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Victorian Theatre

While the institutions of poetry were under pressure in 1830, thedecline of the drama had become a clich. Everywherethrouhout Europe,! "ulwer wrote in England and the English

#1833$, the lory of the theater is beinnin to row dim,! itsformer bla%e certain to die o& in silence and dar'ness, li'e ane(tinct volcano! #"ulwer 1833) 13*$. +here was similar consensusabout the cause of the decline, in "ritain at least) lac' of nancialreward even for successful playwrihts, and the theater-oinpublics pleasure in elaborate spectacle. "efore the 18/0s,playwrihts were paid at a at rate, which was una&ected by thelenth of a run. ne of the reat successes of the 18/0s, Our

American Cousin, netted the manaer of the 2aymar'et +heatre

the fabulous sum of 0,000 pounds #the annual income of "ritainswealthiest nobility$4 its author, +om +aylor, received 1*0 pounds.5n the 1830s the standard fee for a rst-run drama at minortheaters was between *0 and 60 pounds 7 which put reatpressure on dramatists to be prolic #and to borrow heavily fromforein sources$ but made it almost impossible for them to livecomfortably throuh playwritin alone.

eanwhile, playwrihts confronted an audience accustomed toincreasinly spectacular stain, a development nourished by the

peculiar history of the "ritish stae. 5n a bac'handed tribute to thepolitical power of the theater, the 9icensin :ct of 1636 hadranted a monopoly on leitimate! drama to only two 9ondontheaters, ;ovent uipped "ulwer #"ulwer 1833) 36$. ?nlicensed theaters werebarred from stain productions with spea'in parts4 hence theyresorted to forms of mime, dumbshow, and musicalaccompaniment, alon with increasinly elaborate stae

technoloy, nurturin a taste for spectacle that spread in turn tothe leitimate theaters. :s @. 2. 2orne put it, in his New Spirit ofthe Age #18AA$, the stature of playwrihts has declined becausethe public taste has been perverted, and cannot improve of itself,and because manaers, without a sinle e(ception, persist inpanderin to that perversion, vi%., addressin audy ande(pensive shows to the e(ternal senses! #2orne 18AA) ii.B3$. Even

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after the +heatre @eulation :ct of 18A3 abolished the patenttheater privilees, these trends persisted, creatin the endurinimae of the Cictorian playhouse as an immense space in whichperformers were dwarfed by their surroundins, and the primarymode of enaement was visual, with actors warrin aainst theirbac'drops by means of elaborately styli%ed movement andspeech delivered in hectorin, stentorian reister. +he conditionsnurtured a particular conception of the actor as virtuoso 7 even ifit also tended to coarsen the spectacle into histrionics accessibleto thousands of spectators. nly radually did actresses comemore into the foreround, and bein to slip free of the taint thatassociated their profession with prostitution. 5ndeed, not until the18B0s, with the new drama! of 5bsen and Dhaw 7 or so thetraditional history runs 7 did the stae became a central locus of

cultural innovation and debate.

"ut these verdicts say as much about an elitist hierarchy ofdramatic forms as they do of the power of drama. =rama hasalways been an arena for battles over the puritanism of "ritishculture. 5n 1830, when many dissenters and evanelicalsshuddered at the idea of settin foot in a playhouse #a thrillintransression memorably recorded in the best-sellinJohn Halifax,Gentleman 18*/F$ a visitor to 9ondon miht have been struc'more than anythin by the sheer variety of theatrical forms one(hibit) farce, pantomime, burles>ue, melodrama, opera, drawin-room comedy, Dha'espeare. +his is the ae, moreover, in whichprivate theatricals! too' a central place in aGuent domestic life.5n the maHor theaters, traedy radually turned into drama,! anamalam of intriue, sensation, idealism, and domestic sentimentthat would endure throuhout the remainder of the century, andon into the ne(t in di&erent media, notably cinema and television#"ooth 1BB1$. +he dominant form was melodrama, which wasmainly popular and proletarian in theme and sentiment,

fre>uently preoccupied with the e(ploitation of the poor byaristocratic or wealthy villains #many of the theaters devoted tomelodrama were in wor'in-class neihborhoods$. ore enerally,its representation of star' moral conict and hihly wrouhtemotion also made it a compellin vehicle for dramati%incontemporary social problems, which remained larely absent inother literary forms. "y the end of the century, comic melodrama

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had fused with burles>ue in the world of the music hall, whichbecame the central cultural arena for testin the emerentboundaries of hih! and low!, mass and elite culturaldistinctions.