Diverse Performances

Front cover of the book

Diverse Performances: Masculinities and the Victorian Stage is a book by David Haldane Lawrence, published in October 2014 by Paradise Press.

It is based on David Lawrence's PhD thesis Masculinities and nineteenth-century British theatre: 1829 to 1901. He had updated it to prepare it for a wider audience, but died in 2009 and was unable to see it through to publication. Ross Burgess took on the task of editing it and preparing it for publication.

The main chapters etc of the book are as follows:

• Introduction: Masculine Ideology versus the stage
• Chapter One: Men in the audience
• Chapter Two: Men before and behind the scenes
• Chapter Three Men on the stage
• Chapter Four: Plays and playwrights: the struggle for control
• Chapter Five: Masculinity in comedy and melodrama
• Conclusion: Changing power structures in the Victorian theatre
• Appendix: The hard life of the Victorian actor

External links

• Official website
• Birkbeck College: Text of the thesis
• The book's page on the Paradise Press website