Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820-1870 (Studies in Theatre History & Culture) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877453608 ISBN 13: 9780877453604

Publisher: University Of Iowa Press, 1992

Synopsis

The middle years of the nineteenth century were a time of dynamic artistic and social changes in America. Now, Melodramatic Formations is the first study to trace these changes in popular stage melodrama's production, dramatic form, and audience reception. Bruce McConachie shows how the theatrical mutability that characterized the years 1820 to 1870 is inextricably tied to the decline of elite paternalism and republicanism and the rise of bourgeois rationalism and respectability.

Taking a rigorous interdisciplinary approach, McConachie examines several historical regularities of production, genre, and audience. Here theatre (and its drama) has at long last been returned to its general culture, rather than being treated as an isolated phenomenon. Ultimately, he develops a new notion of a theatrical formation—a construct where groups of spectators and theatre performers produce each other as artists-to-be-experienced and audiences-to-be-entertained.

Throughout Melodramatic Formations McConachie illustrates how theatre both maintains and produces various ideologies; he convincingly shows that theatre is a major player in our social and cultural history. This book will be of interest to all in American studies, theatre history, and American cultural history.

About this title

From Library Journal:

Addressing an obscure era in our native theater, McConachie (theater, Coll. of William and Mary) offers a Marxist critique of mid-19th century American society. Theater reflected dominant political and social attitudes of the period, he argues, and its audience changed over time. An elite, paternalistic, and mostly masculine group patronized fairy tale melodramas; then heroic and apocalyptic theater attracted a mixed class of spectators; finally, a family audience, including women for the first time, came to see moralistic dramas. Strong on social and textual criticism, McConachie's analysis nevertheless fails to bring the age alive. This is an important academic study--not much work has been done on the period--but it needs a scholar with imagination and storytelling power to re-create this tumultuous time. Recommended for professionals only.
- Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., Mass.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0877453608
• ISBN 13: 9780877453604
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 334
• Editor: Bruce A. McConachie