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The Americanization of Beatrice: Nineteenth-Century Style
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
To nineteenth-century theatre managers, who believed in the play as a commercial venture rather than an aesthetic one, portrayal of the modern American woman presented a dilemma. Sophisticated theatregoers, familiar with the rhetoric of the women's suffrage movement, looked to female role models for direction on how to maintain a delicate balance between independence and subservience: to project strength of convictions without loss of femininity (traditionally measured by male desirability), and to remain dependent on the economic necessity of marriage (Ziff, 278–80). Speculative theatre managers found Shakespeare's comedies especially adaptable to modern audience's tastes because the plays lacked stage directions, required no royalty payments, were exempt from copyright laws, and centered on ambiguous female characters. American audiences, believing they were becoming cultured, supported Shakespearean revivals, and strongly applauded those plays Americanized by theatre managers. Two late nineteenth-century productions of Much Ado About Nothing, one in 1882 by Henry Irving, the other in 1896 by Augustin Daly, clearly demonstrate how each speculative manager, acting in the name of art, refashioned Shakespeare's text and interpreted Beatrice around his own ideal of femininity, an ideal each believed American audiences would endorse.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1990
References
1 “My style of management,” he wrote, “has not been an imitation of anyone else's. That precision of detail, luxury, completeness of surroundings and general unity of company and performance which was found so fascinating in Irving's performance, was inaugurated by me in 1869, ten years before Irving began his career as manager” (Felheim, 15, quoting Daly).
2 Shakespeare, William, Much Ado About Nothing, as arranged for the stage by Henry Irving and presented at the Lyceum Theatre on Wednesday 11 October 1882 (London: Cheswick Press, 1882)Google Scholar. This promptbook is in the Folger Shakespeare Library. Irving's stage directions and interpolations are pencilled in the text. All of Irving's stage directions, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from this promptbook. Line references refer to the play as published in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans.
3 Not all Americans were blinded by Irving's textual infidelities. On 30 March 1885, an anonymous “student of Shakespeare” in a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, criticized American critics for not commenting upon Irving's lack of respect for the text: “I simply am astounded that none of the good students of Shakespeare in this good city of Gotham have seen fit to comment upon this addition to the divine William's lines” (anonymous letter, 30 March 1885). The author is referring to the “gag hallowed by tradition“ at the end of the church scene.
4 William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing: A Comedy in Five Acts, as arranged for production at Daly's Theatre, and privately printed for Mr. Daly, 1887. This text is part of the Folger collection. Daly's stage directions, rearrangements, and interpolations are printed as part of his text. All of his stage interpolations are taken from this text. Line references refer to the play published in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans.