The French Revolution And The London Stage, 1789-1805

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE LONDON STAGE, 1789–1805 GEORGE TAYLOR Cambridge University Press THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE LONDON STAGE, 1789 ± 1805 During the French Revolution most performances on the London stage were strictly censored, but political attitudes found indirect expression. New and popular genres like pantomime, Gothic drama, history plays, musical and spectacular entertainment, and, above all, melodrama provided metaphors for the hopes and fears inspired by the con¯ict in France and subsequent European wars. George Taylor looks at how British drama and popular entertainment were affected by the ideas and events of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. He argues that melodrama had its origins in this period, with certain Gothic villains displaying qualities attributed to Robespierre and Napoleon, and that recurrent images of incarceration and dispossession re¯ected fears of arbitrary persecution, from the tyranny of the Bastille to the Jacobin's Reign of Terror. By a cultural analysis of the popular entertainment and theatre performances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Taylor reveals issues of ideological con¯ict and psychological stress. g e o r g e t a y l o r is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Manchester. He has written articles on Delsarte, Svengali, anti-slave trade plays and theatre production. He is the author of Players and Performances in the Victorian Theatre (1989) and Plays by Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy (1984) published by Cambridge University Press in the series British and American Playwrights. An anonymous cartoon of the production at Astley's Amphitheatre of Paris in an Uproar; or, the Destruction of the Bastille (17 August 1789) entitled `An Amphitheatrical Attack on the Bastille'. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE LONDON STAGE, 1789±1805 GEORGE TAYLOR PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING) FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia http://www.cambridge.org © George Taylor 2000 This edition © George Taylor 2003 First published in printed format 2000 A catalogue record for the original printed book is available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Original ISBN 0 521 63052 5 hardback ISBN 0 511 01282 9 virtual (netLibrary Edition) To Anna and Chris This Page Intentionally Left Blank Contents Acknowledgements Note on the text page viii x Introduction 1 1 England and France in 1789 15 2 The Revolution 42 3 From the Federation to the Terror 68 4 Dramatising (the) Terror 97 5 Performance and performing 127 6 The shadow of Napoleon 156 7 Theatre and alienation 188 Re¯ections towards a conclusion 220 Notes Bibliography Index 226 249 257 vii Acknowledgements At a time when academics are being urged to set up collaborative research projects, and to use postgraduates to do the donkey work of literature se