Dramaturgy in Community-Based Theatre

Dramaturgy in Community-Based Theatr

Doing the Dirty Work: Gendered Versions of Working Class Women in Sarah Daniels' The Gut Girls and Israel Horovitz's North Shore Fish

Doing the Dirty Work: Gendered Versions of Working Class Women in Sarah Daniels' The Gut Girls and Israel Horovitz's North Shore Fis

From Booths, to Theatre, to Court: the Theatrical Significance of the London Fairs, 1660-1724 (England).

This study examines the influences of fairground entertainments on the evolution of the theatrical event in the legitimate theatres from the drama-oriented product of the Restoration to the early eighteenth-century "whole show," which exhibited the major characteristics of popular entertainment. In Chapter I, an investigation into man's innate need for diversion offers a starting point from which to review the history, general description, and mass appeal of the London fairs. An examination of the many fairground amusements provides a framework of frequency occurring popular entertainment traits. Chapter II focuses on the live performances at the fairs and the unsuccessful attempts to suppress them. The increased prevalence of fairground amusements throughout London and the frequent use of the fairground image in critical and creative works offer evidence that these diversions had become a way of life, thus potentially influencing all its facets. Chapter III explores royal patronage and the growth of the theatre as a commercial venture from 1660 to 1690. The indirect influences of the fairs on the Restoration theatres appear in the parallel entertainments, the shared audience, the movement of personnel and acts between the fairs and the theatres, and lamentations by writers on the similarities of the two. In Chapters IV and V, an examination of the triumph of the commercial theatre in the early eighteenth century and of the resulting reliance on fairground amusements to lure spectators reveals a change in the total theatrical event from an elite art form relying on the drama to a popular art form offering a variety show. Chapter IV focuses on the structure of the "whole show" which altered to assimilate characteristics of popular entertainment, culminating in the creation of the pantomine, the epitome of the popularization of the theatre. Chapter V concentrates on the influence of the fairs on the performance aspects. The results of this study, detailed in Chapter VI, establish the early eighteenth-century theatre as the pinnacle of the popular theatre tradition kept alive from medieval times in the entertainments of the fairs, provide more accurate standards by which to assess the quality and importance of the "whole show," and speculate on the significance for the fairs on the changes which occurred in the early eighteenth-century drama. Sixteen illustrations and five appendices supplement the text. The works in the thirty-six page bibliography are grouped into manuscripts, collections, books, periodicals, and plays.Ph.D.TheaterUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160139/1/8422242.pd