“The power of such vast imaginings”1: Actors, Spectators and Their Acting Copies in 19th century Shakespearean reception

Abstract

It appears to be quite evident, as Richard Schoch somewhat apprehensively pointed out, that academics tend to treat nineteenth-century English stage history in terms of consecutive star actors and their eras of theatre management. But what exactly has made and still makes it convenient for scholars to view almost two centuries of English theatre history as a mere “succession of prominent managements”2? This paper intends to consider staging practices, e.g. the mode of acting, and a uniquely British tradition, the publication of performance scripts “printed from the prompter’s copy”,3 to find an explanation to the curious phenomenon that Schoch criticized. It appears that the serial publication of performance texts further reinforced the extremely star actor-centered repertoires and theatre managements. For a case study I chose the “eminent tragedian”4 William Charles Macready’s (1793–1873) Diaries and his 1834 promptbook, a personally marked copy of King Lear, that witnessed the actor’s pioneering, successful but soon forgotten 1834 restoration of the tragic ending.5