Legitimate theatre explained

Legitimate theatre is live performance that relies almost entirely on diegetic elements, with actors performing through speech and natural movement.^{[1] [2]} Traditionally, performances of such theatre were termed legitimate drama,^{[3] [1] [2]} while the abbreviation the legitimate refers to legitimate theatre or drama and legit is a noun referring both to such dramas and actors in these dramas.^{[3] [4] [5]} Legitimate theatre and dramas are contrasted with other types of stage performance such as musical theatre, farce, revue, melodrama, burlesque and vaudeville,^[1] as well as recorded performances on film and television.

History

The terms legitimate theatre and legitimate drama date back to the English Licensing Act of 1737, which restricted "serious" theatre performances to the two patent theatres licensed^{[6] [7]} to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration in 1662. Other theatres were permitted to show comedy, pantomime, opera, dance, music hall or melodrama, but were considered "illegitimate theatre".^{[8] [9]} Everett Wilson speculates that the law may have arisen due to "the fear of theatrical producers that without legal protection both the money and the audience would flow away from the "legitimate theatres" to the lowest common denominator of entertainment in those days, the music halls."^[10]

The licensing restricted performances of classical authors and plays—Shakespeare, most prominently—to the privileged houses.^[11] The logic behind the step was that the legitimate houses could be censored more easily, whilst the illegitimate houses would sell plays of a less serious, less dangerous, primarily entertaining and commercialised format. Illegitimate theatres opened in all the major English cities and towns where they offered pantomime and musical works, such as opera, Victorian burlesque, burletta, extravaganza, music hall, concerts, dance and melodrama, which had musical underscoring played during the dialogue.^[12]

This changed with the Theatres Act 1843 that restricted the powers of the Lord Chamberlain and gave additional powers to local authorities to license theatres,^[7] breaking the monopoly of the patent theatres and encouraging the development of popular theatrical entertainments, such as saloon theatres attached to public houses and music halls. In the 1890s club theatres were founded exploiting a legal loophole. Open only to their members, these houses evaded the censorship law by turning their performances from a public enterprise into a private one.^{[13] [14] [15]}

In the 19th century, the term legitimate drama came to be "widely used by actors of the old school as a defence against the encroachments" of newer types of performance,^[3] and this sense of the term spread beyond England to the United States, where like in England, the term conferred a sense of "'literary' value" to traditional stage plays.^[2]

In the 20th century, the term legitimate theatre "became vernacular within [the] turn-of-the-[20th]-century amusement market" and "confirmed the fact that conventional stage plays no longer monopolized the definition of legitimate theatrical entertainment," while serving "as a strategy for profiting under these new conditions" across the English-speaking world. ^[2] With the advent of recorded media, legitimate was extended to contrast with motion pictures and television as well.

The separation between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" finally formally ended in the aftermath of the scandal Edward Bond's Saved created in 1965–66. The play was first performed in London in late 1965 at the Royal Court Theatre. The house was licensed to perform serious plays. Saved, however, had not been licensed to be performed as Bond had written it. In order for it to be performed as planned, the Royal Court Theatre had lent its stage to the English Stage Theatre Company and thus turned the performance into a private enterprise under the prevailing laws. The evasion was challenged by the magistrate's court in February 1966 and declared a violation of the Theatres Act 1843 on 1 April 1966. The repeal of the Act in 1968 eventually ended the split between legitimate and illegitimate theatres in England.^{[16] [17]}

See also

• Diegesis
• Musical film
• Musical theatre

Notes and References

1. Joyce M. Hawkins and Robert Allen, eds. "Legitimate" entry. The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1991. pp. 820-821. "—adj. 5. constituting or relating to serious drama (including both comedy and tragedy) as distinct from musical comedy, farce, revue, etc. The term arose in the 18th c. ... It covered plays dependent entirely on acting with little or no singing, dancing or spectacle."
2. Mark Hodin. "The Disavowal of Ethnicity: Legitimate Theatre and the Social Construction of Literary Value in Turn-of-the-Century America." Theatre Journal. 52.2: May 2000. p. 212. "The expression legitimate theatre...became vernacular within [the] turn-of-the-[20th]-century amusement market. The legitimate prefix confirmed the fact that conventional stage plays no longer monopolized the definition of legitimate theatrical entertainment, while, at the same time, asserted that they did (or could), as a strategy for profiting under these new conditions. As such, legitimate theatre referred to the history of theatre's high-cultural place, most directly to the authority invested in the Patent playhouses of eighteenth century Britain, but it also suggested the sort of literariness associated with legitimate drama, a term familiar to British and American playgoers, actors, and critics in the nineteenth century for distinguishing classic plays (Shakespeare, Molière, Sheridan) from the contemporary melodramas they also enjoyed. As it does today, however, legitimate theatre made no distinction between good and bad plays; what it proposed and promoted was that, in relation to other competing forms of commercial amusement, the particular value of conventionally staged drama was that it provided the best occasion and opportunity available for acquiring cultural prestige, "literary" value, commercially."
3. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found, eds. "Legitimate Drama " entry. The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1996.
4. Joyce M. Hawkins and Robert Allen, eds. "Legit" entry. The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary. Clarendon Press, 1991. pp. 820. "—n. 1. legitimate drama. 2. an actor in a legitimate drama. [abbr.]"
5. Mark Hodin. "The Disavowal of Ethnicity: Legitimate Theatre and the Social Construction of Literary Value in Turn-of-the-Century America." Theatre Journal. 52.2: May 2000. p. 213.
6. Book: Grantley, Darryll. Historical Dictionary of British Theatre: Early Period. 10 October 2013. Scarecrow Press. 9780810880283. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
7. Michael R. Booth. "Legitimate drama" entry. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance. Dennis Kennedy, ed. Oxford University Press, 2003. "After 1843 and the Theatres Regulation Act, whereby any theatre could play any kind of drama it wished, subject to the censorship powers of the Lord Chamberlain, the distinction between 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' ceased to have any meaning."
8. Book: Harrison, Martin. The Language of Theatre. 1 January 1998. Psychology Press. 9780878300877. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
9. Book: Wyndham, Henry Saxe. The Annals of Covent Garden Theatre from 1732 to 1897. 21 November 2013. Cambridge University Press. 9781108068680. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
10. Everett Wilson. "Favorite Things: Legitimate Theatre", The Partial Observer, 5 November 2005. Archived copy. Archived on 28 September 2007. Accessed 20 July 2022.
11. Book: Knox, Paul. Palimpsests: Biographies of 50 City Districts. International Case Studies of Urban Change. 5 November 2012. Walter de Gruyter. 9783034612128. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
12. Web site: School of Music, Theatre & Dance Programs. 1 January 1996. University of Michigan School of Music. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
13. Book: Wearing, J. P.. The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. 21 November 2013. Scarecrow Press. 9780810892828. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
14. Book: Davis, Derek Russell. Scenes of Madness: A Psychiatrist at the Theatre. 11 September 2002. Routledge. 9781134789009. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
15. Book: Law, Jonathan. The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre. 16 December 2013. A&C Black. 9781408131480. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
16. Book: Trussler, Simon. The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. 21 September 2000. Cambridge University Press. 9780521794305. 20 November 2016. Google Books.
17. Book: Sova, Dawn B.. Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125 Stage Dramas. 1 January 2004. Infobase Publishing. 9781438129938. 20 November 2016. Google Books.