Playing America, prepared towards the completion of a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, examines Yankee Theatre in America and London through a post-colonial lens from 1787 to 1855. Actors under consideration include: Charles Mathews, James Hackett, George Hill, Danforth Marble and Joshua Silsbee. These actors were selected due to their status as iconic performers in Yankee Theatre.
The Post-Revolutionary period in America was filled with questions of national identity. Much of American culture came directly from England. American citizens read English books, studied English texts in school, and watched English theatre. They were inundated with English culture and unsure of what their own civilization might look like. A post-colonial crisis, in other words, gripped the new nation.
This dissertation attempts to explain Yankee Theatre, a performance tradition popular from the mid-1820s to the mid-1850s, within this complex, transatlantic, sociopolitical situation. It begins with a discussion of early Yankee plays and explains how they were written against the empire, distinguishing the new citizen from the English subject. It examines ways early Yankee Theatre actors expressed their American identity and discusses the pressures these actors faced in fighting for international success.
Yankee Theatre was not only popular in America. Several American actors also traveled across the Atlantic to perform it on London stages. Thus, this dissertation also encompasses how the English understood the Yankee, how an imperial standard was established overseas, why English audiences were unhappy with the first American Yankee actors they witnessed, and how future Yankee actors were caught in this web of criterion and taste for years to come.
Playing America asserts that Yankee Theatre addressed specific problems, issues, and questions arising from Americas post-colonial status. When the post-colonial crisis passed, Yankee Theatre also ended. By the mid-to late-1850s, the minstrel replaced Jonathan as the symbol of the nation.
An examination of Yankee Theatre allows for a greater understanding of circum-Atlantic performance as well as issues of nationalism and national identity in the theatre. Research methodologies include historical and textual analysis as well as post-colonial, literary, and dramatic theory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12022005-152331 |
| Date | 20 March 2006 |
| Creators | Jortner, Maura L. |
| Contributors | Heather Nathans, Kathleen George, Buck Favorini, Bruce McConachie |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12022005-152331/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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