"The body of the "Other" -- exotic, unfamiliar, fascinating -- is the topic of this collection of essays on nineteenth-century British theatre. Arranged chronologically, the volume traces visual representations of the Other across the nineteenth century as well as their legacy in contemporary theatrical culture. Essays explore the concept, politics and aesthetic features of the "exotic" body on stage, be it the actual body of the actor or actress, or the fictional, "picturesque" bodies brought on stage. Far from focusing exclusively on the subaltern, colonial subject, this volume addresses the Other in its wider meaning, focusing on case studies as famous as Edwin Forrest and Ira Aldridge or as neglected as that of the Māori who appeared on the London stage in the 1860s. Written by an international group of scholars, this collection offers an informed, updated insight into the extensive and multifaceted presence of the non-British in both Georgian and Victorian drama, investigated through new lenses and materials to shed light on the complex engagement of nineteenth-century British culture with alterity."-- Introduction / Tiziana Morosetti -- 'By a Nose' or 'By a Hair': Bearding the Jew on the Georgian Stage / Toni Wein -- The Jew on Stage and on the Page: Intertextual Exotic / Michael Bradshaw -- Edwin Forrest: The Exotic American Body on the Nineteenth-Century English Stage / Arthur W. Bloom -- Constructing the Zulus: The African Body and Its Narratives / Tiziana Morosetti -- 'An Interest Must Be Strong Now-a days to Raise Much Enthusiasm in an Audience, but It May Be, at the Same Time, of an Unpleasant Nature': Māori, New Zealand and Empire on Stage 1862-1864 / Marianne Schultz -- Performing the Other on the Popular London Stage: Exotic People and Places in Victorian Pantomime / Peter Yeandle -- Impressment, Exoticism and Enslavement: Revisiting the Theatre of War through Thomas Hardys The Trumpet-Major (1880) / Sara Malton -- Transcultural Operatics: India on the British Stage in The Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore / Zara Barlas -- Singing the Exotic Body across the Atlantic: From The Mikado to the Swing Mikado and Beyond / Serena Guarracino -- A Progressive Othello: Modern Blackness in Chakrabartis Red Velvet (2012) / Sophie Duncan
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