Author(s): | Davis, Tracy C. |
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Reviewer(s): | Pilbeam, Pam |
Published by EH.NET (July 2002)
Tracy C. Davis, The Economics of the British Stage, 1800-1914. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xvii + 506 pp. $80 (hardback),
ISBN: 0-521-571115-4.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Pam Pilbeam, Department of History, Royal Holloway,
University of London.
This book is an investigation into how British theaters paid their way before
the age of government subsidy. It is based on research in the Public Record
Office and a wide range of county archives. Influenced by economists from Adam
Smith to Alfred Marshall, the book is divided into three sections, dealing with
competition, profit and labor. First the theater industry is situated in the
debate on competition, second ownership is related to financing, the chance of
profit and business structures. The third section looks at the workers as
aspects of commodity capitalism and theaters themselves as manifestations of
cultural capital. While acknowledging the significance of the theaters
themselves and their scenery and costumes as property, this volume focuses on
performance as the only real gauge of successful theater capitalism.
There was no such thing as free competition in the early nineteenth-century
theater. From 1792, in the name of public order and morality, only two patent
royal theaters, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, held the monopoly to perform
spoken drama in central London. Neither was very successful and in reality
other “minor” theaters, such as the Lyceum and Astleys in central London and a
myriad of theaters elsewhere, operated with annual restricted licenses,
although it was easier for them to stage dog fights than Shakespeare. In the
free trade atmosphere of 1843 the Theaters’ Regulation Act leveled the playing
field. Thirty-six theaters soon competed for customers in central London, to be
joined from around 1850 by music halls — 101 in London by 1892, 360 a decade
later. These were regulated by local magistrates and in their early decades
attracted a worker clientele, rather than the middle-class customers who went
to the theater. There were arguments between theaters and music halls about
what each could perform; theater proprietors were jealous because music halls
offered food and drink as well as song. To fight back theaters sometimes staged
“sketches” with music. Theaters asserted their superior status as guardians of
the “common good”; music halls, they claimed, cared only for profit. Music
halls responded that they also served the common good by amusing working people
and keeping them off the streets.
From 1855 the Lord Chamberlain’s office organized annual inspections of
theaters, although with about fifteen minutes allocated to each theater, the
inspectors would have needed to be world class athletes to see much. The
inspections were directed at fire safety and public health. Given their flimsy
construction and the concentration of highly flammable material in sets,
costumes, paint and so on, the risk of collapse and fire was considerable. In
1828 the New Brunswick Theater collapsed a few hours before the first
performance. Ten people died, but many times that number might have perished a
few hours later. The average lifespan of a theater was no more than eighteen
years. Despite attempts to regulate numbers, extra customers were crowded in
and staircases were inadequate. In 1883 two hundred children were crushed to
death and another hundred badly injured at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland when
a magician tossed gifts into the pit and children in the gallery died rushing
down to seize their share. Theaters were also very smelly. The few closets that
existed were rarely emptied. They relied on customers in need being
sufficiently public-spirited to leave the building. Amazingly not a single
customer complained in writing, despite concern that miasmas caused cholera. It
was well into the century before theaters made adequate provision for customers
and actors.
Public morality was apparently a priority in government inspections, yet the
interval promenade remained a time for active business by prostitutes.
Customers were, however, protected from immoral stage performances through
prior censorship. Until 1968 all theaters had to submit the text of their plays
to the Lord Chamberlain for scrutiny, although the government Examiner seemed
to prefer to let the customers decide whether they wanted to pay to see
undressed females — unless it was a foreign troupe and then he was more
rigorous.
Unlike France the two original theaters royal received no privileges or
subsidies and were strictly commercial concerns. Theater investment, usually by
limited liability, was risky. A theater cost half the price of a battleship.
Few theatrical entrepreneurs made a fortune. Richard D’Oyly Carte left
?240,817, but he was exceptional. The family firm predominated, which could
become embarrassing when the leading lady grew a little too mature to be
plausible. Most entrepreneurs and managers were male, a situation reinforced by
informal and formal old boy networks. Unique in the nineteenth-century business
world however, there were a handful of outstanding wo-managers, beginning with
Eliza Vestris. She was a burlesque actress who held the lease of the run-down
Olympic from 1831-38, turning it into the most fashionable of theaters. At this
point the debts of her former lover forced her to declare bankruptcy. She
married her leading man, leaving him responsible for her debts, but they went
on to run other theaters. Until the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1870, wives
had no independent right to their property or wages — or indeed responsibility
for their debts, making it difficult for a businesswoman to secure financial
backing. Even after the legislation female theater managers were the exception
and often the butt for innuendo; the morality of actresses was often still
called in question.
The best chance of a profit was a London hit followed by a provincial tour.
Only a tiny number made real money on foreign tours. The cost of a theatrical
production was huge; music halls, with far more modest operating costs, were
more profitable. This book concentrates on theaters as a branch of industry,
with only brief references to the competition. Cinema, referred to in the
concluding pages, was an even more successful competitor than the music hall.
By 1914 there were 5,000 cinemas in Britain and towns of 100,000 or more had an
average of twenty-three cinemas each. In total contrast to theaters foreign
capitalization and penetration was rapid. By 1914 sixty percent of the films
shown were American. In the nineteenth century there were a few attempts to
justify theatrical investment in the name of civic pride and public good; the
competition of cinemas were soon to push the case for government subsidy of
live theater, although that is outside the scope of this volume.
This book will appeal to historians of the theater and of media studies; its
focus on the theater as an industry adds a new dimension. The author brings
very useful statistics to illuminate the study of costs. The book will also
make fascinating reading for social and cultural historians. Given the
predictable problems listed here, how was it that there were any successful
wo-managers? This will be a particularly gripping question for gender
historians, since men were so dominant in the cinema industry, especially in
America. It would have been interesting to hear more about how the market
developed during the century — to what extent the price of seats, what was
performed, the competition from music halls and other entertainment, plus the
increased leisure of working people affected their presence/absence in the
audience. The economics of the stage depended on investment, managers and
actors, but it was the enthusiasm of paying customers that clinched the deal.
To what extent did theaters perceive the new opportunities of the mass market?
(The author, Tracy Davis, is Professor of Theater, English and Performance
Studies at Northwestern University and this is her third monograph on aspects
of the nineteenth-century British theater.)
Pam Pilbeam is Professor of French History at Royal Holloway, University of
London. Her latest book, Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks,
will be published by Hambledon and London Books in November 2002.
Subject(s): | Social and Cultural History, including Race, Ethnicity and Gender |
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Geographic Area(s): | Europe |
Time Period(s): | 20th Century: Pre WWII |