Enacting History

by Magelssen, Scott; Justice-malloy, Rhona

• ISBN13: 9780817356545
• ISBN10: 0817356541
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-03-18
• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr

Summary

Enacting Historyis a collection of new essays exploring the world of historical performances. The volume focuses on performances outside the traditional sphere of theatre, among them living history museums, battle reenactments, pageants, renaissance festivals, and adventure-tourism destinations. This volume argues that the recent surge in such performances have raised significant questions about the need for, interest in, and value of such nontraditional theater. Many of these performances claim a greater or lesser degree of historical ;accuracy ; or ;authenticity, ; and the authors tease out the representational and historiographic issues related to these arguments. How, for instance, are issues of race, ethnicity, and gender dealt with at museums that purport to be accurate windows into the past? How are politics and labor issues handled in local- or state-funded institutions that rely on volunteer performers? How do tourists' expectations shape the choices made by would-be purveyors of the past? Where do matters of taste or censorship enter in when reconciling the archival evidence with a family-friendly mission? Essays in the collection address, among other subjects, reenactments of period cookery and cuisine at a Maryland renaissance festival; the roles of women as represented at Minnesota's premiere living history museum, Historic Fort Snelling; and the Lewis and Clark bicentennial play as cultural commemoration. The editors argue that historical performances like these-regardless of their truth-telling claims-are an important means to communicate, document, and even shape history, and allow for a level of participation and accessibility that is unique to performance. Enacting History is an entertaining and informative account of the public's fascination with acting out and watching history and of the diverse methods of fulfilling this need. Contributors Leigh Clemons / Catherine Hughes / Rhona Justice-Malloy / Kimberly Tony Korol-Evans / Lindsay Adamson Livingston / Scott Magelssen / Aili McGill / Richard L. Poole / Amy M. Tyson / Patricia Ybarra

Author Biography

Scott Magelssen is an associate professor of theatre at Bowling Green State University, author of Living History Museums: Undoing History through Performance, and editor of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. Rhona Justice-Malloy is professor of theatre arts at the University of Mississippi, editor of Theatre History Studies, and past president of the Mid-American Theatre Conference.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Present Enacting Past: The Functions of Battle Reenacting in Historical Representation	p. 10
ôThis Is the Placeö: Performance and the Production of Space in Mormon Cultural Memory	p. 22
Men with Their Muskets and Me in My Bare Feet: Performing History and Policing Gender at Historic Fort Snelling Living History Museum	p. 41
History, Archive, Memory, and Performance: The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Play as Cultural Commemoration	p. 66
Defining Museum Theater at Conner Prairie	p. 88
Performing History as Memorialization: Thinking with … And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi and Brown University's Slavery and Justice Committee	p. 113
Is That Real? An Exploration of What Is Real in a Performance Based on History	p. 134
Dinner: Impossible-ôMedieval Mayhemö at the Maryland Renaissance Festival	p. 153
Tourist Performance in the Twenty-first Century	p. 174
Ping Chong & Company's Undesirable Elements/Secret Histories in Oxford, Mississippi	p. 203
List of Contributors	p. 229
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