What is it about?
Taking Fannie Kemble's performance as "Bianca" in Henry Milman's _Fazio_ (1815) as its example, this article demonstrates that the Romantic point style of acting enacted a shift in the representational logic of "value" at the turn of the 19th century. Trading representation for the real, this style of acting helped audiences shift from an economy based on gold or silver specie to one that circulated tokens of abstract value (e.g., paper money).
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Why is it important?
This article offers a fresh way to think about the history and function of acting. Rather than attribute a new style of acting to the talents of a star performer that is imitated by others until its novelty wears off, this article demonstrates that performance traces the outlines of shifting cultural conceptions and social relations in the shape of its aesthetic form.
Perspectives
This article is drawn from my current book-in-process, which offers a macro-historical analysis of performance, demonstrating how new styles of acting emerge to register shifts in cultural habits triggered by the social, political, economic and technological changes associated with the historical period of modernity.
Ms Julia A. Walker
Washington University in Saint Louis
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Transacting Value on the Transatlantic Stage, Theatre Survey, December 2014, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0040557414000556.
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