Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue

2023
ISBN: 978-3-031-22690-8
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 278 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 498 g

The French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) was home to one of the richest public theatre traditions of the colonial-era Caribbean.  This book examines the relationship between public theatre and the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue—something that is generally given short shrift owing to a perceived lack of documentation.  Here, a range of materials and methodologies are used to explore pressing questions including the ‘mitigated spectatorship’ of the enslaved, portrayals of enslaved people in French and Creole repertoire, the contributions of enslaved people to theatre-making, and shifting attitudes during the revolutionary era.  The book demonstrates that slavery was no mere backdrop to this portion of theatre history but an integral part of its story.  It also helps recover the hidden experiences of some of the enslaved individuals who became entangled in that story.

Joint winner of the  book prize 2024, category ‘Literatures written in languages other than English'. 

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Prest, Julia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Introduction.- 2 Mitigated Spectators: Enslaved People in the Playhouse.- 3 Unsustainable Tensions: ‘Slave Ownership’ among Theatre-Makers.- 4 Mitigated Portrayals: Enslaved Figures in Creole Repertoire.- 5 Concealed Contributors: Enslaved Participation in Theatre-Making.- 6 New Citizens: Shifting Roles in Revolutionary-Era Theatre.- 7 Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Julia Prest is Professor of French and Caribbean Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK. She has published widely on early-modern French and Caribbean theatre, opera and dance, and is the creator of the trilingual (English-French-Kreyòl) Theatre in Saint-Domingue, 1764-1791 performance database: 'theatreinsaintdomingue.org'.  She has collaborated with theatre-makers to create new works that bring colonial-era theatre to today’s audiences, and her edited collection, Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre: Issues in Research, Writing and Methodology is forthcoming in 2023.