JADT Vol11 n3 Fall1999 Durham Ullom Shafer Kaynor Rotte

8/12/2019 JADT Vol11 n3 Fall1999 Durham Ullom Shafer Kaynor Rotte

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THE jOURN L OF

MERIC N DR M ND THE TREVolume 11 Number 3

Editor: Vera Mowry RobertsCo-Editor: Jane Bowers

Managing Editor: Lars MyersEditorial Assistant: Melissa GasparEditorial Coordinator: Susan TennerielloCirculation Manager: Susan Tenneriello

Circulat ion Assistants:Melissa GasparPatricia Herrera

Lara Simone Shalson

Edwin Wilson DirectorMartin E Segal Theatre Center

Fall 999

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY CENTEROF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK


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Editorial BoardStephen ArcherRuby CohnBruce A . McConachie

Margaret WilkersonDon B. WilmethFe I cia Londre

The journal of American Drama and Theatre welcomes submissions.Our aim is to promote research on American playwrights, plays , andtheatre, and to encourage a more enlightened understanding of ourliterary and theatrical heritage. Manuscripts should be prepared inconformity with The Chicago anual of Style using footnotes (ratherthan endnotes) . Hard copies should be submitted in duplicate. Werequest that articles be submitted on disk as well (3.5 floppy), usingWordPerfect for Windows format (preferably versions 5.1 and 6.0).Submissions will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, selfaddressed envelope. Please allow three to four months for a decision.Our distinguished Editorial Board will constitute the jury of selection.Address editorial inquiries and manuscript submissions to the Editors,}ADT/Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate School and University Center of the City of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NewYork 10016-4309. Our e-mai l address is: [email protected]

Please visit out web site at: web.gsuc.cuny.edu/castaMartin E Segal Theatre Center publications are supportedby generous grants from the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatreand the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in Theatre Studies in thePh.D. Program in Theatre at the City University of NewYork.

Martin E Segal Theatre Center Copyright 1999

The journal of American Drama and Theatre ISSN 1044-937X) is a member ofCELJ and is published three times a year, in the Winter, Spring, and Fall.Subscriptions are $12. foreach calendar year. Foreign subscriptions requ irean addit ional $6.00 for postage. Inquire of Circulation Manager/Martin E SegalTheatre Center, The Graduate School and University Center of the City of NewYork, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10016-4309.


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THE jOURN l OF MERIC N DR M ND THE TRE

Volume 11 Number 3

WELDON B DURHAMDomestic Formations

Contents

in Antebellum Theatre in New York City

jERREY Ullom,Critiquing the Huzza :The Historiography of the Astor Place Riot

YVONNE SHAFERMaude Adams as Joan of Arcat the Harvard Stadium

FAY CAMPBELL KAYNORhe ramatic Magazine

(May 1880- August 1882), New York City

jOANNA ROTTEStella Adler: Teacher Emeritus

CONTRIBUTORS

Fall 1999

1

16

3

46

63

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NOTE TO UR READERS

The Graduate Center of the ity University of New Yorkmoved during the summer) from its old quarters on FortySecond Street to 365 Fifth Avenue at Thirty-Fourth Street),which some of you will recognize as the grand old B AltmanBuilding, now reconfigured on the inside to accomodate us .

During the same period, a large gift was finalized,resulting in a change of name for our sponsoring entity.What was formerly CAST A Center for Advanced Study ofTheatre Arts) is henceforth to be known as the Martin ESegal Theatre Center.

In addressing us in the future, please use the followingformat:}AOT/Martin E Segal Theatre Center

The Graduate School and University Centerof the ity of New York

365 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10016-4309


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Journal ofAmerican Drama and Theatre 11 (Fall 1999)

Domestic Formations in Antebellum Theatrein New York City

WELDON B DURHAM

According to Bruce McConachie, between 1820 and 1970 theatreaudiences and theatre practitioners in the United States constructed andmaintained several "melodramatic formations." Each formation was a setof sociopolitical motives and aesthetic motives, shared alike by audiencesand artists, shaping a text externally nd internally. Elsewhere,McConachie, following social interactionist Kenneth Burke uses the term" representation" to designate the linkage of the theatrica system (theperformed play) with a social or cultural system. "Representations"facilitate the audience member's effort to contextualize social experienceand to legitimate and inform social action.2 Pierre Bourdieu, also a socialinteractionist, maintains that the analysis of a work of theatrical art musttake into account not only the institutional forces operating to producemeaning in and through it, but also the intratextual and intertextualenergies which produce and sustain the theatrical event as a discou rseof disguised or directed celebration. 3 Treated as an objectification ofdesire, the theatrical event is at least as remarkable for its function as afetish for arousing or for easing civic tensions and promoting social amityas for its meaning.4

1 Bruce McConachie, Melodramatic Formations (Iowa City: University of IowaPress 1992), xi-xii.

2 'The Theatre of the Mob': Apocalyptic Melodrama and Preindustrial Riots inAntebellum New York/' in Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the United States7830-1980 Bruce McConachie and Daniel Friedman, eds. (Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress 1985), 18.

3 Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: ssays on Art and Literature(New York: Columbia University Press 1993), 36.

4 Kenneth Burke, Form an d Persecution in the Orestia, in Language asSymbolic Action (Berkeley: University of California Press 1968), 137.


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Domestic Formations(1847-59). 7 I regard key characters in the plays as agents perpetrating actsthat symbolize or represent audience desire or lack of desire. Ultimately,the acts of these agents are the manifestation of the energy of theatricalsimulation which the plays convert into celebration in the theatre andinto cultural motion in the consciousness of the spectator.he Social thic of Domesticity

Antebellum America experienced rapid economic growth fromincreasing foreign trade and agricultural productivity while immigrationand urbanization sharply altered the social environment. Growinginequalities in the distribution of wealth exacerbated social stratification,and the ideology of domesticity positioned bourgeois women in thehome where they functioned through the institution of marriage and thediscourses of true love to redeem the spirits of men desecrated in theworld of work and to shape the moral development of children. Thesocial ethic of domesticity held that women should be detached fromeconomics and politics just as they should deny their psychological andsocial self. In defining marriage as a spiritual union and motherhood asa sacred vocation, the cult of domesticity also imprisoned the woman'sbody by enshrining it.

Thought about assuming a vocation of such significance made themarriage choice extraordinarily meaningful for many women andtraumatic for some. The social ethic of domesticity joined with theideologies of individualism and romantic love to freight the marriagechoice with weighty social, economic, and political implications whileat the same time establishing the necessity of basing the marriage choiceon true love. True love was considered permanent, constant, andelementary-essentially spiritual , ennobling, and morally elevating. Itwas distinguished from romantic love, which was transient and superficial. The ideal marriage was a spiritual union of hearts not an economiccontract. True love enabled marriage and sustained it. True love also

The Broadway Theatre was designed by . M. Trimble, bui lder of BurtonsOlympic Theatre. Trimble modeled it after Londons Haymarket Theatre, and it wasthe largest theatre ever built in New York, up to that time, seating 4500. It waslocated on the east side of Broadway, opposite the New York Hospital, between PearlStreet and Anthony (present Worth) Street. Despite its prime location, its pretentiousexterior, its plush furnishings, and its heavy reliance on native stars and scenicspectacles, it never achieved the aim its founder, Alvah Mann, nor its long-timeproprietor, E. A Marshall, to be Americas premier theatre. Competition from theatresmanaged by William Burton and by . W. Wallack, Jr. loosened its hold on New York.Nevertheless, it is most important to note that it aimed to be the nat ion's theatricalcenter.


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softened the bonds of marriage and warmed the narrow confines of thedomestic vocat ion. True love was the paradoxical nexus of the cult oftrue womanhood, for true love enabled the true woman predominantly,and the true man to some extent, to choose the self-abnegation uponwhich the peace and effectiveness of the home was based. Marriedwomen discharged their redemptive function through domestic work andthree modes of love: true love, upon which the ideal marriage was built;conjugal love, more compassionate than carnal, which sustained it; andmother love, which infused the offspring with the sensibility and themoral character the world and the home required. 8 As true love was thesubstance of virtue, images of virtue under duress were the substance ofdomestic and sentimental drama.

Wherever one finds talk of domestic virtue and th.e operations of truelove, talk of the expression of sentiment (sentimentality) and talk of thecapacity for acute consciousness of emotional nuance (sensibility) willalso be found. Domesticity itself was a discursive model of identificationpromoting social relationships, such as those characterized by true love,conducive to sustaining hegemonic identities and subjectivities.Sentimentality, a set of rules for producing the signs of that deep fee lingwhich authenticated one's claim to bourgeois sociopolitical prerogatives/along with sensibility (emotional receptivity), were cultural practiceswithin the social ethic of domesticity.

Even as the signs of domestic bliss manifest in expressions of truelove legitimated bourgeois hegemony, a crisis of social confidenceensued. A capacity to distinguish the true love or lover from the fa lse orfeigned was a fundamental necessity if the domestic enterprise were tofunction properly. However, rapid economic and social changesrendered problematic both the emerging republican codes and thereceived European, aristocratic codes for communicating individual statusand identity. Karen Halttunen analyzed conduct-of-l ife literaturepublished between 1830 and 1860 and found that discussions of the task

8 Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: Woman's Sphere in NewEngland, 1780-1835 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1977), 1-18, 63-100. Cott drew on advice books, sermons, novels, essays stories, and poems, butmost heavily Qn women's diaries, memoirs, and letters . See also Steven Seidman,Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830-1980 (New York: Rou tledge, 1991), 43-46. Shulamith Firestone observed that love, perhaps even more than child-bearing,is the pivot of women's oppression today in The Dialectic of ex (New York:Bantam, 1970), 126.

9 In troduction, The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentalit yin Nineteenth-Century America, Shirley Samuels, ed. (New York: Oxford UniversityPress 1992), 5.


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Domestic Formations 5of distinguishing the sincere from the hypocritical person y ie lded twopersonifications: the confidence man and the painted woman. Thesefigures symbolized two social problems facing men and women inantebellum America: establishing and recognizing social identity in arepublic based on a belief in the boundless potential of each individualand securing success in the anonymous world of strangers that was theantebell urn city. Halttunen then claims that popular advice manuals fashion advice literature and the social ritual of mourning established thesentimental ideal of sincerity as the solution to the problem ofhypocrisy.1 Halttunen observes:

The American democrat-that is to say the middle-classAmerican-had no status in the strict sense of the term; heoccupied no fixed position within a well-defined social structureand his vague sense of restlessness and dread sprang from hisliminal ity his betwixt-and-between social condition. Because helived suspended between the facts of his present social conditionand the promise of his future because he held a vertical visionof life in an allegedly fluid and boundless social system he wasplagued with anxiety concerning his social identity. 11

Halttunen argues that bourgeois culture equipped respectab le citizenswith an ability to recognize the duplicity of the confidence man and thepainted woman through the application of sensibility a competencegiven in superior measure to women. Sensibility the capacity of adelicate heart to respond to the slightest emotional stimulus could alsodetect and deflect the emotional falsehoods which amounted tohypocrisy. The code of domesticity assigned women the specia lresponsibility of knowing and exposing hypocrisy and exerting a vitalmoral influence especially through the institution of marriage and withinthe sphere of the home.The Domestic Drama

Gilbert Cross writing about domestic drama in London theatresextrapolates a vision of the world of domestic drama wh ich replicatesdescriptions of the cult of domesticity. Domestic drama idealized the

1Karen Halttunen Confidence en and Painted Women: A Study of iddle- lassCulture in America 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1982 xviXVII

11 Halttunen 192.


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home as a civilized retreat from the barbaric society outside. It enshrinedthe family and made the role of the wife paramount in sustaining thehome as a moral and spiritual fortress. Domestic drama illustrated thatlove was the highest reward. Dramatists whose work charmed theirpatrons with the allure of domesticity emphasized the importance of theselection of the right mate and protection of the home against theincursions of disruptive forces. Love, pur ified of sexual passion,powerfully restraining lust and refining moral will insured the success ofmarriage, even across class lines. 2 According to Cross:

The great majority of earlier domestic dramas ended happily,which in nineteenth-century terms meant the right mate, love, ahappy home, and freedom from want. In the final analysis,what counted was the skill with which the playwright arousedthe deep-rooted fears in his audience's mind and then set themat rest. Strong anxiety followed by a fittingly happy conclusionlay at the heart of domestic drama. 3

Domestic drama and melodrama fed upon paranoia, self-pity, andsentimentality. 4 Both featured, David Grimsted has noted, the victoryof forces of morality, social restraint, and domesticity over what was dark,passionate, and anti-social. 5Symbolic ction in Three Romantic Comedies

Recognition of true love, true excellence, virtue, or morality, usuallyinvolving the exposure of a false lover who pretends to possess virtue, hasbeen a common feature of English romantic comedy since the form

2 Gilbert Cross, Next Week ast lynne : Domestic Drama in Performance7820-1874 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Pre ss, 1977), 219 .3 Cross, 222-223.4 Sentimentality was a deliberate overvaluing of the humble and the domest ic

in opposition to the undervalu ing of them that a capital ist economy encouraged .Cross, 91) Frank Ellis surveyed sentimental English drama of the eighteenth cen turylooking for traits of the genre and found that sen timenta lization involved the inversionof traditional hierarchical relations, as between parent and child, master and servant,man and animal. (Frank Ellis, Sentimental Comedy: Theory and Practice [Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1991], 12 .)

15 David Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled: merican Theatre and Culture 1800-7850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 220.


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Domestic Formationsdeveloped in the sixteenth century from models provided by Italianpastoral comedy. Indeed, some movement of a protagonist toward amoral or ethical insight or some transformation of the protagonist's stateof being has been characteristic of drama of whatever genre sinceAristotle established anagnorasis (perception, insight) as a criterion of thefully formed tragedy.

In addition to being a structural device in The Hunchback The Ladyof Lyons, and The Stranger, recognition is a motive in plot developmentand an explicit topic of dialogue in scene after scene in each of theseplays. The prevalence of recognition thus suggests that it might be acommon ground for a discussion of the symbolic action of each play,that is of the objectified and ritualized civic tension, the amelioration orcelebration of which is the play's cultural work.Reconciliation of an estranged married couple, Adelaide ( Mrs.Haller ) and Charles ( The Stranger ) Waldenbourg, is the event towardwhich the plot of The Stranger moves. Their recognition of one anotherforms the play's anti-climax in Act V, scene 1 and their reconciliation,triggered by the presence of their children, forms the play's denouement.The action and dialogue of The Stranger exposes the causes of theirestrangement and the attendant barriers to a more immediate reconciliation, as well as the moral and psychological rightness of the reunion ofthese superficially flawed but inwardly virtuous characters.

Benjamin Thompson's English title for the play refers to both thecentral characters, who are strangers to everyone in the play, and to theestrangement marring their relationship. Mrs. Hal ler has resided for threeyears at the Wintersen country estate, a refuge from the dazzlingallurements of the city given by the Countess Wintersen, although,as theplay begins, the Countess knows nothing of Mrs. Haller's background.When the Countess's brother recognizes Mrs. Haller's patrician sensibilities beneath the disguise of her appearance as a commoner, he decideshe wants to marry her . The Countess then presses Mrs. Haller forinformation about her past. She confesses she has abandoned herhusband and two children for a man who turned out to be a villain. Shewas deceived, however, in the context of diminished confidence in herhusband's affection. He, too, had been vic timized by deceitful friends,including the villain, who used forged letters and a gullible servant toconvince Adelaide her husband loved another. 16 Failed confidence hasruptured the bonds of true love and ruined the marriage.

6 Augustus von Kotzebue, The Stranger Menschenhaas und Reue), BenjaminThompson, trans. (London: Vernor and Hood, 1805), 50-52. All subsequentreferences will be cited parenthetically in the text with the initials AK.


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8 DURHAMRecently, a wanderer, the deeply melancholic, misanthropic, and

misogynistic Stranger (Charles Waldbourg) and his serving man, Francis,have occupied a lodge on the outskirts of the Wintersen estate. Francisis a sunny foil to the Stranger's cold skepticism and a raisoneur, positioned to illuminate the Stranger's melancholy (his is a misanthropy inhis head, not in his heart . Lack of trust in anyone's sincerity undermines the Stranger, so Francis must intervene to counteract the Stranger'smisgivings. For instance, an old peasant, Tobias, needs money to gainthe release of his only son, recently subscribed as a soldier. The Strangerbelieves Tobias is an imposter, but Francis convinces him the man ishonest, so the Stranger gives Tobias the money. Francis also undercodesthe Stranger's mysteriously anti-social behavior, linking it to his havingbeen victimized in a confidence scheme. After the Stranger saves theWintersen's son from being drowned, he rudely declines an invitation todine with the Wintersens and to accept their thanks. Francis explains thathe hates the whole human race, but women particularly because hemay perhaps have been deceived AK, 45).

Such behavior as seen in the actions of the Stranger and Mrs. HalleriII ustrates the power of romantic love, the betrayal of which sowsmisanthropy and cold skepticism in the betrayed and remorse in thebetrayer. But just as the Stranger's cynicism overlays a generous andresponsive heart, so Mrs. Haller's remorse shades her radiant innerperfection.

Mrs. Haller is a virtuous woman whose true identity is almostinvisible behind a shroud of regret. She is a great beauty whosemysterious tears operate as a sign of her sympathetic nature and thereforeof her virtue. The Stranger discounts a report of her sensibility with theobservation that all women wish to be conspicuous-In town by theirwit; in the country by their heart (AK, 14). Countess Wintersen'sdescription of her pastimes-contemplation and sympathetic support forothers-establishes her, in Baron Steinfort's eyes, as a woman of virtue.The Baron, who is deeply attracted to her, sees in her elaborate shows ofhumili ty a further sign of her virtue. She pays elegant compliments to theCount and Countess, but when the Baron acknowledges her generosity,she casts her eyes upon the ground and contends against the confusionof an ex lted soul when surprised in a good action (AK, 3 ). Mrs.Haller herself, in protesting that the Baron cannot find her attractive,articulates the code linking beauty with virtue: The enchanting beautiesof a female countenance arise from peace of mind-The look whichcaptivates an honourable man must be reflected from a noble soul (AK,49).

Read in the context of the discourses of domesticity, the thrust ofcharacterization in the play is toward establishing Mrs. Haller as a


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Domestic Formations 9paragon of femininity and the Stranger as a model of mascul inity. She isto be known as contemplative, sympathetic, vulnerable, generous,beautiful, modest, and spiritually placid-qualities shrouded in remorse.Beneath his melancholy, he is charitable, courageous, and charismatic.They have been ravaged by deceit. His melancholy and her remorsearise from their having been vict imized in a confidence scheme. Theirdomestic peace has been disturbed by the villainy of a false friend, but itwi I be restored by the ingenuity of a true friend.

Recognition is again thematized in the play's anti-cl imax in Act IV,scene 1. Annette and the Savoyard sing a lilting duet to draw the Strangerout of his lodge. Francis, knowing his master, proposes a sadder strain,and the singers offer an air Mrs. Hailer taught them. The Strangerrecognizes the tune, but the lyric is new. Mrs. Haller's new verses speakof a silent sorrow never to be revealed to her beloved, because it mightbe taken as a plea for forgiveness, a cry for mercy she will never raise(AK, 56) .17 The familiar tune and the poignant verse leave the Strangersurprised and moved and drive him back into the lodge. When Baron

Steinfort recognizes the Stranger as his old friend, Charles Waldbourg,Waldbourg tells a tale of a fortune and a wife lost to a perfidious friend,thereby doubling the load of grief and ruin, a burden the play's finalscene of recognition must discharge. Steinfort persuades Waldbourg touse his talent of persuasion in bearing Steinfort's proposal of marriageto Mrs. Hailer, and the scene is set for the climactic encounter of theestranged lovers.

The ultimate recognition occurs in two stages When Charles (TheStranger) and Adela.ide (Mrs. Hailer) see one another, Adelaide swoonsand Charles rushes off-stage. Charles returns to confront Adelaide, yetthey cannot conform their actions to the deep affection they feel andreconcile. The Baron, now seeing that Mrs. Hailer is his old friend'syoung wife, graciously resolves to re-unite the two. He will use theirchildren to break through the Waldbourg's remorseful and melancholicdefenses.

Charles believes Adelaide has merely feigned ignorance of hispresence on the Wintersen estate and has schemed to lure him intoposition for another betrayal. Moreover, he fears the mocking,whispering, and pointing of the painted dolls when he returns tosociety with his runaway wife on his arm, and he prays that his insultedpride and his injured honour will protect him from Adelaide'sdesigns. (AK, 75) Adelaide offers a written confession of her guilt and a

7 Thompson credits R B Sheridan for the words to I have a silent sorrow hereand the Duchess of Devonshire for the music. (AK, 54)


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10 DURH Mrelease from their marriage, but he refuses her. He offers the remnant ofhis fortune in the form of a casket qf jewels, but she refuses him. Theirobstinance weakens in a set of three farewells, but at the end of the third,they are still estranged. But, as they turn to leave, they encounter theirchildren, fleshly manifestations of their romantic union, whom Steinforthas positioned. The children call out to them, William to Charles andAmelia to Adelaide. The parents embrace the children and then oneanother as the curtain falls. Their bond was weakened when work andworry undermined Charles's love; subsequently Charles's coldness andthe lies of a conniving villain undermined Adelaide's faith. So thedomestic union is vulnerable, and its strength lies as much in their re-born virtue as in the context of the union: in faithful friends, such asFrancis, Baron Steinfort, and the Duke and Duchess of Wintersen, and inthe children, whose mere presence neutralizes the fear separating Charlesfrom Adelaide. The play demonstrates the effects of the failure of familialconfidence based on true love, just as it offers a formula for the defenseand repair of domestic harmony: relying upon the support of friends andyielding to parental responsibilities.

The unchback is designed to test and perfect the values of itsheroine, Julia, as a means of preparing her for a true marriage to the rightman, Thomas Clifford. However, the marriage cannot take place until thetitle of the Earl of Rochdale is settled on the proper heir. In the course ofthe play's action, the title is held by two men; Wilford (the villain) has ittemporarily, but he acquired it on the basis of a false report. Finally,Master Walter, Julia's hunchbacked guardian, is revealed to be not onlythe son of the Earl of Rochdale but also Julia's father. Julia's marriage toClifford will, in time, secure the title to Clifford.

Clifford, too, bears then loses a false identity. As the play begins, heis the recent heir to a title and a fortune. However, the bequest toClifford is based on false information, as was that to Wilford. Cliffordwoos Julia as Sir Thomas, but he loses her when he loses his misbegottentitle and fortune. Master Walter devises a series of tests of Julia's virtue,some of which she fails. But when she passes the final test by displayingfilial obedience in accepting betrothal to Wilford, whom she hates,Master Walter unmasks, claims his title, and gives his daughter to herbeloved Thomas Clifford.

Julia's guardian-father is afflicted with an abnormal forward curvatureof the spine in the lumbar region, a condition known as "lordosis," or"lordoma." The significance of the impairment is emphasized in a tavernbrawl in Act I, when Wilford's companion, Gaylove, berates MasterWalter as a "knave" and puns on the name of his affliction: "Thou seestbut one lord here, And I see two " Master Walter responds: Reflect'st


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Domestic Formations 11thou on my shape? Thou a.rt a villain "18 Walter's trustworthiness, hisliberal ity in supporting schemes of public good," and his covertgenerosity (not half the good he does is told) mark him as truly noble.Similarly, Thomas Clifford has been raised in poverty, and his character,an amalgam of knowledge, industry, frugality, and honesty, has beenmilled on the hard stone of penury. Wilford, the nominal aristocrat, isafflicted with execrable habits. Thus the crucial issues of personalidenti ty and status and the abi I ty to read the signs of true virtue andsocial station are foregrounded in the play's title .

Master Walter sees in Clifford a perfect mate for his ward/daughter,Julia, a woman of wit, sense and taste: "no city belle, But e'n a SylvanGoddess UK 8)." Master Walter has taught her that city ways and theways of men's hearts impose a rule of appearances. In the city and inaffairs of the heart, "to pass current you must seem the thing, The passivething, that others think; and not Your simple, honest, independent selfOK 10)." Julia authenticates her sensibility when she sees in Clifford'smanner a man who might be Master Walter's clerk. However, Helen,Julia's friend and confidante, sees in Clifford's gait, clothing, and jewelry,as well as in how Master Walter bows and yields, the sure signs thatClifford is "one of our town kings." Clifford woos Julia and vows toabandon the town for the country, but, through Walter's machinations,it is Julia who abandons the country to face a test of her constancy in thecity.

Despite her apparent sylvan sensibilities, Julia fails the test of city life,a failure nowhere more evident than in her new attitudes about love andmarriage. After a time in the city spent in the riotous pursuit of pleasureat all-night balls and parties, julia's love for Clifford vanishes, and sheadmits to Helen that she wi II marry him only because she has promisedto do so. Moreover, when Helen urges Julia to talk about her feelings forClifford and her vision of their marriage, Julia speaks only of the materialgain she will experience: the title, the coaches, yachts, clothes, andjewelry. She has become a shallow chameleon, her identity a fabric ofmoody fascinations, possessions, and prodigality .

But Julia slowly recovers her sylvan character after a series ofemotionally trying losses. Clifford spurns her, then she learns thatClifford has lost his title and wealth. Enraged by sarcastic attacks onClifford, she defends him . Then she learns she will be married toWil ford, the newly elected Earl of Rochdale. Subsequently, Julia recoversher belief in the power and significance of love just as she recovers her

8 James Sheridan Knowles, he Hunchback ninth ed. (London: Edward Moxon,1836), 3. All subsequent references will be cited parenthetically in the text with theinitials JK.


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ability to read in Clifford's melanchol ic, lovelorn appearance the truesigns of his feelings for her. Though Julia affirms her love for Clifford ashe affirms his feelings for her), she lapses into a suicidal despair as hermarriage to Wilford approaches, and she begs Walter to Devise somespeedy means To cheat the altar of its victim UK, 69). Instead, Waltercompels her to obey her father's wish that she marry as she has agreed,and she relents. B-ut, as she is denying herself so she can honor theprenuptial pact, Walter reveals he is the true Earl of Rochdale. Moreover,he reveals he is Julia's father, having masked himself from her for fear shewould reject him because of his deformity. Walter then gives Julia toClifford, and the true wedding begins as the play ends.

Clifford and Julia emerge from an essentially benevolent processthrough which they are perfected for matrimony. Julia's countryconstancy has been deepened and strengthened by bereavement,dispossession, and despair. She spurns wealth by giving her love to apenniless Clifford, for which action she is ultimately rewarded with greatwealth. The experience of mortification delivers her to a state of almostcomplete self-abnegation, from which she is redeemed by an approvingparent to whom she has pledged obedience. She recovers her sensibility,and she is rewarded with an honest, loving mate. Similarly, Clif ford 'sperseverance in the solid values he acquired as an impoverished butindustrious youth position him for ennoblement in the form of a title,wealth, social status, and an adoring spouse. Julia and Clifford are goodpeople whose suffering makes them better equipped for a uniondisplaying the characteristics prescribed by domestic ideology.The action of Bulwer-lytton's The Lady of Lyons; or Love and Prideset in Lyons, France in 1796, is incited by the vengeful plot of a pair ofaristocratic suitors, Beauseant and Glavis, re jected in their bid for thehand of the disdainful Pauline Deschappelles. Pauline is destined in herbourgeois mother's imaginat ion to marry nothing less than a prince.Beauseant and Glavis engage a handsome and accomplished commoner,Claude Melnotte, to present himself to Pauline and her venal mother asthe Prince of Como. After Claude has seduced Pauline, they plan toexpose the fraud and humble the proud Pauline.

The plot of The Lady of Lyons and the plot of he unchbackfunction similarly. Both subject young lovers to emotional shocks whichtransfigure them and perfect them for an ideal marriage. Claude Melnottebegins his tumultuous passage from fatuous versifier to true lover at thetime of the Revolution that turns us all topsy-turvy-the revolution of


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Domestic Formations 13Love." 9 Claude dresses beautifully, bears himself proudly, and hasacquired the useless skills of an aristocrat: fencing, dancing, music, andart. 2 When it appears (wrongly) that Pauline has spurned his lovepoems, a vengeful rage transforms him into a falsifying conspirator, benton betraying Pauline. But then indignant anger, stimulated by knowledgethat Pauline, though drawn to him by his title, truly loves him as a man,converts him into a protector and saves Pauline from Beauseant's sexualassault. Pride in his heritage and the shame of his deceitful behaviorarouse in him a cleansing remorse, for which Pauline's selflessness is anadditional trigger:

Pauline -angel of love and mercy -your memory shall lead meback to virtue -The husband of a being so beautiful in her nobleand sublime tenderness may be poor-may be low-born;-(thereis no guilt in the decrees of Providence )-but he should be onewho can look thee in the face without a blush,-to whom thylove does not bring remorse-who can fold thee in his heart, andsay,-"Here there is no deceit "-1 am not that man EL, 80)

He seeks redemption in adventure and finds it as Colonel Marier, thehero of the battle of Lodi.21 He returns to Lyons to discover that Paulineis about to annul their marriage so she can marry Beauseant, whosewealth the Deschappelle family must have to save themselves frombankruptcy. Claude's grief signals the final stage of his transformation,

9 Sir Edward Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, The Lady of Lyons; or Love nd Prideseconded. (london: Saunders and Otley, 1838), 13. All subsequent references willbe cited parenthetically in the text with the initials EL.

2 Bulwer-Lytton describes Claude as "a type of that restless, brilliant, andevanescent generation that sprung up from the ashes of the terrible Revolution,-men,born to be agents of the genius of Napoleon, to accomplish the most marvelousexploits, and to leave but little of permanent triumphs and sole advantage to thesucceeding race." He also acknowledged in his "Preface" that the "old and classicalsentiment, that virtue is nobility contains the pith of all the political creedannounced by Claude Melnotte; and that sentiment is the founder, and often themotto, of Aristocracy i tself." EL, vii -ix.)

2 Fought May 10, 1796 as Napoleon's forces pursued a retreating Austrian armysoutheast of Milan . Napoleon launched a bloody but successful cavalry chargeagainst an artillery enforced bridgehead at Lodi . Bulwer-Lytton associates hisheretofore deeply flawed hero with the reckless gallantry of the cavalry charge toestablish Claude's "nobility." Perhaps even more importantly, however, Claude'smilitary adventures supply him with the wealth he uses to redeem Pauline's fatherfrom bankruptcy and to save Pauline from an unwanted marriage to Beauseant.


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4 DURH M

the crushing of his pride: His very face is changed. A breaking heartDoes its work soon (EL 95) " But, learning from Pau I ne of her steadfastlove for him, he uses the booty from his Italian conquests to extricatePauline's now bankrupt father and rescue her, once again, fromBeauseant. He then claims his wife, whose forgiveness he humblyaccepts, and he recovers his stainless family honor.

Claude's passage from feckless juvenile to humbled but honorableadult is paralleled by Pauline's evolution . As Claude's head has beenturned by Love, so Pauline's is turned by the influence of her pompousand socially ambitious mother. However, she is able to distinguish thetrue man, with whom she falls in love, from the false prince, and herlove undercuts her foibles and makes her a good little girl (EL, 47)."Knowledge of Claude's duplicity drives Pauline to the.brink of rejectinghim entirely, but her love for him tempers the metal of her character( what was pride in prosperity, in affliction becomes virtue [EL, 72]"),and she forgives him. At last, however, her pride is vanqu ished, and shemust beg Beauseant to mercifully help her father without demand ing herhand in return. So, emptied of pride and filled with a purified love, shecan be Claude's right mate. Pride, a distinctly aristocratic posture, leavesno room in a character for the blooming of the kind of selfless love thatthe code of domesticity established as the basis for the bourgeoismarriage. Claude is enmeshed in a juvenile fascination with Love.However, the superficial flaring of romantic allure soon fades without thespiritual bond resulting from shared suffering. " Love" must also bepurged so true love can flourish . Both Claude and Pauline must becleansed of their pretensions to nobility before they can be partners in aproper domestic alliance.

Domestic dramas such as the ones examined here wou ld seem to beout of touch with the realities of the last decade or so of the antebellumperiod, a time noted in history for the impact of imm igration, urbaniza-tion, temperance, and abolition. The list of theatrical events convent ion-ally seen as markers of the epoch would surely include F. S. Chanfrau sgreat success in the role of Mose, the Fire Boy, in Benjamin A. BakersGlance at ew York (1848), the Astor Place Riot in 1849, the dramatiza-tion of Uncle Tom s Cabin in 1852, W. W. Pratts dramatization ofTimothy S. Arthur's en Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There, andDian Boucicault's he Poor of ew York (1857), dramatizing thedevastating effect of laissez faire banking and investment practices.However, Steven Seidman's discussion of the connection between keyelements of the cult of domesticity and significant cultural and socialissues of the antebellum period suggests further the existence of adomestic formation:


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Domestic FormationsThe new conjugal ideology fostered a consciousness of classdifference and moral superiority. A life governed by self-controland spiritual goals was seen as higher than a life controlled byimpulse and desire. To the extent that these othe r socialgroups [African-Americans and the new ethnics from Europe,especially the Irish] were associated with sexual licentiousness,disease, carnality, and excess the ideology of spiritual love andcompanionate marriage stood as proof of the moral superiorityof the middle class. By identifying their claims to moral superiority with their ideals of love and marriage, the m iddle classlegitimated their claims to privilege and power. In other words,the middle class legit imated their class aspirations to polit ical,social, and cultural hegemony on the grounds of their intellectual and moral fitness to rule. Renunciation of desire and itssublimation into an ethic of work and spiritual love served asproof of their superiorityY

5

The homologous relations between the ideological content of the playsexamined above and the cultural forms revealed by Cott, Halttunen, andSeidman suggest the existence of an intricate intertextuali ty linkingdomestic and romantic stage comedy popular in the antebellum yearswith other expressive forms: advice literature, diaries, memoirs, andletters. And it is this connection between a social ideal and dramaticdecorum manifest in character types that constructs a model for the socialrole of the spectator. Popular domestic and romantic comedies, such asthe ones examined here, in which popular stars appeared on the stage ofone of the epoch's most prestigious theatres, would seem to ind icate aradiant celebration of domesticity, a moment at which a social/aestheticformation links the consciousness of a spectator through the transformational energies of a performance to the Victorian ideology of conjugallove, a fundamental element of the bourgeois cultural system.

22 Seidman, 59.


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journal of American Drama and Theatre 11 Fall 1999)

Critiquing the Huzza:The Historiography of the Astor Place Riots

j FFR Y ULLOM

Riots often occur when groups of people involved in social movements resort to violence as a last ditch method of delivering theirmessage that the social order must change. Though the death anddestruction caused by riots have been well documented, people persistin inciting violence to achieve social aims. Recent riots in the UnitedStates have been a reaction to racial injustice, yet the history of riots inthis country reveals various motivations for violent mob action.Concerning the causes of riots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuryAmerica, historian Paul A. Gilje states, Religious, ethnic, racial, andclass differences came into prominence and created divisions thatperiodically erupted into bloody collective action. A riot tended tohave diverse goals, employ violence, and attack persons as well asproperty. 1 Although contemporary theatres are perceived to be thehouses of high culture and refinement, early American theatres wereplagued often by riots and mob action. One of the most violent riots inAmerican history occurred at the Astor Place Opera House in 1849.Most historians see this riot as resulting from socioeconomic tensions.This view oversimplifies the origin of the riot; an examination of thehistorical studies of the Astor Place Riot reveals that there were, in fact,multiple ca uses and motivations for it.

Like most theatrical riots, the Astor Place Riot was, in actuality, athree-day event. The petty feud between two prominent actors, the

1 Paul A. Gilje, The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), vii. All subsequent referenceswill be cited parenthetically in the text with the initials PG .

Theatre riots, like France's Batt le of Hugo's Hernani or the riot over Jarry'sUbu Roi occurred over multiple days. In the United States, riots involv ing EdmundKean in 1821 and 1825 both extended through several days. In most theatrical riots,an initial event occurs one night in the theatre which causes excitement and riotingthe following day (Richard Moody, The Astor Place Riot [Bloomington : IndianaUniversity Press, 1958], 24-5). All subsequent references will be cited parenthetically


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Astor Place Riot 17brash American Edwin Forrest and the English tragedian Wi II iam CharlesMacready, climaxed on the night ofMay 10, 1849 when between twentytwo and thirty-nine people were slain by an infantry regiment in thestreets of New York City. As part of his farewell tour in America,Macready had been performing acbeth at the Astor Place Opera House;at the Broadway Theatre, Forrest was presenting his version of the sameplay. This direct competition incited many of Forrest's loyal fo llowers toattend Macready's May 7th performance and shower the stage with eggs,fruit, and other items while shouting " Huzza for native talent" and" Down with the codfish aristocracy "4 Macready retreated from thetheatre and planned for his immediate departure back to England;however, a letter signed by numerous socialites and influential artisticand political figures (including Herman Melville and Wash ington Irving)persuaded Macready to resist mob-rule and perform again (RM, 110,116). The Macready troupe waited several days in hopes that thetensions would abate wh i le newspapers continuously commented uponthe event (RM, 115). Although city officials and the press encouragedMacready to cancel his May 1Oth performance (because Forrest wasperforming the same show on the same night), Macready stubbornlyproceeded with his presentation of acbeth (RM, 133). By the time thecurtain rose on Macready's production, the entire Astor Place Square waspacked solid with rioters (RM, 137). As the evening progressed andinfantries moved into position to protect the theatre, the mob becameunruly and attacked the policemen. 5 When Macready completed theperformance and left the stage, the crowd (inside and outs ide) eruptedand attempted to storm the theatre; soon, the order to respond was given,

in the text with the initials RM.Garff B. Wilson, Three Hundred ears of American Drama and Theatre

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), 53, 55. There have been differingaccounts concerning how many rioters died that even ing. Moody and the CambridgeGuide cite a total of thirty-one (twenty-two at the scene and nine on a later date fromwounds incurred at the riot); original sources and Peter Buckley's study cite onlytwenty-two dead (eighteen at the site with four later Cambridge Guide to Theatre,Martin Ban ham, ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge Universi ty Press, 1992], 50-1 ).

4 David Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled: American Theatre and ulture, 1800-7850 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1968), 71. A ll subsequent referenceswill be cited parenthetical ly in the text w ith the init ia ls DG .

5 Wilson, 55.


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18 ULLOMand the militia fired directly into the crowd .6 Many rioters assumed thatthe militia was firing blanks and decided to charge again, resulting inmore deaths (RM 153-54 . Fearing the complete destruction of thetheatre, Macready donned a disguise, passed through the rioting crowdunnoticed, and hid in a nearby hotel for three hours until the riot calmed(RM, 7 . 7Although the Astor Place Riot remains one of the most violent riotsin American history, few historical studies have focused upon the event.Numerous historians use the occurrence as an example within theirbooks (usually to interpret social tensions in a specific light), but only twobooks have been written solely on the riot: Richard Moody's The AstorPlace Riot and Peter Buckley's dissertation To the Opera House: Cultureand Society in New York City, 1820-1860. 6 Moody provides acomplete account of the events surrounding the riot without concerninghimself with the social/cultural issues involved. His book focuses uponseveral topics: the development and dissolution of Forrest andMacready's relationship, the history of riots in America, and the eventsoccurring immediately before, during, and after the riot. Although herefuses to provide any hypotheses or theories concerning social orcultural motivations for the riot, his detailed research provides a wealthof material that supports or contrasts with other versions of events. Bytracing the history of the participants in the riot and by ignoringinterdisciplinary factors, Moody's narrative evolves into an historicalstudy which emphasizes the internal motivations for the riot and, in turn,rejects many oversimplif ied arguments that claim that the Astor Place Riotwas the result of class tensions.Paul A. Gilje takes the opposite approach to the subject of riots anddoes not focus upon the Astor Place Riot. In his book The oad toMobocracy Gilje analyzes riots in the Jacksonian era for the sole purposeof exposing their socioeconomic roots. As Gilje states, Theseanimosities were aggravated by clearly defined special interests arising

6 Cambridge 50.7 Moody provides a wonderfully detailed account of the riot in his book, usingMacready's diary as a source for Macready's actions during the evening. The 1992

play wo Shakespearean Actors by Richard Nelson depicts the relationship betweenForrest and Macready and includes a nice scene where Macready is forced to sit andwait while people outside scream for his death and the building's destruction. Nelsontakes a great deal of liberty by having Forrest trapped in the same hotel, allowing formoments of tension and reconciliation.

8 Peter Buckley, To the Opera House: Culture and Society in New York City,1820-1860 (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York .State at Stony Brook, 1984).


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Astor Place Riot 19from socioeconomic conditions (PG, vii). Gil je's study provides usefulcontextual information concerning other theatrical riots in Americaduring this period which can be used to correct the impression createdby a number of studies that consider the Astor Place Riot a singularphenomenon. Gilje shows that the violent riot of 1849 was nothing morethan one event in a progression. In his afterword, Gilje mentions theAstor Place occurrence but only in a list with other riots, signifying thatthe emphasis of his study should be placed upon the underlying socialtensions (which continue to exist) as opposed to the actual event (whichsimply was one in a series of riots) PG , 286).

In the beginning of his book Highbrow/Lowbrow Lawrence Levinestresses the need for objectiv ity in any historical endeavor. In his studyof Shakespeare's popularity in nineteenth-century America, Levine detailshis process for achieving objectivity: a historian must perceive[Shakespeare] though the prism of nineteenth-century culture. Levineutilizes this prism to study high / low culture and the transformationof Shakespeare into elitist culture. As a historian, Levine is sensitive tocritiquing the nineteenth-century social hierarchy because such anapproach would be a criticism of culture rather than an objectiveanalysis. He attempts to enter into the spiri t of the nineteenth centuryand to understand society's love of Shakespeare as well as the eventssurrounding the Astor Place Riot. Levine discusses the social class)tensions contributing to the outbreak of the riot, but he contextualizes theclass issue in terms of an ongoing cultural debate.

David Grimsted's Melodrama Unveiled focuses upon theconstruction and function of nineteenth-century drama and aud ience asa microcosm of society and its values. According to Grimsted, Dramawas the major form of public entertainment available to all classes andthe art form most wholly and immediately dependent on popular appeal(DG, ix). Grimsted analyzes the psychological condition of theparticipants in the riot (both the actors and the audience) and attempts tosummarize how their attitudes determined the causes and results of theriot and accurately reflected the tensions within n i n e t e e n t h c ~ n t u r yAmerican society. Also, Jack Fincher's article, Raising the Curtain on aBloody Riot and Stark Mayhem, attempts to expose the social attitudes

Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow he Emergence of Cultural Hierarchyin America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 5-8, 33, 36. All subsequentreferences will be cited parentheti cally in the text with the initials LL.


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20 ULLOMconcerning immigration in the 1840s and detai I how those hostilitiesinfluenced and incited the Astor Place riot. 1

Most of the scholars who have studied the Astor Place riot refer to theevent as a reaction to (or against) a cultural or social hierarchy. Culture,according to Levine, is a process, not a fixed condition; it is the productof unremitting interaction between the past and the present LL, 33).Levine attempts to understand the culture and the mind-set, that is thecultural tastes and attitudes, of those involved with the Astor Place riot.Shakespeare was part of a shared society and culture, yet, somehow,Shakespeare eventually became the property of the higher classes (orpolite culture). LL, 15, 31) Levine proposes that this labeling and

seizing of Shakespeare as high culture resulted from the elite's reactionto and rejection of the behavior of the lower-class members of theaudience. According to Levine, the lower classes were accustomed to ahierarchical seating arrangement si nee the theatre represented amicrocosm of society, they expected to procure the poorer seats) . Thelower classes were also accustomed to behaving in whatever mannerthey chose (usually yelling and throwing objects) as a means ofcommenting on the performance. However, when the elite members ofsociety constructed their own theatres (e.g. the Astor Place Opera House),the lower classes lost their power to comment upon or dictate culturaltastes. LL, 61) From Levine's perspective, the riot was rooted in theprohibition of the lower classes from participating in the development ofcultural standards for New York society; in a larger and truer sense, itwas a clash over questions of cultural values, over the role of people inculture LL, 66). In concluding his argument, Levine states, The AstorPlace Riot, which in essence was a struggle for power and culturalauthority within theatrical space, was simultaneously an indication of anda catalyst for the cultural changes that came to characterize the UnitedStates at the end of the century LL, 68).

Gilje also argues that challenges within the cultural hierarchyprovided the motivation for the Astor Place Riot. Although he states thatthe establishment of upper-class theatres was influenced bysocioeconomic factors, the middle and upper classes, according to Gilje,desired to separate themselves from the lower classes due to a differencein cultural taste. The aristocratic members of society, tired of the rowdybehavior and demands for low culture in theatre presentations,preferred to enjoy their own type of culture and to satisfy their owncultural tastes. (PG, 252) Gilje's argument exposes a difference in

1 Jack Fincher, Raising the Curtain on a Bloody Riot and Stark Mayhem,mithsonian 16 (October 1985): 170.


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Astor Place Riot 21cultural attitudes (or the difference between how each group viewedculture); Gilje's study suggests that higher classes stressed the importanceof art while the lower classes simply enjoyed the experience. In hisbook Horrible Prettiness historian Robert G. Allen links the culturalhierarchy directly to the social hierarchy, stating that the upper classcontrol over theatrical performance and audience behavior wasincreasingly challenged by lower-class theatre-goers who did not sharethe elite's tastes, manners, or notions of commercial leisure. 11Almost every historian who studies the Astor Place Riot suggests thatprevalent socioeconomic tensions caused the riots. Levine beginsHighbrow Lowbrow by looking at the people who were arrested duringand after the riot; almost all those detained by the police (according toLevine and Moody) were lower class workers, suggesting that the mob ofrioters was specifically a lower-class gathering. At the time of the riot,daily publications viewed the episode as a protest against 'aristocratizingthe pit' in such new and exclusive theatres as the Astor Place OperaHouse and warned that in the future the republic's rich would have to 'bemindful where its luxuries offend LL, 65-66). ' Levine also interprets therally held in City Hall Park on the following day (May 11th) as an effortto stress the unification of the lower classes and to rebel against thecontrolling aristocracy. (RM, 178; LL, 65) By looking at articles publishedin magazines and newspapers that covered the riot, Levine concludes thatone of the lasting effects of the Astor Place Riot was the confirmation forall citizens that distinctive higher and lower classes existed in society. LL,66) Grimsted agrees with Levine concerning the separation of classesafter the riot, but Grimsted argues that the class separation was evidentand understood (if not accepted) before the riot occurred. According toGrimsted, the riot (and the events occurring after the riot) did not changedramatically how the classes affected each other outside of the theatre.In other words, the clash between classes did not alter the socialhierarchy in the everyday world; therefore, in order to study the trueca use or effect of the riot, Grimsted stresses the need to study the theatreand its participants. (DG, 74-75)

At the beginning of his consideration of theatre riots, Gilje states thatthe contrast between middle-class ideas of decorum and the populardisorder of the lower-classes became especially evident in the city'stheatres (PG, .246). Gilje claims that theatre disturbances and riotsexposed the middle class's critique of and disdain for rowdyism, its

Robert G. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (ChapelHill : Th e University of North Ca rolina Press, 1991); 51.


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22 ULLOMperceptions concerning the increase of rioting in theatres, and its irritationwith the lower classes. In hopes of discouraging rowdy behavior, themiddle and upper classes sat passively during theatrical performanceswhich, in turn, irked the lower-class audience members even more. Giljeis cautious, however, not to label riots as exclusively lower-classengagements. Although he reports that most people who were arrestedin riots during the 1820s and 1830s were lower-class citizens, henonetheless claims that many rioters were members of the upper class.PG , 242 , 246-47) He provides the example of a well-to-do citizen,William Hopkins, who participated in a riot against a local theatre in1822 because he believed that the theatre was not performing its functionfor society. He believed that citizens should have the right to throw pies,shout at the actors, and indulge in other actions if the theatre did notfulfill its main purpose: providing entertainment. (PG, 252) Thesuggestion that riots in nineteenth-century America did not involve onlythe lower class calls into question the socioeconomic explanation for theAstor Place Riot.

Although class issues were a rallying cry for action against elitisttheatres and standards, many historians suggest that socioeconomictensions were products of propaganda used to generate heat over threatsor insults to nationalistic ideals. PG, 247-48) Grimsted depicts the May11th rally at City Hill Park in terms of nationalism; the rally waspromoted and hosted by the Actions of the American Committee, whichdeclared that people had to decide whether to support England or theUnited States. Posters advertising the event expressed patriotic themes:WORKING MEN, shall AMERICANS or ENGLISH RULE in this city? 2According to Grimsted, this England vs. America propaganda incitednumerous riots: The most serious riots were touched off by insults, realor alleged, that English stars made against the Un ited States. Anexample of Americans rioting for nationalistic pride occurred in 1821when Kean insulted Boston audiences by refusing to perform; when thisinsult was published in the Boston Gazette the audience rioted at

Kean's theatre, protesting the audacity and rudeness of English actors.(DG, 65, 66)

Levine expands upon the nationalism argument by exposingAmerican society's attitudes towards British culture. Levine claims thatAmericans perceived their own culture to be inferior to the Britishculture. He finds it significant that the play that sparked the riot wasMacbeth at the time of the riot; therefore, American audiences were

2 james Rees,. he Life o dwin Forrest (Philadelphia: 1874), 337. Quoted inGrimsted, 72.


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Astor Place Riot 23delighted to attend performances of Shakespeare (even though theperformance was not what we would normally consider to beShakespeare ). 3 In 1843, the new curtain at the St. Charles Theatre inNew York depicted Shakespeare in a halo of light being borne aloft onthe wings of the American eagle. Shakespeare was not onlydomesticated; he was humanized LL, 23)." The meaning of this symbolis twofold: first, it is an admission of American culture's inferiority toEnglish culture, and two, it shows that American society was willing toadapt English culture in its own fashion until it became "Americanized."The depiction of Shakespeare on an American eagle is symbolic of thefight against cultural domination by the English . Concerning the AstorPlace Riots, the mob reacted to the establishment of new theatres whichvalidated the superiority of English culture and lessened the opportunity for native works to thrive. 14

Gilje proposes that British actors were resented because they wereengaged in an international acting competition. They were "doublyresented because they competed against native actors and, in turn, triedto maintain artistic control over American culture. This idea ofcompetition can be applied easily to the Astor Place Riot whereMacready and Forrest performed the same show on the same night;Macready's insistence on performing in the face of intense civic and presspressure to cancel was perceived as a threat to the ideal American actor.Gilje also states that the riots were "probably directed at the socialpretensions of the middle and upper classes, who openly mimicked thetrappings of English culture and society ; in other words, the riotersattacked citizens who rejected American culture and preferred Engl ishculture an anti-nationalistic position). (PG, 247-48) Gilje validates hisargument by providing another example of a riot involv ing British actorswho were attacked simply because of their nationality. British actorjoshua R. Anderson arrived in New York accompanied by stories that hehad spoken abusively on board ship and that he continued his abuse afterlanding in America. 15 During his first performance at the Park Theatre,the crowd heckled and booed Anderson while throwing eggs and fruit.By the fourth night of his engagement, a mob outside of the theatre broke

3 Levine, 1-2. This attitude sti II permeates American culture.4 This attitude can be seen in one of the verbal assaults launched againstMacready during his performance: Huzza for native talent "5 Levine, 62. Neither Gilje nor Levine explains how the publ ic learned of h is

insulting behavior; I assume, therefore, that the press played an integral role inrelaying the information.


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24 ULLOMwindows and attempted to break down the door. In order to appeal tothe rioter's patriotism and Anglophobia, the theatre manager displayedthe American and tricolor flags from the upper windows of the theatre ;this act calmed the mob. PG, 248) As a result of the commotion and inan attem.pt to attract patronage, the Park Theatre's rival, the BoweryTheatre, changed its name to the American Theatre, Bowery LL, 62-63). Adding further validity to the argument that nationalism was acause of the Astor Place Riot, Jack Fincher states that both Macready andForrest were incredibly nationalist ic about their theatres and that theyconstantly insulted each other's productions and culture. 6

Directly related to the suggestion that nationalism sparked the riot atthe Astor Place Opera House, historians propose the argument that ideasconcerning democratic principles also motivated the riot. Levine refersto the importance of the individual will to the American ideal;concerning theatres, this belief refers to the assumption that audienceswere responsible for their own actions (and were encouraged to takeaction when necessary). New York audiences and citizens werepropelled into action by anti-democratic events leading up to the AstorPlace Riot. First, Shakespeare was perceived as common property inAmerican culture; when Macready seized Shakespeare and refined itto meet specific cultural standards, he contradicted the democraticprinciple of sharing public property. LL, 40-42) Second, theestablishment of separate theatres challenged the democratic ideals ofsociety by excluding the lower classes; obviously, any member of thelower class could have attended the Astor Place Opera House as manydid on May 1Oth), but the lower classes believed that the standards andrestrictions of behavior were oppressive and that, therefore, the theatrewas exclusive. ll, 60)

Grimsted too argues that the defense of democratic ideals instigatedthe riot. He quotes a woman at the Park Theatre: Unfortunately, we [theupper class] of ourselves are not sufficiently numerous to support anOpera, so we have been forced to admit the People. Like the womanat the Park Theatre, the elite members of society would have preferred toexclude rowdy citizens and create a select (if undemocratic) audience.(DG, 56) Grimsted also shows that democracy was inherent in Americantheatres. According to Grimsted, The democracy of the earlynineteenth-century theatre was highly primitive and easily denigrated intomob rule. Audiences enjoyed exercising or implementing their controlover the theatre and the performance; the theory [of audience control]

6 Fincher, 174.


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Astor Place Riot 25had great appeal to a democratic people, zealous of inalienable rights ofall kinds (DG, 67-68).

In his book, Levine provides numerous and thorough accounts ofunruly audiences in an attempt to describe the role of the audience:

To envision nineteenth-century theatre aud iences correctly, onemight do well to visit a contemporary sporting event in whichthe spectators not only are similarly heterogeneous but are alsoin the manner of both the nineteenth century and theElizabethan era- more than an audience; they are partici pantswho can enter into the action on the field, who feel a sense ofimmediacy and at times even control, who art iculate theiropinions and feelings vocally and unmistakably. LL, 26)

The audience's methods of approval and disapproval (hissing, cheering,etc.) blurred the line between the actors and the audience. Whendifferent theatres were established to attract different types of audiences,the influence of the audience in the elitist theatre was diminished.Furthermore, these different theatres en couraged different acting styles;at the Astor Place Opera House, Macready's old-English style wasappreciated and the expressiveness of lower-class patrons wasdiscouraged (rowdy audience members often were escorted out of thebuilding). Levine presents the origins of the riot in this context: once thelower classes lost influence, the theatres could no longer measure socialdissonance. LL, 29, 57-60) Once the elitists removed themselves fromthe sphere of social influence, the lower classes resorted to violence asa means of expression.

Grimsted considers the audience members managers of thetheatres because they exerted power over the production. (DG, 47) Thepatrons' involvement in the performances was so great that the audience,according to Grimsted, assumed roles as conspicuous as those on stage(DG, 68). Since the nineteenth-century audience controlled andcontributed to the performance, it was able to insure that the productionmet its standards and satisfied its desires; this sense of audience controlhelped make the nineteenth-century theatre a legitimate social institution(dependent upon social opinion). (DG, 62) Grimsted, therefore, alsoargues that the Astor Place Riot resulted from two circumstances:exclusion of the lower class from the artistic and social environment, andthe el imination of its means of expression . Grimsted supports hisargument by considering the Astor Place Riot in the context of itsaftermath:


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26 ULLOMPlays did not change appreciably, nor did spectators give up thereins of applause, hissing, and patronage. But something of theedge and imperativeness of audience sovereignty was lost.Never again were America's audiences to play such a prominentrole in dramatic presentations. The process had begun whichwould eventuate in the passive spectator in front of the silverscreen. The audience's power had been vital [and] absolute.DG, 74)

Like Levine and Grimsted, Gilje sees audience expressiveness as itsway of influencing the theatre event. For instance, he discusses an 1817theatre riot incited by an actor who refused to sing a song requested bythe audience as an example of the audience exerting its control over theperformance. (PG, 247) In addit ion, Gilje discusses the countermovement by the middle and upper classes against lower class demandsfor control. When the elite reacted with horror to the riots that resu I edfrom audience-control issues, the theatres that catered to the middle andupper classes began to implement decorum standards by printing houserules on the tickets; this notice gave the theatre management the rightto eject any unruly patron who did not abide by the elitist standards ofconduct. (PG, 251-52) The Astor Place Riots can be interpreted as aresponse to the i m p l e m ~ n t t i o n of behavioral standards in publictheatres.

In orrible Prettiness Robert Allen stresses the importance ofaudience control by suggesting that theatre patrons (of all classes realizedthat whoever controlled the show also controlled the society. In thissense, the patrons in the boxes and those who use the theatre as aninstrument of social and moral control viewed the riots as naggingreminders of the connection between theatre and disorder: playfulontological instability on-stage was reproduced all too threateningly ona social level this side of the footlights. 7 Allen points out that theconflict over control touched everyone involved in theatre: This periodrepresents a struggle between audiences and theatre management (withactors frequently caught in the middle) over ..what rights and entitlementswere attendant upon the purchase of a theatre ticket. 8 In view of thisongoing struggle and its implications, the outbreak of the Astor Place Riotis not surprising.

17 Allen, 58.18 Ibid., 55.


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Astor Place Riot 7Levine provides an insightful discussion of the function of theatre in

society: American theatres .were a microcosm of society since theyentertained all classes and represented the balance of those classes insociety . LL , 25) Levine employs Erving Coffman 's term focusgathering ( a set of people who relate to one another through themedium of a common activity ) to analyze the Astor Place Riot. Iftheatres functioned as both a microcosm of society and as a place forfocus gathering, then by excluding the lower classes and limiting their

expressiveness, theatre represented a serious threat to the stabi lity ofsociety (or simply a threat to the lower classes). The theatres of thenineteenth century represented arenas in which social events cou ldunfold or be manifest; once the higher classes abandoned the publicarena, the lower classes lost their medium of expression, and the theatrelost its function as an institution in/for society. Levine concludes hisdiscussion of the function of theatre by stating that after the Astor PlaceRiot, theatre no longer functioned as an expressive form that embodiedall classes within a shared public space, nor did Shakespeare muchlonger remain the common property of all Americans (LL, 68).

Grimsted, like Levine, emphasizes the social aspect of theatre; hedescribes the nineteenth-century theatre as a social dub where patronscame to be seen, to talk with each other, and to partic ipate in theperformance . (DG, 58) He argues that the theatre was extremelysensitive to public opinion, and that once the elite members of societyabandoned the social club to form their own, the lower classes wereleft without a dance partner so to speak).The final theatrical issue to examine is, perhaps, the most simple,namely therole of the actors, Macready, and Forrest. The initial cause ofthe Astor Place Riot stemmed from an occurrence at the Theatre Royal inEdinburgh in 1846; at Macready's performance of Riche eu Forresthissed at him . Forrest's .outbreak was not unwarranted since Macready,according to Forrest and his supporters, had planted members in Forrest'saudiences who would boo and hiss throughout Forrest's performance.(RM, 52, 49) In part, then, the Astor Place Riot was sparked by a preexisting feud. However, citizens who participated in the riot cla imed thatthe feud was only a partial motive for their actions. (LL , 66)

Moody depicts Macready as brooding, snooty, and constantly jealousof Forrest; at the same time, he presents Forrest as an innocent underdogbeing attacked and controlled by the system . There are two problemsw ith Moody's depiction of the two actors: first, Macready's accounts ofthe events leading up to the riot need to be taken with a grain of salt sincemost of Macready's diary (on wh ich Moody relies) was wr itten manyyears after the riot. Second, although Moody paints Macready as adespot whom all Americans resented because of the feud with Forrest,


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28 ULLOMthe fact is that Macready outsold Forrest outside of New York. (RM, 45)Concerning the individual acting styles, Levine suggest.s that Forrest'sbrash and rugged persona contained qualities of the American spiritwhile Macready's approach reflected the refined style of the gentry. LL,63) The possibi lity that differences in acting styles or the actors' preexisting feud incited the Astor Place Riot becomes less compelling whenthe event is placed in an historical context.

Historians suggest numerous contradictions that may havecontributed to the tense situation at the Astor Place Opera House.Historian Jack Fincher claims that the riot was provoked by working-classmen who were in job competition with recent immigrants. Fincherstates, The Old world had been dumped on the New to take the breadout of honest men's mouths and serve as an unwanted tax burden. Inthis view, Macready was the immigrant who threatened the stability ofemployment. Fincher states that the native workers were ripe for anybudding political movement that capitalized on their fear of thingsforeign. 9 The riot was also supported by recent immigrants (mainlyIrish) for whom Forrest represented American ideals and the possibilityof inclusion in American society and culture.2

Political issues also may have heightened the intensity of the AstorPlace Riot. Moody details Forrest's association with the political process,including his invitation and refusal to become a member of the House ofRepresentatives. Forrest was a famous pub c speaker and pub c figure,often appearing at July 4th celebrations for the Democratic party . (RM,42-43) G i je suggests that Macready represented (or acted as anambassador for) British political policies. Gilje mentions the possibilitythat many participants in the riot were using Macready as a symbol forthe British government and were reacting against English abolitionists.Finally, Moody hints at the possibility that the rioters were rebellingagainst an oppressive government that supported the aristocracy. Usingevidence from the rally in the park, Moody discusses the working class'sperception of the police as obstructers of justice and as representingthe power of the aristocratic government. Gilje suggests that riotersperceived the police as censors of their rights of expression. PG, 250-51)

Many historians have noted also the influence of the press. Actorsand other public figures utilized the power of the press as a means toexpress their gratitude or to defend themselves. When Edmund Keanrefused to perform, he quickly learned of the public backlash against him

19 Fincher, 171.2Cambridge 50; Fincher, 169. According to Moody, the first person killed wasThomas Kiernan, an Irish immigrant (Moody, 142).


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Astor Place Riot 29through the press; his first response was to acknowledge his error and toapologize to the public by sending a notice to the Boston paper.Throughout the development and climax of the Macready/Forrest feud,the two actors traded barbs back and forth in the press during theircompeting shows in Philadelphia. RM, 24, 75 Both actors attempted tojustify themselves and gain acceptance through the press, and numerousnewspapers especially the ew York Herald provided continuouscoverage of the quarrel. RM, 111, 88) Concerning the Astor Place Riots,the press interpreted the actions and reactions of the participants thenewspapers took sides). RM, 66, 73) After the riot calmed, thePhiladelphia press, an objective observer, blamed the New York press forinciting the riot and causing the destruction. RM, 183)

Was Astor Place Riot caused by class conflict, nationalism, domesticpolitics, the institutional politics of the theatre, a feud between twoactors, a press eager to boost its circulation? Most likely the riot resultedfrom a combination of these and other factors yet to be explored. Theriot was as complex as the society it arose from and the theatre itattacked. Though the Astor Place Riot marked a turning point inAmerican theatre history, the only complete study of it is a book, RichardMoody s, published in 1958. Certainly the time is long overdue for athorough reconsideration of this important historical event.


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journal of merican Drama and Theatre 11 Fall 1999)

Maude Adams as joan of Arcat the Harvard Stadium

YVONNE SHAFER

This is the biggest thing ever undertaken by any woman, except theone she is representing. 1 This is a comment made by a spectator at theextraordinary production of joan of rc in the Harvard Stadium in 1909.It was presented on June 22 and had the biggest audience for_any singleperformance in the history of the American theatre up to that time. -Critics and audiences perceived the performance as the height of MaudeAdams's career as an actress, and the production drew world-wideattention. Yet this historical event is practically forgotten today andvirtually ignored in most descriptions of Maude Adams's career. Thispaper will discuss the reasons for the production, the challenges, itsreception and significance, and its relationship to the image of MaudeAdams.

At the time Maude Adams conceived this production she was thirtyseven years old and was performing in Twelfth Night at Harvard. Tenyears earlier she had been voted the most popular actress in the UnitedStates. By 1906 she was the richest and most admired actress in thecountry despite the fact that she never gave interviews and was seldomrecognized in public. She had performed in Peter Pan had outdrawnSarah Bernhardt when they played rival productions of Rostand's L'Aiglonin New York. While visiting Harvard, she was given a tour of the campusand saw the tiny Germanic Museum. She was very interested in the ideaof furthering German-American cultural ties and felt that there should bea larger museum. She decided to perform in Schiller's jungfrau von

1 Anna Alice Chapin, joan of rc at Harvard, The Metropolitan Magazine,(1909) : 516-526. All subsequent references will be cited parenthetically in the text.Most of the references in this essay are to articles or fragments of articles in theHarvard Theatre Collection (HTC). I am grateful for Annette Fern's gracious help.

Cyril Clemens, Some Recollections of Maude Adams, Hobbies; TheMagazine for Collectors (November 1953): 127-130.


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Maude Adams 31Orleans (which had never been performed in English in the UnitedStates and give the profits to the Germanic Museum.Adams not only wanted to assist the Germanic Museum, she wantedto fulf ill a long-held dream. She was quite a scholar, had a huge library,and read several languages. She had traveled widely in France and spokeFrench fluently .For twelve years she had done research on the historicalcharacter of joan of Arc, the important places in her life, the art of thetime, and the history.4 In 1909 the Maid had been canonized so thisseem.ed the ideal time for Adams to portray her on stage.5

On her return to New York she went to see Charles Frohman andtold him her plans for a performance in the Harvard Stadium. She saidshe wanted a really good battle scene with at least one hundred horsesand six hundred men-at-arms in suits of armor. The amazed Frohmanresponded that the whole thing sounded crazy. Adams's response was toreturn the next day after starting plans for the coronation s e e n ~ whichshe told him would require one thousand people in the procession. I tellyou you are mad, Frohman answered with a laugh. Not discouraged,she returned the next day to say she did not need one thousand, butthirteen hundred. Seeing that she really was in earnest, Frohman lookedat her, while the magnitude of the proposition began to grip him. 'Doyou think you can handle it? ' When she responded positively, he puthis whole staff and vast organization at her disposal fifteen stagemanagers and carte blanche as to scenery and costumes, and told her togo ahead (516-517).

The challenge of the production can be understood by looking atsome of the numbers involved. There were approximately 1700 personsin the performance, 150 knights in full armor, a total of 800 men in suitsof armor, 200 citizens of Rheims, 150 women and children, 120musicians, 90 singers, a boys' choir, and 60 speaking parts.6 Thenewspapers seized upon this event, and it was written about throughoutthe world. The writers emphasized the size of the production and thefact that Maude Adams was totally in charge of it. A number mentionedthe fact that Frohman himself was in no position to assist her personally

Edward Congdon Kavanagh, Maude Adams at the Stad ium, unidentifiedjournal HTC, Uuly 1909): 451-455. .

4 Maude Adams as 'Joan of Arc ' , unidentified clipping HTC.5 Charles Darnton, Stageland, unidentified clipping HTC.6 [n.a. ], Gigantic Production, Boston Globe 16 May 1909, [n.p.]


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Maude Adams 33yet the thing never appalled her or got out of hand, and she arranged anddecided all even to the minutest detail. 9 The same opinion wasexpressed by many writers who covered the performance. Chapinreported that Adams's friends laughed at her because she wanted to doeverything herself. ' Do you think,'gravely inquired one of her company,'that you will have time to shoe all those horses? ' (522)

All of Adams's inner strength and executive abilities were tested inthis enormous enterprise. Many writers asked how she did it all. Apicture of her organization and her approach can be pieced together fromthe many things written about the project. As soon as Frohman gave herthe opportunity to go ahead, she made a trip to Harvard with the notedartist John W . Alexander. He had worked closely with her for many yearsto create costumes and settings for Peter Pan and other plays. He and hiswife (who made the famous costume Adams wore as Peter and hercostumes for this production) were among Adams's closest friends.Adams and Alexander examined the stadium, giying particular attentionto the acoustics. In the months before . he production, Adams wasperforming in New York in j . M. Barrie's What Every Woman Knows . Atthe same time she was working with Alexander to create a model for theset which was four feet wide, with all of the hills , trees, model soldiers,and horses. Because the lighting was so important and Adams was sodeeply involved in planning it, the model was equipped with electricI ghts. She and Alexander worked together to create an authenticallycorrect picture of the world of joan of Arc. Both she and Alexander haddone research on the costumes and settings. Her first costume was basedon a painting in the Metropolitan Museum by Bastien-Lepage and thearmor was a copy of that of the statu.e of Joan at the Cathedral ofRheims. 1 The stadium itself was a plain space of ten acres which wasto be transformed into the countryside of France. Before the opening TheHarvard rimson indicated the work which was needed:

It was necessary to construct various slopes and inclines to giveto the stage the proper effect of a long perspective. The vast skycyclorama, stretched around the stage, heightens the illusion.The entire stone base of the stadium has been covered withevergreen to give the aspect of distant woods. Several trees havebeen erected in the foreground and on the .left side of the stagea winding rocky pass has been constructed over which Miss

9 Ibid., 735.10 Unidentified clipping from The Blue Book Magazine HTC.


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34 SH FER

Adams will charge, disappearing behind the trees in the distance11Adams delegated work to her many assistants, including a German

actor, Gustav von Seyffertitz, who acted two roles and assisted with thestaging. Nevertheless, Adams was involved in all aspects as theproduction moved forward. She asked to have a battle created but didn'tlike it, so she created one based on written descriptions and famouspaintings of battles. She worked constantly with Alexander, changing theset frequently. On one occasion she came to a Monday performance andsaid she had spent a lovely Sunday: I inspected eighty supers in ninedifferent costumes each . (Again, we see the scale of this production.Here were 720 costumes for the supers alone, each historically correct.)On another supposed day of rest for the actress, she went to Boston to seehow the scenery was being developed in the stadium. (519)

Adams and Alexander had worked out a very clear time table andstuck to it. While the construction took place in Cambridge, sherehearsed the speaking roles in New York. The fourteen hundredsupernumeraries were divided into eight divisions and twenty-foursubdivisions. Each squad had a captain and these captains traveled toNew York to rehearse with Adams. Meanwhile the 150 crack ridersof the National Guard of Massachusetts (many of whom were graduatesof Harvard) rehearsed for months in the stadium. (520) In GiganticProduction, it was noted that, various chiefs of departments empow-ered by Charles Frohman have been hard at work perfecting details underthe direction of Miss Adams since December. 12

On May 16 Adams and Alexander traveled to Harvard to inspect theelectrical plant being constructed. On June 5 Adams closed What EveryWoman Knows despite the fact that it was still sold out. She immediatelywent to Boston to take complete charge. On June 14 the professionalactors, suits of armor, and hundreds of costumes arrived in Boston. Therewere trappings for one hundred mounted spearmen, costumes for

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