13 - Melodrama and Race

Summary

Melodrama’s heyday, in the mid nineteenth century, coincided with the ascent of racial theory. But scientific ideas of ‘race’ moved to the stage in complicated ways. They often coexisted there with older representations of identity and otherness, or merged with the grotesque conventions of blackface minstrelsy, which developed at about the same time. ‘Race’ on stage was inflected by stage traditions, including repertoire (ongoing performances of Shakespeare’s Othello or Southerne’s Oroonoko). It was also modified according to the conventions of genre, the capabilities of actors, or to suit specific writers, managers, theatres and audiences. In Boucicault’s The Octoroon, notions of ‘race’ supplied the crux of a dramatic situation; by contrast, Lemon and Taylor’s Slave Life emphasised theatrical illusion, implicitly questioning racial categories. Staging ‘race’ often meant white actors blacking up, but it also provided roles for Black performers, such Ira Aldridge and Joseph Jenkins. Their acting elicited hostility in some quarters, appreciation and sympathy in others; at times, audiences conflated the actors with the romantic parts they played.