Mary Robinson and the Dramatic Art of the Comeback
2009; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2330-118X
AutoresMichael Gamer, Terry F. Robinson,
Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
ResumoI am allowed the of changing my form, as suits the observation of the moment. (Mary Robinson as Sylphid Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson) (1) I considered the world a vast and varying theatre, where every individual was destined to play his part, and to receive ... applause or disapprobation. (Mary Robinson, Walsingham) (2) A GLOW WITH THE SPLENDOR OF SOVEREIGNS AND THE BON TON, THE 1782-83 London theater season proved an especially stellar one. Led by the Morning Herald, newspapers exhaustively reported the meteoric rise of the Sidonian dog-star (3) Sarah Siddons at Drury Lane, debating whether her brilliance would prove lasting or ephemeral. Equally conspicuous during these same months was the ascent of another celestial body: Perdita's ... transit of Venus, (4) or Mary Robinson in the very zenith of her power (5) at Covent Garden, the Opera House, and other places of fashionable resort. During the winter months, the two shone brightly the daffy and weekly prints--usually under the inclusive heading of Theatrical Intelligence--uncannily mirroring one another their respective comebacks. In the case of Siddons, it was a triumphant return from provincial exile. For Robinson, the victory appeared equally marvelous. Returning from a disappointing affair with the Prince of Wales that had left her 7,000 [pounds sterling] debt, she achieved social prominence little over a year, setting fashionable standards and becoming an arbiter of taste. She did so, moreover, on the arm of Colonel Banastre Tarleton, a rare British military hero the aftermath of the war with the American colonies. While Siddons' omnipresence the London theater scene and daily news during the 1782-83 season will hardly surprise dramatic historians, Robinson's co-dominance of both venues very well may, particularly as she did not set foot on the stage after 1780. (6) Still, just as the stage forms only a portion of a theater's space, so do Robinson's years as an actress constitute only part of her theatrical career--a career, we argue, that extended through Robinson's life and governed her re-entry into London literary circles 1788. Put another way, if Robinson's recent commentators still tend to separate the later Mrs. Robinson from the earlier one, focusing on the author at the expense of the actress, (7) it has been part at the behest of Robinson herself, whose Memoirs repeatedly prefer the author and intellectual to her many previous selves. Astute commentators like Betsy Bolton and Judith Pascoe have interpreted Robinson's later poetic career the 1790s through the rubric of performance. (8) Our aim this essay is to extend such work by making a case for the theater itself--not just as metaphor and symbol, not just as dynamic space and dominant cultural institution, but as an identifiable collection of practices at once portable and applicable other cultural arenas. The theater, we argue, not only provided the central vehicle for Robinson's transformation of herself from actress to icon, but also governed her metamorphosis the late 1780s from icon to poet. Such a focus on theatrical space and practice, moreover, helps to foreground her relations with other writers--especially Hannah Cowley, whose plays and poems provided key vehicles for Robinson's triumphs dramatic, fashionable, and, later, poetic circles. I: The Mirror of Fashion When she was to be seen daily St. James's Street and Pall Mall, even her chariot this variation was striking. Today she was a paysanne, with her straw hat, tied at the back of her head, looking as if too new to what she passed, to know what she looked at. Yesterday, she, perhaps, had been dressed belle of Hyde Park, trimmed, powdered, patched, painted to the utmost of rouge and white lead; to morrow, she would be the cravatted Amazon of the riding house: but be she what she might, the hats of the fashionable promenaders swept the ground as she passed. …
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