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Landscape and identity in Australian melodrama
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Smyth, Patricia (2016) Landscape and identity in Australian melodrama. Journal of Victorian Culture, 21 (3). pp. 363-386. doi:10.1080/13555502.2016.1197687
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13555502.2016.1197687
Abstract
Nationalist histories of Australian theatre have tended to class nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular melodrama as a tool of British imperialist culture. It is argued that the practice of importing ready-made scripts, most often from successful London productions, resulted in theatre that failed to describe local experience, while limiting opportunities for Australian authors who might, given the chance, have written convincingly about colonial life. Although scripts were frequently ‘australianized’ by relocating the action to recognizable local settings, this has tended to be seen as a superficial marketing ploy, rather than as the beginnings of a national drama. However, discussion of this issue has so far focused on the textual aspect of melodrama and there has been little attention paid to the issue of stage spectacle and, in particular, the sophisticated and highly illusionistic representations of the Australian landscape that were often the main selling point of these productions. The appeal of these scenic designs should be seen in relation to the significance of landscape to emergent notions of Australian national identity and the particular challenges that the new land presented to settler culture. Landscape spectacle acted as an important site of resistance to the homogenizing effect of a theatre culture dominated by imported melodrama, complicating the notion of a one-way system of imperial imposition.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater | ||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Landscapes -- Drama -- Australia, Melodrama, Theater -- History -- Australia | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Victorian Culture | ||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1750-0133 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 1 September 2016 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 21 | ||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 363-386 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/13555502.2016.1197687 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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