Playing Sick: Performances of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)

Few life occurrences shaped individual and collective identities within Victorian-era society as critically as witnessing or suffering from illness. The prevalence of illness narratives within late nineteenth-century popular culture was made manifest on the period's British and American stages, where theatrical embodiments of illness were indisputable staples of actors' repertoires. Playing Sick: Performances of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine reconstructs how actors embodied three of the era's most provocative illnesses: tuberculosis, drug addiction, and mental illness. In placing performances of illness within wider medicocultural contexts, Meredith Conti analyzes how such depictions confirmed or resisted salient constructions of diseases and the diseased. Conti's case studies, which range from Eleonora Duse's portrayal of the consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier to Henry Irving's performance of senile dementia in King Lear , help to illuminate the interdependence of medical science and theatre in constructing nineteenth-century illness narratives. Through reconstructing these performances, Conti isolates from the period's acting practices a lexicon of embodied illness: a flexible set of physical and vocal techniques that performers employed to theatricalize the sick body. In an age when medical science encouraged a gradual decentering of the patient from their own diagnosis and treatment, late nineteenth-century performances of illness symbolically restored the sick to positions of visibility and consequence. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Series Title......Page 3 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Dedication Page......Page 6 Table of Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 10 Abbreviations......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction......Page 16 An illness lived......Page 17 An illness performed......Page 25 Notes......Page 32 Bibliography......Page 34 Part I: Performing consumption......Page 38 Chapter 1: Rosy cheeks and red handkerchiefs: Performing Camille’s consumption before, during, and after the contagionist turn......Page 40 The making of the consumptive myth......Page 43 Unmaking the consumptive myth......Page 47 Scripting consumption in Dumas’s La dame aux camé lias......Page 50 Playing the romantic disease......Page 52 Playing clinical tuberculosis......Page 60 Notes......Page 70 Bibliography......Page 74 Chapter 2: Foreign invasions: The transatlantic consumptives of Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse......Page 78 The sublime and the grotesque in Bernhardt’s neo-romantic Camille......Page 79 The myth unmasked: Eleonora Duse’s naturalistic Marguerite......Page 88 Camille and the death of consumptive sentiment......Page 95 Notes......Page 96 Bibliography......Page 99 Part II: Performing drug addiction......Page 102 Chapter 3: Early dramaturgies of drug addiction in stage adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Sherlock Holmes......Page 104 The nineteenth-century pharmacopeia......Page 108 Imagining addiction in the late nineteenth century......Page 111 Adapting addiction for the late nineteenth-century popular stage......Page 115 Love in the time of narcotics......Page 122 Notes......Page 124 Bibliography......Page 128 Chapter 4: Master, martyr, monster: The addict archetypes of William Hooker Gillette and Richard Mansfield......Page 131 Dosing and detecting in Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes......Page 133 “His failure is a disease”: Virtue and vice in Mansfield’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde......Page 137 The anatomy of a fin-de-siè cle addict......Page 146 Notes......Page 150 Bibliography......Page 153 Part II: Performing mental illness......Page 156 Chapter 5: The madwoman in the theatre: Normalizing the disordered female mind in Ellen Terry’s Lyceum repertoire......Page 158 “A mind diseased” in Ellen Terry’s Lyceum repertoire......Page 162 The hysteric and the madwoman......Page 164 Notes......Page 182 Bibliography......Page 186 Chapter 6: Neurotic princes and enfeebled kings: Stigmatizing male mental illness in Henry Irving’s mad roles......Page 190 Mathias, 1871......Page 192 Hamlet, 1878......Page 198 King Lear, 1892......Page 203 Irving’s emasculated madmen......Page 210 The doctor is out: The closing of the Lyceum laboratory......Page 212 Notes......Page 215 Bibliography......Page 219 Bibliography......Page 227 Index......Page 228 Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Title 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication Page 6 Table of Contents 8 List of Figures 10 Abbreviations 11 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 16 An illness lived 17 An illness performed 25 Notes 32 Bibliography 34 Part I: Performing consumption 38 Chapter 1: Rosy cheeks and red handkerchiefs: Performing Camille’s consumption before, during, and after the contagionist turn 40 The making of the consumptive myth 43 Unmaking the consumptive myth 47 Scripting consumption in Dumas’s La dame aux camé lias 50 Playing the romantic disease 52 Playing clinical tuberculosis 60 Notes 70 Bibliography 74 Chapter 2: Foreign invasions: The transatlantic consumptives of Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse 78 The sublime and the grotesque in Bernhardt’s neo-romantic Camille 79 The myth unmasked: Eleonora Duse’s naturalistic Marguerite 88 Camille and the death of consumptive sentiment 95 Notes 96 Bibliography 99 Part II: Performing drug addiction 102 Chapter 3: Early dramaturgies of drug addiction in stage adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Sherlock Holmes 104 The nineteenth-century pharmacopeia 108 Imagining addiction in the late nineteenth century 111 Adapting addiction for the late nineteenth-century popular stage 115 Love in the time of narcotics 122 Notes 124 Bibliography 128 Chapter 4: Master, martyr, monster: The addict archetypes of William Hooker Gillette and Richard Mansfield 131 Dosing and detecting in Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes 133 “His failure is a disease”: Virtue and vice in Mansfield’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 137 The anatomy of a fin-de-siè cle addict 146 Notes 150 Bibliography 153 Part II: Performing mental illness 156 Chapter 5: The madwoman in the theatre: Normalizing the disordered female mind in Ellen Terry’s Lyceum repertoire 158 “A mind diseased” in Ellen Terry’s Lyceum repertoire 162 The hysteric and the madwoman 164 Notes 182 Bibliography 186 Chapter 6: Neurotic princes and enfeebled kings: Stigmatizing male mental illness in Henry Irving’s mad roles 190 Mathias, 1871 192 Hamlet, 1878 198 King Lear, 1892 203 Irving’s emasculated madmen 210 The doctor is out: The closing of the Lyceum laboratory 212 Notes 215 Bibliography 219 Notes 227 Bibliography 227 Index 228 Playing Sick reconstructs how actors embodied three of the Victorian era's most provocative illnesses: tuberculosis, drug addiction, and mental illness. In placing performances of illness within wider medicocultural contexts, Meredith Conti analyzes how such depictions confirmed or resisted salient constructions of diseases and the diseased.