Early Victorian Drama and theatrical conditions.

The accession of Victoria in 1837 ushered in „the hungry forties”, a period of severe economic depression. The novels of Charles Dickens, which brilliantly portray the domestic facts of misery and poverty, were all written between 1837 and 1870.The poverty was worst in London. The new railways had vastly increased its population, from 3/4 of a million in 1801 to two million in Victoria’s first years.However, the railways stimulated employment.Prosperity began to return, so that in the 1850s Britain became „the workshop of the world”. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was an international trade advertisement on a grand scale. Britain exported nearly three billion yards of cotton cloth each year, while her coal production was double that of Germany, France, and Belgium combined.Yet despite the expanding wealth, there were disturbing sings: these were the years of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny; moreover the poverty of the cities remained, even if it was not so obvious as in the 1840s.

Theatrical conditions

In 1837 the theater belonged to the lower-middle and working classes. By the late 1850s, however, polite society was trickling back.The Theatre Act of 1834 destroyed the monopoly of the two patent theatres. This Act merely recognized the growth of the minor houses earlier in the century; there was no immediate rush to build new theatres. Yet, by 1851, there were 19 active playhouses in London. Haymarket removed both its proscenium doors and the forestage to fill the space with reserved stalls for wealthier patrons; steadily, other playhouses followed suit. By 1850, the end of an act meant the dropping of a curtain which, for the next act, rose to reveal a new setting. The audience now looked through the prosecnium arch, much like looking through a window onto events. The old patent houses turned to opera and spectacular events. In 1853, Drury Lane even became a circus. Acting was left mostly to the smaller theatres, where subtlety was needed. The actor learned flexibility, he constantly changed roles. Queen Victoria liked the theatre. She even had companies perform at Windsor, so that, by 1842, Charles Kean began to supervise them. This so impressed the middle class that they began to go back to the playhouses.