The eighteenth century produced more inventive actors than fine
dramatists, and it displayed its actors to increasing advantage as
theatre management became more expert, and stage design more
ambitious. First published in 1972, the eleven papers collected in
The Eighteenth-Century English Stage, originally read at a
Manchester University Symposium in July 1971, follow this
historical emphasis. Two papers are centred on dramatists, four on
actors, three on managers, and two on designers. Malcolm Kelsall
analyses Steele's debt to Terence, using his classical scholarship
as illuminatingly as Edgar Roberts uses his musical scholarship in
writing about the songs in Fielding's plays. George Taylor compares
and evaluates a number of theories of acting, and speculates on the
likely relevance of the best-known books on rhetoric, whilst
Kathleen Barker, Arnold Hare, and David Rostron consider the work
of individual actors - Powell, Cooke, and John Kemble. Theatre
managers are represented by John Rich in Paul Sawyer's sympathetic
account, Thomas Harris, who is given new life in the recent
researches of Cecil Price, and Stephen Kemble, fixed by Kenneth
Robinson in canny control of the Newcastle theatre circuit.
Finally, Graham Barlow reaches some controversial conclusions about
the dimensions of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, by subjecting
Thornhill's sketches to a practising designer's statistical
examination, and Sybil Rosenfeld carries a stage further her
pioneering work on eighteenth-century scene-painting and design.
The two last are attractively illustrated by 8 pages of plates.
This book's particular value lies in its bringing together several
simply presented but deeply informed explorations of often
neglected aspects of the eighteenth-century theatre. The papers,
with their general sense of enthusiasm and concern for their
subject, will interest all students of the eighteenth century, and
theatre enthusiasts in particular.
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