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Theatre History and the Nation-State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Bruce McConachie
Bruce McConachie
Affiliation:
Bruce McConachie teaches Theatre and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.
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Extract

The American theatre and film critic Stanley Kaufman once told the following version of the ‘Napoleon’ joke. It seems a French official in the 1820s on a visit to an insane asylum was taken around the institution by one of the inmates. As the tour progressed, the official was increasingly impressed by the inmate's evident knowledge of the asylum. There were times when his guide even seemed to be running the place; he commanded orderlies to open locked doors or to remove other inmates from confinement, and the orderlies always obeyed. Finally, they came to the last room on the tour and the inmate explained that the people within suffered from delusions of grandeur. Sure enough, the official looked through the bars and saw an entire roomful of men dressed like French generals, strutting about with one hand thrust inside their vests. ‘Those poor fools all think they are Napoleon’, said the guide. Certain now that his guide was as rational as he, the official asked him how soon he was going to be released. The inmate drew him aside and whispered confidentially, ‘They'll never let me go. They're afraid of my power in France. They know all these other Napoleons are fakes.’

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Summer 1995 , pp. 141 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1995

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References

Notes

1 Gardels, Nathan and Sheinbaum, Stanley K., ‘Demise of Modernity?’, American Studies Newsletter, Special Anniversary Edition, 1983–1993, 11 (rpt., 1991; 1994), p. 13.Google Scholar

2 Toulmin, Stephen, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. x.Google Scholar

3 Carey, James W., ‘A Cultural Approach to Communication’, Communication, 2 (1975), p. 3.Google Scholar

4 Tennenhouse, Leonard, Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres (New York and London: Methuen, 1986)Google Scholar; Allen, Robert C., Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Kruger, Loren, The National Stage: Theatre and Cultural Legitimation in England, France, and America (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Carlson, Marvin, Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

5 Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 185.

6 Ibid., p. 192.