The French revolutionary theater was the first modern experience of the interaction of mass culture and mass politics, says Maslan (French, U. of California-Berkeley), and uses it to explore the relation of art and politics during the birth of mass political participation, mass culture, and modern democracy in late 18th-century France. She argues that the now obscure revolutionary theater was an art form central to the Revolution, and despite its aesthetic shortcomings, constitutes an important lost chapter in the literary and cultural history of France. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
In Revolutionary Acts Susan Maslan shows how theater played a pivotal role in Revolutionary France, positioning the theatrical stage as a battleground on which the people of Paris and the government fought for municipal control.
Examining the production, performance, and reception of Parisian plays between 1789 and 1794, Maslan sheds new light on two issues central to the political cultures of Paris and France: the nature of political representation -- specifically the problematic relationship between direct democracy and representative democracy -- and the correlative problem of transparency and its relation to theatricality.
While traditional scholarship emphasizes the influence of newspapers and books on the French Revolution, Maslan's erudite analysis reveals the rich and powerful impact of theater on France's fledgling democracy.
