Drury Lane [ Sports & Leisure / Cities ]
… Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), considered theatrical pleasure suspect precisely because of its affective power and ability to influence social formation: ‘Nothing has gone farther in Debauching the Age than the Stage … at the End, they would have torn the House down: Our seats shook under us.’ 12 Burney’s account shows how the ‘affective sensibility of the collective becomes desired in itself’ in a ‘shared sense of the power of numbers.’ 13 12 . … by encoring the anthem with ‘repeated Huzzas.’ 14 Audience participation could reshape a text’s emotional and artistic affect, breaking the entertainment into new divisions with vociferous affirmations, or loud catcalls and hisses. When, on …
Audience | Coffeehouses | Fame | Rioting | Theatre
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