Scenes from Bourgeois Life (Theater: Theory/Text/Performance) - Hardcover

Nicholas Ridout (author)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0472132008 ISBN 13: 9780472132003

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 2020

Synopsis

Scenes from Bourgeois Life proposes that theatre spectatorship has made a significant contribution to the historical development of a distinctive bourgeois sensibility, characterized by the cultivation of distance. In Nicholas Ridout’s formulation, this distance is produced and maintained at two different scales. First is the distance of the colonial relation, not just in miles between Jamaica and London, but also the social, economic, and psychological distances involved in that relation. The second is the distance of spectatorship, not only of the modern theatregoer as consumer, but the larger and pervasive disposition to observe, comment, and sit in judgment, which becomes characteristic of the bourgeois relation to the rest of the world. This engagingly written study of history, class, and spectatorship offers compelling proof of “why theater matters,” and demonstrates the importance of examining the question historically.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas Ridout is Professor of Theatre at Queen Mary University of London. His many previous books include Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism, and Love.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0472132008
• ISBN 13: 9780472132003
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224