WARSAW LITERARY MEETINGS

WARSAW LITERARY MEETINGS

15 May 2018

The WLM8 keynote speaker: Paddy Lyons (Glasgow University)

Brechtian Dimensions in Eighteenth Century Theatre
My topic is performance history, on the edge between tex analysis and cultural study. I’ll begin from a witness statement.  In 1822 the essayist Charles Lamb set out an account of two different performances of RB Sheridan’s The School for Scandal, first of all describing how it was played in the late eighteenth century, with the actor Jack Palmer taking the leading role. Palmer had such success with the role of Joseph Surface in the 1777 premier that he continued to play Joseph till his death in 1796. Lamb  contrasts the eighteenth century production with the versions that had come to predominate in the nineteenth century, and I want to outline how Lamb’s evocation of Palmer uses a vocabulary akin to that of Brecht, when he laid out  his recommendations for renewing theatre performances in the twentieth century.  In other words, Brecht describes as improvements and advances a mode of theatre that to Lamb is sadly done with and lost. We’ll look briefly at a passage from The School for Scandal, to try and focus on what’s at stake. [read the whole abstract here]