assess W.B. Yeats's very earliest playwriting, Ezra Pound's onstage acting, the interconnections between James Joyce's and D.H. Lawrence's sense of drama, Eliot's thinking about theatre in Dublin, and the feminist politics of Virginia Woolf's small-scale theatrical experiments. While these writers valued coterie production and often made hostile comments about drama, this volume highlights the paradoxical fact that, despite their harsh words, the theatrically 'large-scale' also attracted each of these writers. The theatre event of 'restricted production' offered modernists a satisfying mode of sharing their work amongst the like-minded, and the book discloses a set of unfamiliar events of this sort that allowed these writers to act as agents of legitimation in granting cultural value. The book explores their engagements with popular drama, as well as the long-forgotten acting performances in which each of these writers personally participated. Moran uncovers how the playhouse became a key geographical space where the high-modernists could explore a tension that fascinated them, and which motivated much of their wider thinking and literary work.
Sutton presents a study of the influence of Richard Wagner on the work of Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). She explores the role of Wagnerism within British culture of the 1890's, in particular the relations between Wagnerism and the decadent movement.
From 1880 to 1956, when John Osborne transformed the British theater world with Look Back in Anger, British playwrights made numerous lasting contributions and provided a foundation for the innovations of dramatists during the latter half of the 20th century. This reference profiles the life and work of some 40 British playwrights active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom are also known for their work as novelists and poets. Included are figures such as W. H. Auden, Max Beerbohm, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot, John Galsworthy, Graham Greene, D. H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. Each entry provides a biographical overview; a list of major plays and summaries of their critical reception; a list of minor plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career; and archival and bibliographical information. Included in this reference book are alphabetically arranged entries for some 40 British playwrights active from 1880 through 1956. Entries are written by expert contributors, with each entry providing a biographical overview; a list of major plays, premieres, and significant revivals, along with a summary of the critical reception of these works; a listing of additional plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career and contributions, with reference to published evaluations in magazines, journals, dissertations, and books; a listing of locations housing unpublished archival material, if available; a selected bibliography of the dramatist's published plays and of essays and articles by the playwright on aspects of the theater; a selected bibliography of secondary sources; and, when available, a listing of previously published bibliographies on the playwright.
The project of global art history calls for balanced treatment of artifacts and a unified approach. This volume emphasizes questions of transcultural encounters and exchanges as circulations. It presents a strategy that highlights the processes and connections among cultures, and also responds to the dynamics at work in the current globalized art world. The editors’ introduction provides an account of the historical background to this approach to global art history, stresses the inseparable bond of theory and practice, and suggests a revaluation of materialist historicism as an underlying premise. Individual contributions to the book provide an overview of current reflection and research on issues of circulation in relation to global art history and the globalization of art past and present. They offer a variety of methods and approaches to the treatment of different periods, regions, and objects, surveying both questions of historiography and methodology and presenting individual case studies. An 'Afterword' by James Elkins gives a critique of the present project. The book thus deliberately leaves discussion open, inviting future responses to the large questions it poses.
THE HONOURABLE MRS VICTOR BRUCE: record-breaking racing motorist; speedboat racer; pioneering aviator and businesswoman – remarkable achievements for a woman of the 1920s and ’30s. Mildred Bruce enjoyed a privileged background that allowed her to search for thrills beyond the bounds of most female contemporaries. She raced against the greats at Brooklands, drove 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle and won the first ladies’ prize at the Monte Carlo Rally. Whilst Amy Johnson was receiving global acclaim for her flight to Australia, Mildred learned to fly, and a mere eight weeks later she embarked on a round-the-world flight, becoming the first person to fly solo from the UK to Japan. Captured by brigands and feted by the Siamese, Japanese and Americans, she survived several crashes with body and spirit intact, and became a glittering aviation celebrity on her return. A thoroughly modern woman, she pushed similar boundaries in her unconventional love life and later became Britain’s first female airline entrepreneur. This is the story of a charismatic woman who defied the conventions of her time, and loved living life in the fast lane.
This title was first published in 2003. Problem pictures were very popular during the Edwardian period. These pictures invited multiple interpretations of modern life and were often slightly risque. Pamela Fletcher explores how these works of art engaged with questions of gender, sexuality and identity during their heyday.
Paul Bern, known throughout the movie business as "Hollywood's Father Confessor," earned a reputation for being a loyal and supportive friend and for becoming one of MGM's most respected and creative directors. After his death, though, he was said to have grown so depressed and despondent over his own apparent sexual inadequacies that he committed suicide, and he would be denounced for attempting to rape his new bride Jean Harlow. In this biography, the author uncovers startling new facts and argues that MGM knew the real story of Bern's death--that an estranged, mentally ill common-law wife murdered him. MGM understood that the earlier spouse rendered Bern's marriage to Harlow, its fastest-rising star, ambiguous if not bigamous, so the studio staged a suicide and embarked on a very public tarnishing of his memory. Included are 93 rare photos, many lost for decades, along with three appendices examining the handwriting on an alleged suicide note and Bern's will and estate.
This is the first bibliography in its field, based on first-hand collations of the actual articles. International in scope, it includes publications found in public theatre libraries and archives of Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Florence, London, Milan, New York and Paris amongst others. Over 3500 detailed entries on separately published sources such as books, sales and exhibition catalogues and pamphlets provide an indispensible guide for theatre students, practitioners and historians. Indices cover designers, productions, actors and performers. The iconography provides an indexed record of over 6000 printed plates of performers in role, illustrating performance costume from the 18th to 20th century.
