“The Picture Postcard is a sign of the times”: Theatre Postcards and Modernism / Farfan, Peny

Farfan, Peny, «”The Picture Postcard is a sign of the times”: Theatre Postcards and Modernism». Theatre History Studies, 32,  1, (2012), pp. 93-119

Abstract

The invention of the postcard in 1869 and the introduction of picture postcards not long after resulted in an international postcard craze that lasted until the onset of World War I. As theatre historian Veronica Kelly has noted in a study of the theatrical dimensions of this popular phenomenon, actresses, particularly those specializing in musical comedy, were a favorite subject within the postcard industry, extending the actresses’ images beyond their theatrical origins to a much broader range of contexts and making those images available for a variety of consumer usages.1 It is worth noting, however, that the postcard vogue coincided with the rise of modernism and that, in addition to popular musicalcomedy actresses, some of the more elite stage performers and controversial theatre artists of the period were represented on postcards. This essay considers the use of the postcard to circulate images of turn-of-the-twentieth-century star performers not typically considered in relation to modernism and of seemingly high-art modernists not typically considered as popular entertainment. In doing so, I raise questions about the relation of popular entertainment and modernism and suggest how postcards might be seen to problematize the perceived boundaries between high art and popular culture that have traditionally effected the segregation of popular entertainment studies and modernist cultural studies.

Other data

ISSN: 2166-9953
DOI: 10.1353/ths.2012.0018
URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/520590
Language: EN
key: Y7Z9DNK2