Victorian Theatre and Popular Entertainment

1. Victorian Theatre and Popular Entertainment Griffin Mulvaney and Jared Diesslin

2. What were theatres like? • Many Victorian theatres were very large • The benches had backs • Extravagantly decorated auditorium • Orchestra stalls • Picture frame stage • Very hot and stuffy • Seats close together • Dressing rooms were inadequate or dangerous • Theatres were dangerous in general

3. What were the theatres like?

4. Types of Shows • Melodrama • Came from burletta (comic opera) but kept musical elements – technically not a play • Stereotype characters • Great special effects • Shakespeare • Costume dramas were a Victorian favorite • Format: 5 acts, accurate costumes, extravagant scenery • Changed aspects that didn’t seem fitting • Cup and Saucer Drama • Also called “drawing room comedy” • Stage – real living room setting • Not much action, but more conversation

5. Audience • Audience members consisted of lower, middle, and upper class citizens • Dressed up with expensive clothes and jewelry • Not so much interested in the play as much as presenting themselves in public • Three parts to the theatre: • Box – upper class • Pit – middle class • Gallery – lower class

6. Well-Known Theatres • The Covent Garden – one of the top London theatres, along with Drury Lane • Drury Lane – oldest functioning London theatre • The Little Theatre in the Haymarket – second-oldest London theatre still in use

7. What was Burlesque? Farce? • Burlesque • Popular form of Victorian entertainment • Took a well-known production and satirized it with music • Also had extravagant costumes • Farce • A type of comedic theatre performance • Used improbable situations, stereotypes, and violent horseplay on stage

8. Who was Oscar Wilde? • In Victorian Theatre, formula mattered more than originality • Wilde used traditions to help form a new direction • Started with feeling of recognition • Turned into paradoxes and unexpected events

9. Who was George Bernard Shaw? • Began his literary career as a novelist • Started to write plays in order to criticize English theatre • Some shows had more intense criticism than others • Disregarded conventional theatrical ideas of the time • Wrote plays for several decades

10. Who were “Gilbert and Sullivan”? • William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan performed well-known comic operas • Sullivan composed music • Gilbert wrote and directed • 1871-1896 – wrote 14 comic operas • Most successful when working together

11. Other Forms of Entertainment • The society novel – upper-middle class • Playing instruments for pleasure • Dancing • Outdoor games i.e. croquet, lawn tennis, etc. • Fairs and circuses

12. What were Organ Grinders? • Some of the earliest street performers • Played small, portable organs turned by a crank • Started out with few notes, gradually got larger and better

13. What were Magic Lantern Shows? • Magic lanterns were the Victorian equivalent of today’s slide projectors • An image on a piece of glass was projected onto a viewing screen • Many shows were magicians “summoning” ghosts and spirits to scare their audiences

14. What was Punch and Judy? • Type of puppet show • Shows could be seen all across Britain • Many storylines mocked politicians of the day • Performers made a living off of donations from the audience, called “bottling”