Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography

429 Pages·2010·4.58 MB·English

by  Charlotte M. Canning

​Representing​the​Past
Representing
Studies in theatre history and culture
Edited by Thomas Postlewait
the Past
essays in
performance
historiography
Edited by
charlotte m. canning
& thomas postlewait
university of iowa press
iowa city
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2010 by the University of Iowa Press
Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Representing the past: essays in performance historiography /
edited by Charlotte M. Canning and Thomas Postlewait.
 p.  cm.—(Studies in theatre history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58729-905-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-58729-905-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-58729-938-4 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 1-58729-938-0 (e-book)
1. Theater—Historiography. I. Canning, Charlotte, 1964–
II. Postlewait, Thomas.
PN2115.R47 2010
792.09—dc22 2010010259
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Thomas Postlewait and Charlotte M. Canning
Representing the Past: An Introduction on Five Themes 1
Section​one:​Archive
Christopher B. Balme
Playbills and the Theatrical Public Sphere 37
Susan Bennett
The Making of Theatre History 63
Claire Sponsler
Writing the Unwritten: Morris Dance and Theatre History 84
Section​two:​time
Willmar Sauter
Cyclic Perseverance and Linear Mobility of Theatrical Events 117
Tracy C. Davis
Performative Time 142
Aparna Dharwadker
Representing India’s Pasts: Time, Culture, and the
Problems of Performance Historiography 168
Section​three:​SpAce
Marvin Carlson
Space and Theatre History 195
David Wiles
Seeing Is Believing: The Historian’s Use of Images 215
Shannon Jackson
When “Everything Counts”: Experimental Performance
and Performance Historiography 240
Section​Four:​identity
Catherine M. Cole
History’s Thresholds: Stories from Africa 263
Harry J. Elam, Jr.
The High Stakes of Identity: Lorraine Hansberry’s Follow the Drinking
Gourd and Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus 282
Xiaomei Chen
Fifty Years of Staging a Founding Father: Political Theatre, Dramatic
History, and the Question of Representation in Modern China 303
Section​Five:​nArrAtive
Susan Leigh Foster
Textual Evidances 333
Brian Singleton
Narratives of Nostalgia:
Oriental Evasions about the London Stage 351
Bruce McConachie
Reenacting Events to Narrate Theatre History 378
Notes on Contributors 405
Index 409
Acknowledgments
First things first: we extend our gratitude to Holly Carver, director of the
University of Iowa Press. Throughout the development of this book, she
has been an unwavering supporter. Her editorial leadership, provided with
her calm guidance and timely wit, set the tone for our task—even when a
few problems threatened to delay, if not derail, the project. Besides Holly,
we thank the full staff at the press, an impressive team of bookmakers at
the Kuhl House in Iowa City. We also compliment Kathy Burford Lewis for
her sharp editorial eye and fine rhetorical judgment. We are pleased to add
this book to the Iowa list.
Of special note, Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiogra-
phy appears two decades after the publication of Interpreting the Theatrical
Past: Essays in the Historiography of Performance, edited by Thomas Postle-
wait and Bruce McConachie and also published by the University of Iowa
Press. The initial success of that book served as the catalyst and precur-
sor for a new book series, Studies in Theatre History and Culture, that
Postlewait has edited for the press since 1991. Representing the Past is the
thirty-ninth book on theatre history in the series. One of those books was
Charlotte Canning’s award-winning The Most American Thing in America:
Circuit Chautauqua as Performance, published in 2005. The University of
Iowa Press has thus proved to be a scholarly home for both of us. We are
especially grateful to the press for its continuing support of scholarship in
theatre history.
At an early stage of this project, most of the fifteen contributors were
able to join the two editors for a symposium to discuss early drafts of their
potential essays on theatre historiography. That gathering, held in con-
junction with a meeting of the American Society for Theatre Research
(ASTR), provided an opportunity to share ideas, suggestions, questions,
and challenges—directed at both the individual essays and the overall pur-
pose of the project. A unified book began to emerge from this symposium,
held on Thursday and Sunday—just before and after the ASTR conference
in Phoenix. We offer our gratitude to the officers, especially the new presi-
dent, Tracy C. Davis, and members of the executive committee of ASTR for
allowing us to piggyback onto the 2007 ASTR conference. We also thank
Nancy Erickson, the executive officer for ASTR, for her administrative
help in arranging a room and services at the hotel. vii
Two of the essays in this collection were published previously: Susan
S
t
n Leigh Foster’s “Textual Evidances” appeared originally in Bodies of the
e
m Text: Dance as Theory, Literature as Dance, edited by Ellen W. Goellner and
g Jacqueline Shea Murphy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
d
e 1995: 231–246). An earlier version of Claire Sponsler’s essay, published
l
w under the title “Writing the Unwritten: Morris Dance and the Study of
o
n Medieval Theatre,” appeared in Theatre Survey 38.1 (May 1997): 73–95,
k
c edited by Gary Jay Williams. We thank the publishers, editors, and authors
A
for permission to publish the current versions of these essays.
We dedicate this book to our students who have taken seminars with
us over the years. Their discussions and papers helped us to identify and
define the five organizing concepts in Representing the Past. We are also
beholden to the many active scholars throughout the world who carry
out scholarship in theatre history, theatre and cultural studies, dance his-
tory, and performance studies. Their publications, especially the essays
and books that touch upon issues and questions in theatre historiography,
serve as the foundation for this collection of essays. It is our hope that Rep-
resenting the Past, which features a diversity of scholars and a broad range
of topics, serves as a microcosm of the talents and interests of the much
larger community of scholars.
Finally, we extend our thanks to our chairs and colleagues at the Uni-
versity of Texas and University of Washington. Most importantly, we offer
our abiding gratitude to those closest to us: Fritz and Fritzie for Charlotte,
Marilyn for Tom. Yet again, and always.
viii
​Representing​the​Past