This afternoon, I'll be delivering a paper for a panel about international perspectives on the Americas. My paper involves toy-theatre adaptations of the play Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
When Pizarro debuted in 1799, British audiences interpreted it as a parable for Britain's resistance to French aggression. At a time when people in Britain expected an imminent invasion by the French under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, the tale of Inca warriors standing up bravely to Spanish colonizers made audiences associate themselves with the Inca underdogs.
However, I argue that over time this explicitly anti-imperialist play came to encourage fantasies about empire, especially among the juvenile audiences of toy theatres. I'll be sharing images by the publisher Skelt of toy-theatre versions of Pizarro which might have encouraged associations between the Spanish colonizers and the British and might have generated a desire to possess the sublime landscapes of an exoticised America.
This morning, I attended a very interesting panel on immersive theatre and performance, with two scholars discussing American nostalgia. Erin Bone Steele talked about the musical Showboat, which self-consciously depicted showboats only after that form of entertainment had essentially disappeared. Then Rebecca Jackson delivered a paper on how Confederate Civil War re-enactors perform the politics of belonging even as they embrace a very specific ideological point of view.
Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to a number of panels and programs, culminating in a discussion of August Wilson's legacy and future in American theatre. The conference concludes on Saturday, when we'll also all be assembling for a luncheon. It's good to be back in Pittsburgh!