John Durang’s work in theatre and circus highlights a trend in eighteenth-century American and European theatre: a focus on movement-based works. The necessity for unlicensed English theatres to develop non-spoken productions to evade patent laws resulted in an explosion of movement-based and musical theatre genres. In the United States, suspicions about “drama” as opposed to […]
The Role of Dance in Theatre
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Since Durang’s theatrical fascination as a boy was first sparked by watching players at York’s fairs, it is no surprise that rope-dancing was a skill he pursued throughout his life. Durang often featured his rope dancing when he managed his own productions, as in summer 1791 at Philadelphia’s Vauxhall Gardens, where he played music, handled […]
Ballets and pantomimes were related categories of theatrical movement. In English dancing master John Weaver’s treatise on “serious,” or mythological, pantomimes, his use of the word “pantomime” was much closer to our current understanding of ballet than to the then-popular pantomime genre of harlequinade, a type of commedia-based pantomime. Ballet d’action or ballet-pantomime was a […]
The harlequinade, a type of pantomime in which Durang frequently played, was shaped by commedia dell’arte, classical mythology, fairytale figures, and contemporary British or – in the New World – American settings or allusions. The intermingling of serious (classical) and grotesque (commedia and fairytale) themes and movement were typically brought out in alternating acts of […]