Theatre in Victorian England

“It was only in the theatre that I lived.”(Oscar Wilde)

Context• 1800- Two

theaters• 1809- John

Kemble• 1843- Licensing• 1843- Building• 1843- West End

1808-1810

Talent and Technology• Actions• Visuals• Melodrama• Lighting• Hydraulics• John Ruskin

1877

Dramatists• Difficult • Shakespeare• “Real”

artists?• Money &

class• Dickens• Legislation• Realism• Naturalism• Modernism

1838

Oscar Wilde• Lady

Windermere’s Fan

• A Woman of No Importance

• An Ideal Husband

• The Importance of Being Earnest

St. James Theatre, 1896

Lady Windermere’

s Fan• “A Play

About a Good Woman”

• 20 Feb. 1892• Comedy• $845,833

A Woman of No

Importance• 19 April 1893• Haymarket

Theatre• Herbert

Beerbohm Tree

An Ideal Husband

• 3 Jan. 1895• Haymarket

Theatre• Lewis Waller• Success until

April

The Importance

of Being Earnest

• St. James’ Theatre

• Allan Aynesworth

• Evelyn Millard• Irene Vanbrugh• George

Alexander• Actor manager

of St. James

14 Fe

brua

ry 1

895

Programs

Works Cited• Auerbach, Nina. “Before the Curtain.” The Cambridge

Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre, Edited by Kerry Powell, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 3-14.

• Bratton, Jack. “Theater in the 19th Century.” British Library, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/19th-century-theatre, Accessed 6 October 2016.

• “The Importance of Being Earnest: The First Stage Production, 1895.” Victoria and Albert Museum, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-importance-of-being-earnest-first-stage-production. Accessed 6 October 2016.

• Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dover, 1993.• Newey, Katherine and Jeffery Richards. “John Ruskin at the

Theatre.” John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 1-18.