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COPYRIGHT 2000 www.wmich.edu/compdr
Richard Foulkes. Church and Stage in Victorian England. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xiv + 263. $59.95.
On a recent winter Sunday, I found myself managing my time between a holiday church celebration in the morning, and a one-man stage performance of Charles Dickens's works in the afternoon. Moving from being a communicant in a congregation to a member of an admiring audience, I was struck by the similarities in the two settings and moods, particularly the somewhat reverential spells cast by the mesmerizing leaders. I was also mulling over my reading of a recent book, Church and Stage in Victorian England, which considers the curious intersection of these two areas. According to Richard Foulkes's insightful and original work, a rapprochement occurred during the reign of Queen Victoria between the stage and the Church of England, a testament to the connection between the pulpits and the prosceniums of nineteenth-century Britain.
Chapter 1 provides a compelling background for Foulkes's argument. After citing Jeremy Bentham's oft-quoted comparison of all amusements, including theater, to mere push-pin games, Foulkes points out that when Parliament investigated the patent theaters in the same year as the Reform Bill, more enlightened critics, such as Edward Bulwer Lytton, "subscribed to the need for amusements for all," particularly the poorer classes; he also felt that the state should promote better entertainments for the working classes...
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