Putting on ‘Uncle Tom’ on the Victorian Stage
Putting on ‘Uncle Tom’ on the Victorian Stage
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在维多利亚时代的舞台上演绎“汤姆叔叔”
DOI：
10.1177/0306396801423002
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发表时间：
2001
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Hazel Waters
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hazel Waters
如果说戏剧是维多利亚时代的大众娱乐媒介，那么它最受欢迎的作品之一就是19世纪30年代末从美国引进的古怪的《吉姆·克罗》及其歌舞表演。乌鸦是美国白人演员T·D·赖斯创作的，根据赖斯亲眼目睹的残废黑人乞丐的Shuf̄舞蹈和低吟歌曲改编而成，被认为是美国黑人的真实代表，因此，它不仅仅是一种低人一等的人类，而是完全脱离人类物种。一位戏剧评论家认为赖斯的《洋基黑鬼的表现》是正确的，理由是它与其他任何人，无论是黑人还是白人都完全不同，以至于我们几乎不能怀疑它就像是一个种族，或者是它所针对的个人。吉姆·克罗有着一张煤黑的脸、翻白眼、疯狂的舞蹈、奇怪的手势、‘奴隶’方言、戏仿的服装和观众的̄attery，他在一个总是渴望新奇的媒介上一举成名。街上有人吹着乌鸦的歌声，孩子们为了一分钱而做着乌鸦的例行公事，观众挤满了赖斯每晚两次的演出，乌鸦扭曲的嘴脸和咧嘴笑着的脸装饰着海报，卖歌单、雪茄和吉姆·克罗的帽子。据说，就连德文郡公爵也自学了“跳过吉姆·克罗”。尽管英国观众早就熟悉了复仇者的刻板印象
If theatre was the mass entertainment medium of the Victorian age, one of its biggest popular hits was the importation from America, in the late 1830s, of the bizarre ®gure of `Jim Crow' and his song and dance act. Crow, the creation of the white American actor T. D. Rice, and based, so the story goes, on the shuf ̄ing dance and crooning song of a crippled black ostler Rice had witnessed, was held to be a genuine representation of the American black ± and, as such, not simply an inferior sort of human being, but, rather, outside the human species altogether. One theatre critic `presume[d]' Rice's `representation of a Yankee nigger' to be `correct' on the grounds that it was `so utterly unlike any other human being, either black or white, that we can hardly doubt its being like the race, or the individual, it is meant for'. With his coal-black face, eye rolling, frenzied dancing, weird gesticulation, `slave' dialect, parodic costume and ̄attery of his audience, Jim Crow was an instant success in a medium always hungry for novelty. Crow songs were whistled in the streets, child beggars did Crow routines for pennies, audiences packed Rice's twice-nightly shows and Crow's distorted ®gure and grinning face adorned playbills, sold songsheets, cigars and `Jim Crow' hats. Even the Duke of Devonshire was said to have had himself taught to `jump Jim Crow'. Though British audiences had long been familiar with the stereotype of the vengeful