Theatre and Governance in Britain, 1500–1900
Democracy, Disorder and the State

A critical evaluation of how theatre was assimilated to the interests of government by suppressing 'democratic' disorders associated with the stage.

Tony Fisher (Author)

9781316633311, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 May 2020

292 pages
23 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.43 kg

'In this masterful and original study, Fisher combines philosophical reflection, discourse analysis and substantial archival research to produce a new way of considering the symbiotic relationship between state and theatre. While focused on English theatre history between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, its approach could and should be applied with profit to other countries as well.' Christopher Balme, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

This book begins with a simple observation - that just as the theatre resurfaced during the late Renaissance, so too government as we understand it today also began to appear. Their mutually entwining history was to have a profound influence on the development of the modern British stage. This volume proposes a new reading of theatre's relation to the public sphere. Employing a series of historical case studies drawn from the London theatre, Tony Fisher shows why the stage was of such great concern to government by offering close readings of well-known religious, moral, political, economic and legal disputes over the role, purpose and function of the stage in the 'well-ordered society'. In framing these disputes in relation to what Michel Foucault called the emerging 'art of government', this book draws out - for the first time - a full genealogy of the governmental 'discourse on the theatre'.

Introduction. The discourses of theatre and governance
Part I. Origins of the Discourse on Theatre: 1. The theatre of the multitude
2. Revolts of conduct on the Restoration stage
Part II. Theatre and its Publics: 3. Theatrocracy and the public sphere
4. The Beggar's Opera and the criminal picturesque
5. The deontic stage in the eighteenth century: George Lillo's The London Merchant
Part III. Theatre in the Age of Reform: 6. The governmentalisation of the stage
7. The theatre dispositif of the late-nineteenth century.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], History of ideas [JFCX], Theatre studies [AN]