Selling the Bird: Richard Walton Tully's "The Bird of Paradise" and the Dynamics of Theatrical Commodification
This article examines Richard Walton Tully's forgotten play "The Bird of Paradise" (1912) that became a major box-office success for over twelve years before being forced to close due to alleged plagiarism. The play is set in 1890s Hawaii and was a major influence in popularizing Hawa...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2005-03, Vol.57 (1), p.1-20 |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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Zusammenfassung: | This article examines Richard Walton Tully's forgotten play "The Bird of Paradise" (1912) that became a major box-office success for over twelve years before being forced to close due to alleged plagiarism. The play is set in 1890s Hawaii and was a major influence in popularizing Hawaiian performance culture throughout the US and beyond. The article argues that the play's disappearance from theatre historiography is largely due to the discipline's adoption of a modernist privileging of aesthetics, which has largely obscured theatre's impact on cultural history. To rectify such lacunae the article proposes a commodification paradigm that considers theatre and commercially successful plays as cultural commodities rather than as aesthetic objects. |
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ISSN: | 0192-2882 1086-332X 1086-332X |
DOI: | 10.1353/tj.2005.0002 |