Treating the Public: Charitable Theater and Civic Health in the Early Modern Atlantic World by Rachel Ball (review)

This ambitious and far-ranging study of the dramatic cultures of early modern Spain and England juxtaposes, in a series of "asymmetrical comparisons," the theater histories of Madrid and London, Seville and Bristol, Mexico City and Dublin, and finally Puebla and Williamsburg. Using an "Atlantic World approach," Ball pays particular attention to the ways in which municipalities on both sides of the Atlantic used profits from plays to fund hospitals and poor relief (9). Rather than follow in the footsteps of Cañizares Esguerra and other historians of the Atlantic world who have examined the ways in which literature contributed to a shared, Anglo-Iberian imperial mythos, Ball is interested in the institutional and economic history of theaters.¹ This is a history of profits, not Prospero, in which the compelling argument revolves around leases, licenses, contracts, concessions, and taxes.

The comparisons between the paired cities are asymmetrical in the sense that they consistently show England at a disadvantage. When seen from the perspective of the Hapsburg monarchy, the dramatic cultures of Bristol, Dublin, and especially Williamsburg seem puny and belated. The insufficiency of early modern theater in what Ball calls the "Anglo Atlantic" (which she differentiates from the "Spanish Atlantic") is partly Ball's point; she uses England as a foil in order "to reveal what is distinctive and significant about the lesser-studied Spanish case" (6). This revealing takes the form of an argument in three parts. First, Ball contends that Spanish theaters developed a "symbiotic" relationship with charitable institutions that English theaters did not (61, 90, 114, 153). Second, the special relationship between theaters and hospitals caused playgoing in Spain to become "integrated into daily life" in ways that it did not in England (18). Third, the unique importance of drama in Spain made it a more powerful tool to communicate ideas to the public (both subversive and traditional ideas).

The arguments are provocative. Some may find the asymmetrical comparisons unfair; for example, Puebla's population during the seventeenth century was 100-times that of Williamsburg. However, Ball's argument is precisely that the theater histories of early modern Spain and England are not commensurable.

What is confusing about the book is its construction of the Atlantic world. Ball's failure to document any material exchanges between Bristol and Seville—no cross-pollination between any of the cities; and no movement of texts, actors, cloth, or fashions—explains her consistent differentiation between the Spanish and Anglo Atlantics. The two Atlantics are, in effect, proxies for national traditions. Ball's Atlantic is not crisscrossed with trade routes; it is simply the geographical space that exists between cities, more void than sea. In this sense, the book evinces a largely traditional conception of the Spanish and English empires. Its traditionalism is often evident in Ball's representation of trajectories of influence: "Spanish plays were luxury goods sent from the metropole and consumed in the colonial periphery" (101).

This observation hardly tarnishes Ball's achievements. She writes with brio and turns pleasing phrases, at one point calling the nexus of Madrid's theaters and hospitals "an inn-yard empire" (7). She deftly synthesizes the histories of medical institutions, public-health crises, acting troupes, and theaters in eight vastly different cities, drawing from a wide variety of archival sources. This book will no doubt prove to be a useful work of interdisciplinary history for scholars from many disciplines.