Riotous Performances: The Struggle for Hegemony in the Irish Theater, 1712–1784 by Helen M. Burke (review)

148 Against Lovers (1673), and Lacy’s Sauny the Scott (1698) to make them viable on the stage. Commercial pressures— particularly the need to flesh out Shakespeare ’s plots with music and fancy staging—increased as the seventeenth century drew to a close. The DavenantDryden Tempest (1670), the operatic adaptation (probably by Shadwell) of it (1671), the anonymous opera The FairyQueen (1692), and Duffet’s The MockTempest (1675) reflect these demands,either by acceding to them or (in the case of Duffet’s play) by burlesquing them. While Shakespeare’s name becomes more prominent in prefatory material at the turn of the century, his reputation as a comic playwright was still commercially negligible. Adaptations written between 1700 and 1703, such as Gildon’s Measure for Measure (1700), Granville’s The Jew of Venice (1701), Dennis’s The Comical Gallant (1702), and Burnaby’s Love Betray’d (1703), incorporated additional elements (such as music and dance) the deployment of which had now become standard practice, but only Granville ’s was well received. Adaptations of Shakespeare’s comedies fared no better or worse than new ones written during this period. Three dramatic entertainments written in 1716—two afterpieces based on the Introduction to The Taming of the Shrew, both entitled The Cobbler of Preston (the first by Charles Johnson, thesecondbyWilliamBullock),andRichard Leveridge’s anti-Italian-opera afterpiece Pyramus and Thisbe—were by seasoned theatrical professionals. Both Cobbler plays were extremely successful and influential. Their differences stem from their authors’ conflicting beliefs regarding the role of the theater in society: Johnson believed it should be harnessed for political purposes, while Bullock, for entertainment; Leveridge’s adaptation was a reaction to the craze for Italianopera that threatened his livelihood as a popular singer. Johnson adapted As You Like It to capitalize and comment on the political and social unrest that led to the passage of the Black Act in 1723. His title, Love In a Forest, would have resonated with audiences alarmed by the activities of the ‘‘Blacks,’’ who illegally hunted deer in forests. Many parallels, such as those between the Blacks and Duke Senior, allowed him to make the play immediately relevant and to amplify the anti-Jacobite, pro-Georgian sympathieshehadrevealed in The Cobbler of Preston. Ms. Scheil also shows that the increasing availability of editions, periodicals, and commonplace books was changing the way people experiencedShakespeare; by the 1730s many were more familiar with Shakespeare through print than through performance. The fact that the comic adaptations of the 1730s (which are not really discussed here)lacktheperformative enhancements that were the norm up to c. 1720 is demonstrative of this shift in perception. This book will remain the standard account for years to come. Don-John Dugas Kent State University HELEN M. BURKE. Riotous Performances : The Struggle for Hegemony in the Irish Theater, 1712–1784. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame, 2003. Pp viii ⫹ 356. $70; $35 (paper). Far from being a pale reflection of the London scene, the theater in Dublin, Ms. Burke contends, was in fact an integral part of the social and political maneuverings and conflicts of the time. She wishes to reclaim a ‘‘critical and danger- 149 ous Irish theater’’ that reflects the complications of social, political, and cultural life in Ireland during the eighteenth century , but that has ‘‘disappeared from the lens of theatrical historiography.’’ Her history of Ireland paints a complicated, accurate picture of a society divided and subdivided along many different lines. Examining a series of ‘‘disturbances’’ centered around the theater at Smock Alley between 1712 and 1784, Ms. Burke concludes that they resulted in the development of a ‘‘counter-theater,’’whereby not only Irish Protestant patriots but ‘‘an emerging Catholic middle class, a dispossessed native gentry, and an increasingly politicized Dublin ‘mob’ also used theplayhousetochallengedominant political and cultural values and attitudes .’’For a framework, Ms. Burke turns to ‘‘postcolonial and Gramscian theorists ,’’ particularly Laclau and Mouffe, whose complications of the ‘‘social terrain ’’ are, she considers, well suited for eighteenth-century Ireland. She examines in detail the ‘‘riot’’ which occurred at a performance of Rowe’s Tamerlane on November4,1712, at Smock Alley, and the ensuing court cases that provided a focus for Irish Protestant patriotism. As early...