Shakespeare and the Victorian Stage.

Abstract

This chapter reports that by the nineteenth century, the position of Shakespeare as national icon was more firmly established. Yet that alteration in imaginings of Shakespeare was itself the product of concomitant tensions — a desire to keep Shakespearean performance within the capital and a move to extend performance into the provinces. It specifically presents an account of Shakespeare on the Victorian stage. It was ironic that, with both Samuel Phelps' and Charles Kean's managements at an end, the theatrical profession lacked a recognized leader at the time of the Shakespeare tercentenary of 1864. Shakespeare's own theatre had been genuinely popular. The irony was that the Victorian theatre, which differed from it in almost every respect (architecture, scenery, lighting, costumes, casting), had, nevertheless, also succeeded in creating a mass audience for his plays. The audience for Shakespeare's plays fragmented and gone was the genuine popularity of the Victorian decades.