Michael Richard Booth – författare

This 1996 book presents Edwardian entertainment and the Edwardian entertainment industry as parts of a vital, turbulent era whose preoccupations and paranoias echo those of our own day. Responding to recent shifts of attitude towards the Edwardians and their world, the essays in this collection take as their provenance broad patterns of theatrical production and consumption, focusing upon the economics of theatre management, the creation of new audiences, the politics of playgoing, and the meteoric rise of popular forms of mass entertainment, including musical comedy, variety theatre, and the cinema. Individual chapters also offer fresh insights into key aspects of the Edwardian stage such as a definition of the theatre of the time, gender play and role reversal in the Edwardian music hall, as well as issues related to politics and the suffrage movement.

This book examines all major aspects of theatre practice and dramatic literature of the Victorian period. Michael Booth's comprehensive survey explores the social and cultural context of the theatre including theatre management, the audience, architecture and production methods, acting and the job of actor, as well as the drama itself. Within this framework, Booth discusses such topics as the effect on theatre of population growth and the spread of the railway system, the typical organization of a Victorian theatre company, the contribution to theatre of several important actor-managers, the use of stage machinery and lighting instruments, and the stock company and rehearsal system. The volume also includes a chapter on sources, numerous previously unpublished illustrations, and a chronology. The result is a lively and informative account of the diversity, energy, and colour of the Victorian stage. Theatre in the Victorian Age will be of interest to students and scholars of theatre history, Victorian studies, cultural history and literature.