“The Theatre Royal Back Drawing-Room”: Professionalizing Domestic Entertainment in Victorian Acting Manuals

This paper reconstructs the methods of acting and production presented in Victorian amateur acting manuals in the years between 1860 and 1914. These guides encouraged actors to immerse themselves within communal arrangements, rather than to focus on themselves as individuals, and encouraged amateur stage managers to emulate performance techniques seen on the professional stage. So influential did amateur theatricals become that, in turn, they began to influence professionals, who reciprocally sought to make themselves suitable for amateur emulation. To demonstrate how average citizens used the system of the amateur drama to promote their social ambitions, I conclude by reconstructing the amateur performance of “That Niece from India” (1894), written by the Donaldson family of South Kensington, London, which presents a fantasy of class advancement for the Donaldson children.