Post on 12-Jan-2017
Theatre in Victorian England
“It was only in the theatre that I lived.”(Oscar Wilde)
Context• 1800- Two
theaters• 1809- John
Kemble• 1843- Licensing• 1843- Building• 1843- West End
1808-1810
Talent and Technology• Actions• Visuals• Melodrama• Lighting• Hydraulics• John Ruskin
1877
Dramatists• Difficult • Shakespeare• “Real”
artists?• Money &
class• Dickens• Legislation• Realism• Naturalism• Modernism
1838
Oscar Wilde• Lady
Windermere’s Fan
• A Woman of No Importance
• An Ideal Husband
• The Importance of Being Earnest
St. James Theatre, 1896
Lady Windermere’
s Fan• “A Play
About a Good Woman”
• 20 Feb. 1892• Comedy• $845,833
A Woman of No
Importance• 19 April 1893• Haymarket
Theatre• Herbert
Beerbohm Tree
An Ideal Husband
• 3 Jan. 1895• Haymarket
Theatre• Lewis Waller• Success until
April
The Importance
of Being Earnest
• St. James’ Theatre
• Allan Aynesworth
• Evelyn Millard• Irene Vanbrugh• George
Alexander• Actor manager
of St. James
14 Fe
brua
ry 1
895
Programs
Works Cited• Auerbach, Nina. “Before the Curtain.” The Cambridge
Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, Edited by Kerry Powell, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 3-14.
• Bratton, Jack. “Theater in the 19th Century.” British Library, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/19th-century-theatre, Accessed 6 October 2016.
• “The Importance of Being Earnest: The First Stage Production, 1895.” Victoria and Albert Museum, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-importance-of-being-earnest-first-stage-production. Accessed 6 October 2016.
• Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dover, 1993.• Newey, Katherine and Jeffery Richards. “John Ruskin at the
Theatre.” John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 1-18.