Traces the development of the live performing arts through the age: plays and playwriting; forms of staging; the acting profession; and the role of the actor.
Content Note
Roman Britain and the early Middle Ages 44-950 -- The high Middle Ages 950-1300 -- The later Middle Ages 1300-1485 -- The shaping of a professional theatre 1485-1572 -- The era of the outdoor playhouses 1572-1603 -- The Jacobean theatre 1603-1625 -- The Caroline and Commonwealth theatre 1625-1660 -- The Restoration theatre 1660-1682 -- The birth of a bourgeois theatre 1682-1707 -- The actors ascendant 1707-1728 -- Opposition and oppression 1728-1741 -- The Garrick years 1741-1776 -- From manners to melodrama 1776-1814 -- The end of the monopoly 1814-1843 -- Towards a respectable theatre 1843-1871 -- The speculative theatre 1871-1891 -- Romance and realism 1891-1914 -- The war and the long weekend 1914-1939 -- The utility theatre 1939-1956 -- Anger and affluence 1956-1968 -- Alternative theatres 1968-1979 -- Theatre and the marketplace 1979-1990.