Stage beauties: Actresses and celebrity culture in the long eighteenth century

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the study of eighteenth-century British actresses has blossomed into an emerging interdisciplinary field. Early works on actresses in the 1990's coincided with a heightened interest in recovering non-canonical eighteenth-century texts by female authors as well as the publication of Judith Butler's ground breaking Gender Trouble in 1992. Actresses became, in many ways, the perfect vehicle for looking at how ideologies of femininity, performance, and embodiment materialized in eighteenth-century culture. The publication of Felicity Nussbaum's Rival Queens in 2010 signaled a new phase in actress studies. This article looks closely at the ways in which scholarship on eighteenth-century actresses and celebrity produced since 2010 responds to and/or complicates Nussbaum's invitation to move beyond the parameters of the lady/prostitute divide in actress studies towards more "productive frames of reference" and methodologies. In 2016, actress studies is a truly interdisciplinary field intersecting with art, music, literature, history, economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and fashion. Scholars in actress studies have pioneered new theoretical approaches to theater history, archives and evidence, re-enactment and performance, as well as studies of sound and material culture. Studies of actresses have contributed significantly to the history of early modern women specifically focusing on maternity, professionalism, marriage, domestic life, and kinship networks. Considering "Actress Studies" as a distinct field highlights an important legacy of paradoxical ideologies about women, power, and fame that still operate today.

What James Boswell tells us about 18th‐century acting theory

“…Boswell's argument here, streaked as it is with irony, nevertheless exemplifies the complex position of women in 18th‐century discussions of acting. Numerous studies of female performers at this time (including Straub, 1992; Asleson, 2003; Nussbaum, 2010; Engel, 2011; Pascoe, 2013) have helped to make the theatre culture of this period at an essential topic within the field of 'actress studies' (Engel, 2016). Actresses – from their appearance on the professional stage at the Restoration onwards – were highly visible female workers, the subjects of opprobrium and adoration in equal measure, and as much an inspiration and a challenge for those thinking about acting as they were for portrait artists, satirists, and playwrights planning new plotlines set in exotic locations or featuring gendered trauma.…”

Trzy historie o celebrytach

“…19 Ibidem, s. 7-8. historiografi ę teatru w ogóle 20 . Widząc szansę na przejęcie tematu przez historie teatru i kobiet, jedna z najważniejszych ekspertek, Laura Engel, zaproponowała utworzenie niezależnej dyscypliny pod nazwą actress studies 21 22 . Co więcej, chociaż od dawna dostrzega się, że celebrytyzm dotyczy procesów zachodzących pomiędzy trzema agentami -sławną osobą, pośrednikami w przekazie wizerunku i publicznością (tzw.…”