A History of the American Theatre, From Its Origins to 1832 (review)

For scholars of the American theater, recorded history begins during 1832 with the publication of William Dunlap's History of the American Theatre, the first work of its kind. Dunlap, who played a prominent role in the development of American theater and drama between the 1780s and 1800s, produced a book that remains sui generis in the history of American arts and letters. Dunlap's method mixes theater history, drama criticism, and personal memoir to produce a chronicle of the early American professional theater as both an artistic institution operated by profit-driven professionals and a popular culture phenomenon tied intimately to the changing political and social mores of the nation. Tice L. Miller and the University of Illinois Press have produced a new edition of this immensely valuable but out-of-print work at a propitious moment: the study of early American theater and drama continues to expand and the intersection of early American studies, theater history, and performance studies continues to yield original and exciting scholarship. In particular, the University of Illinois Press should be praised for producing a paperback of this edition that is within the price range of graduate students and junior scholars. Making Dunlap's history available and affordable for a scholarly audience that may be unfamiliar with this unique work can only benefit the fields informed by his pioneering research.

Although out of print, the History is not a rarity. Even libraries with modest holdings may own a copy of a nineteenth-century edition or the 1963 reproduction published by Burt Franklin. The Illinois edition, however, makes Dunlap's text more useful, as well as more widely available. Chronicling a period of several decades in the history of an expanding theater, Dunlap's book swells to include "a cast of thousands," and the experience of following the twists and turns of his narrative as actors debut, grow to the height of their powers, squabble with managers and decamp for new venues, marry and remarry, and occasionally come out of retirement for benefit performances can frustrate even the most determined reader. Moreover, I can attest to the difficulty of researching with older editions of Dunlap, which often entails repeatedly rereading chapters in search of a particular anecdote about a minor performer. The Illinois edition, by providing a detailed index for the text, makes the work considerably easier to use. Researchers intrigued by Dunlap's references to the works of canonical English authors (especially Shakespeare and Milton) or the careers of the many lesser-known performers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mentioned in the History will no longer be forced to search entire chapters for one important sentence.

Miller's introductory essay likewise performs an important service by offering a comprehensive historical overview of Dunlap's career. Born in 1766 to a shopkeeper in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Dunlap saw his first theatrical performance during the Revolution in New York, where his loyalist family had fled. His personal involvement with the theater spans nearly two decades from the composition of his first play in 1787 to his financially disastrous turn as the manager of the Park Theatre, a career move that led to his leaving the theater and filing for bankruptcy in 1804. Dunlap's biography may be the most interesting story told in the History, but given the scope of Dunlap's subject, piecing this embedded narrative together from his personal reflections represents another considerable challenge for the reader. Miller, however, provides a clear and thoroughly referenced overview of Dunlap's life and career, including his time as an expatriate student of Benjamin West, his attempts to develop a republican, nationalist American drama and to popularize the romantic dramas of the German playwright August von Kotzebue, and his struggles to reestablish his personal finances after his bankruptcy. After consulting Miller's thorough introduction, even readers unfamiliar with Dunlap should be able to wade with confidence...