Exciting new research has appeared on the theatre of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in particular on the drama of the Romantic period, challenging the longstanding view of the era as anti-theatrical and barren in its dramatic output. Yet the study of the novel still dominates eighteenth-century studies. The drama of the period is largely absent from undergraduate courses and virtually unknown to the general public. The models used to analyse eighteenth-century plays are inadequate as they derive from research on the sixteenth- and the seventeenth-century stage. Studies of the eighteenth-century novel tend to see the genre as completely autonomous, yet there can be no doubt that novels of the period derived their plots and practices from the familiar terrain of the theatre. The workshop with attendant performances ‘Georgian Theatre and the Novel, 1714-1830’, organised by literary historian, Professor Ros Ballaster at Mansfield College, Oxford University, was sponsored by the Oxford University John Fell Fund and the John Hodgson Theatre Research Trust to begin work to address the discursive kinship between the two genres. While the influence of the theatre on the novel is evident, the extent to which the theatre responds to the novel may be harder to identify.

The workshop consisted of four sessions on authorship, character, production, and reception, with presentations followed by discussion, and a final session on methodologies led by Professor Ballaster, which focused on the development of a larger project. The aim of the workshop was to see if, and how, historians of the novel and of eighteenth-century theatre could learn and benefit from each other’s practices. To this end academics, experts of eighteenth-century novel, drama, and opera, as well as British theatre professionals (actors and directors), were invited. Professor Ballaster was in fact very clear that the aim of the project is not to see the novel and the theatre as separate genres, but as ‘interrelated entertainment machines’, borrowing William B. Warner’s phrase in his Licensing Entertainment: The Elevation of Novel Reading in Britain 1684-1750 (U of California Press, 1998). This combined expertise and the real spirit of exchange were two of the great strengths of the event. Theatre practitioners asked how their resources could help the project, and their presence was a constant reminder of the fact that the theatre is a place of live entertainment, where actors and audience come together for a singular experience. The differences between reading a novel and seeing a play were frequently addressed, as was the power of print over the playtext.

Novelists and playwrights were often one and the same person. Henry Fielding and Oliver Goldsmith are obvious examples, but women writers were also key players in the period, both in the development of the novel and theatre productions, as was the case for Elizabeth Inchbald and Frances Sheridan. The question of gender appeared in discussions very early on as one of the central issues, with regards to both the production of literary material and its consumption. The case of Frances Sheridan was particularly illuminating: criticised for being too sentimental in her first play The Discovery (1763), Sheridan then wrote The Dupe (1764), a highly satirical piece. The play was a complete stage fiasco, savagely decried by reviewers. The Dupe nonetheless appeared in print and was hugely popular, demonstrating audiences’ curiosity for the text yet their ambivalence about its suitability for the stage. The place of women in the theatre was also addressed with the audience in mind. Female spectators recorded their anxieties about their responses to the material presented on stage and their awareness that these were observed by other members of the audience. The novel-reader was in comparison not publicly scrutinised. This however raised the issue of the relative freedom of the two genres, for their creators as well as their consumers, an issue that was frequently addressed.

Growing in popularity and legitimacy, the novel posed a threat to the cultural hegemony of the theatre, a supremacy already undermined by the patent law of 1660 that restricted the number of playhouses allowed to produce serious drama, and the Licensing Act of 1737 which required all new dramatic compositions to be submitted to the Examiner of Plays. One of the most vexed questions was this issue of freedom and restraint in the two forms. While contemporary playwrights often voiced their frustrations at the different constraints they had to work within (the Licensing Act as well as managers’ expectations and the questionable taste of the public), neatly summarised by Elizabeth Inchbald in The Artist, number 14, participants rightly pointed out that the novel only enjoyed a perceived freedom and that male and female novelists also had to negotiate different expectations. The novel, though not subject to government control, was not a completely free space.

The workshop was very successful in dealing with theatre in its totality. The theatre as a social institution and its role in the construction of the nation was discussed. The different conditions of production were also reviewed. Emerging from these discussions was the importance of considering the aesthetic creations alongside economic motives. What transpired from this was the significance of the role played by managers, which opened up many questions about authorship. Writing and revising were also raised. Professor Tiffany Stern presented the case of the manuscript of Garrick’s The Newspaper, a scenario for a farce that was never completed. This offered an illuminating insight into the practice of composition: in this example, the play is thought through in terms of plot and character, questioning drama’s approach to character. The issue of ‘character’ and its differences in novels and plays was also one of the central points debated during the workshop. While the project aims to identify the points of intersection between the novel and the theatre, the points of departure are equally important.

Inverting the usual model of work-hard-play-hard adopted at conferences, the entertainment was offered the evening before the workshop itself. This proved not only enjoyable but extremely fruitful for the workshop as the plays chosen introduced many of the issues discussed the following day, and the participants frequently referred to the performance, the plays illustrating the lively, fertile, and sometimes conflicting interchange between the novel and the theatre. George Colman’s one-act ‘Dramatick Novel’ Polly Honeycombe (1760) and the anonymous afterpiece Half-an-Hour after Supper (1789) were performed at the Grove auditorium at Magdalen College, script-in-hand by a team of professional actors (with two minor parts taken by undergraduate performers), after just one day of rehearsal. Both plays illustrate the dangers of female novel-reading, stage young women whose heads are full of novels and who use these works as models to lead their lives. Polly Honeycombe in particular is saturated with references to contemporary novels, which could prove opaque to audience members unfamiliar with the period. The workshop organisers had very helpfully (and wisely) produced a programme that explained these references as well as providing more general background to the plays themselves. Both plays use conventional devices of eighteenth-century comedy such as young women hiding their lovers from their parents, borrowed identities, and complying servants.

The prologue of Polly Honeycombe clearly identifies its target, the novel, full of scandalous nonsense:

‘Plot, and elopement, passion, rape, and rapture,
The total sum of ev’ry dear – dear – Chapter.’ (ll. 29-30)

The prologue mocks both the content of the sentimental novel and its readers by parodying their speech (Jane Austen would parody the same technique in Sense and Sensibility when Marianne regrets ‘dear, dear Norland’). The eponymous heroine endures the fate of many eighteenth-century female protagonists: she and her parents have different views of what makes an acceptable suitor. Polly favours Mr Scribble, a man who writes as well as Lovelace, while her parents have Mr. Ledger in mind, a lawyer unable to discuss anything other than his trade. The Honeycombes are unusual for being a happily married couple, which Polly finds contemptible. While the Honeycombes’ affection for each other is a little on the ‘PDA’ side (Public Display of Affection), an interpretation the actors opted for and which was executed with great comic effect, Polly’s dismissal of her parents’ real love in favour of the fictional passions of sentimental literature illustrates the errors novels induce. The novel in Colman’s play is presented as truly dangerous. ‘A man might as well turn his daughter loose in Covent Garden, as trust to the cultivation of her mind to a circulating library.’ For Mr. Honeycombe, reading is akin to prostitution. This statement has a surprisingly modern ring when compared with contemporary condemnations of ‘scandalous’ and ‘obscene’ entertainment today.

Half-an-Hour After Supper satirises female novel-reading by gathering all the women of the Sturdy household around one text. The opening scene offers an instance of a contemporary pastime, that of reading novels aloud in intimate circles. The two sisters both decide to elope with their respective lovers to follow the paths of previous sentimental heroines. The plan of course fails and their lovers prove to have misled the fair heroines about their identity. The threat the novel poses to the theatre is partly an economic one: the Sturdy family should at that time of day be getting ready to go to one of the London playhouses, not stay home reading novels. One of the surprising elements of the text is its inclusion of male novel-readers, challenging the conventional gender divide. Frank, the Sturdies’ servant, is equally captivated by the novel his mistresses read, to such an extent that he ends up stealing his masters’ candles to satisfy his desire, the novel becoming an illicit activity. Frank’s profession further introduces social questions to debates about novel-reading.

There are striking parallels with Polly Honeycombe, in plot development and comic devices. In both plays the lovers are invited to hide under the table. In the second performance, the heroes’ appearance from under the table was not as smooth: Martin Hodgson, performing Captain Berry, got caught in the tablecloth, sending glasses, bottles, and candles flying. The audience was however left unsure as to whether or not this was intentional, as this accident fitted very well with the general atmosphere of confusion and perplexity that reigns in this scene. This unscripted mishap was also the perfect illustration of the reality of the stage, which academic studies sometimes forget: actors are performing in front of a live audience, and no amount of rehearsal guarantees a perfectly smooth performance. Those unexpected twists are also what make theatre so exciting, for actors and audiences alike.

Colman’s play had been a huge hit at Drury Lane, and was met by an equally enthusiastic response by the Oxford audience, which proved its continuing relevance. The stage-setting was minimal, in keeping with the resources available, which also showed that a lavish and extravagant production is not necessary for a successful performance. The actors’ skills were really put to trial, having one day to rehearse both pieces. Those who have participated in theatrical productions, whether amateur or professional, will know that doubts about everything coming together can remain after weeks of rehearsal, let alone a day. The actors faced an additional difficulty, that of preparing two plays simultaneously, works whose textual similarities could present further snares. It all came together brilliantly, leaving the audience unaware of any problems encountered during the rehearsals. Though short, both pieces brilliantly capture the tensions between the novel and the theatre at the time. Written almost forty years apart, this shows that these anxieties still prevailed in the late eighteenth century.

The material gathered during the workshop will be made available to the general public through a project website (planned to launch Spring 2014). This will include summaries of the workshop discussions as well as podcasts to the performances. The project achieves the difficult balance of providing helpful resources for academics as well as enhancing accessibility to the material for anyone interested in literature. The performance of Polly Honeycombe and Half-an-Hour after Supper will surely be valuable as a way of sparking people’s curiosity and encouraging them to discover texts that have been unfairly neglected.