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Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children's Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime (Series in Fairy-Tale Studies)
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About Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children's
Product Description In nineteenth-century Britain, the spectacular and highly profitable theatrical form known as "pantomime" was part of a shared cultural repertoire and a significant medium for the transmission of stories. Rowdy, comedic, and slightly risqué, pantomime productions were situated in dynamic relationship with various forms of print and material culture. Popular fairy-tale theater also informed the production and reception of folklore research in ways that are often overlooked. In Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children's Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime, Jennifer Schacker reclaims the place of theatrical performance in this history, developing a model for the intermedial and cross-disciplinary study of narrative cultures. The case studies that punctuate each chapter move between the realms of print and performance, scholarship and popular culture. Schacker examines pantomime productions of such well-known tales as "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Jack and the Beanstalk," as well as others whose popularity has waned-such as, "Daniel O'Rourke" and "The Yellow Dwarf." These productions resonate with traditions of impersonation, cross-dressing, literary imposture, masquerade, and the social practice of "fancy dress." Schacker also traces the complex histories of Mother Goose and Mother Bunch, who were often cast as the embodiments of both tale-telling and stage magic and who move through various genres of narrative and forms of print culture. These examinations push at the limits of prevailing approaches to the fairy tale across media. They also demonstrate the degree to which perspectives on the fairy tale as children's entertainment often obscure the complex histories and ideological underpinnings of specific tales.Mapping the histories of tales requires a fundamental reconfiguration of our thinking about early folklore study and about "fairy tales": their bearing on questions of genre and ideology but also their signifying possibilities-past, present, and future. Readers interested in folklore, fairy-tale studies, children's literature, and performance studies will embrace this informative monograph. Review Is there more to say about the folktale? Yes! And Schacker says it astutely and beautifully; examining the history of the folktale through the lens of pantomime and theatricality in the nineteenth century, Schacker reveals the meaning of materiality in performances on stage and in costume. From conceptions of childhood to cross-dressing, Schacker redeems the folktale from its current cinematic commodifications and gives it back to us in rich historical and performative detail, rereading and creatively revising the history of folktale scholarship in the process. Essential and engaging work! (Deborah Kapchan New York University 2018-07-24) Jennifer Schacker's Staging Fairyland is a historical landmark book that expands our understanding of the intertextuality and interconnections of folklore and fairy tale. Brilliantly conceived and written, Schacker's study of the fairy-tale pantomime in the nineteenth century is a major contribution to interdisciplinary studies and the study of folklore and fairy tales. Her book fills major gaps in the history of the fairy tale as a pervasive and memetic genre. Indeed, it will contribute to our contemporary reconfiguration of the fairy tale by demonstrating how performance genres like the pantomime are part and parcel of this messy, magical genre. In this respect, Schacker is a scholarly wizard who has transformed the invisible into clear visibility. (Jack Zipes University of Minnesota 2018-07-24) Staging Fairyland is discipline-crossing, horizon-expanding scholarship at its imaginative best. Schacker's wide-ranging exploration of the experience of fairy tales across media and modalities of performance, from print to pantomime, scholarly imagining to popular entertainment, offers a powerful critical corrective to conventional disciplinary div
