Theatre of Image and Action: Robertson Davies and The Golden Age of Melodrama

Robertson Davies distinguished himself by his fervent commitment to artistic forms that would ‘change and enlarge us.’ Characterizing his life as ‘pickled in melodrama,’ he argued for melodrama as an observable daily phenomenon, worthy of scholarly attention and possessing a powerful reforming spirit capable of inspiring social change. When Davies’ instructional video Lady Soul and the Devil’s Burning Throne: The Golden Age of Melodrama (1979) – a rare assemblage of photographic stills and clips from early film melodramas – is examined in conjunction with his letters, lectures, and novels, we see his understanding of melodrama as an art form that stresses human potential, reflects a reality in which right triumphs over wrong, and depicts the common man not as he is but as he would be if only a few things were put right.