From San Francisco Eastward: Victorian Theater in the American West Introduction Reflecting on a nineteenth-century theatrical performance on the East Coast, an American theater historian recently wrote: "Their close-to capacity audiences were as unsophisticated as anything encountered by actors out West during the Gold Rush and Silver Fever years."[1] This characterization of unsophisticated hooting, hollering, hand-clapping, and foot-stomping westerners has long prevailed. Out of this boisterous vitality, the western theater acquired a persona that would, correctly, mark it as distinctive. This distinctiveness makes us ask: How did the theater as a social institution affect its patrons in this way? Who were these patrons, these performers, the theatricalities ? Why was their need for entertainment manifested in these ''unsophisticated'' ways? What was the importance of entertainment in the lives of ordinary people coming to grips with the realities of life in nineteenth-century western towns? The story of Victorian theater is multifaceted, supported by colorful personalities and challenging environments. Victorian theater was ultimately a capitalist endeavor focused on selling cultural forms; thus economics ruled the theater, while culture shaped its importance. Just like today, people of the Victorian era shared a complex set of social behaviors, customs, values, and beliefs used to cope with their everyday realities. Our current beliefs differ from those of the past, of course, but the ways in which these shared values shaped the Victorian theatrical experience--from variety theaters to Shakespeare--informs our understanding of the forces that shaped the West.[2] Although it may seem surprising Victorian-era melodrama remains relevant for modern audiences.

Bombastic, archaic overacting may come to mind; however, certain plays of the era bare strikingly timeless messages. Dion Boucicault''s classic The Shaughraun opened in San Francisco in 1875, and at the Sydney Opera House, Australia, in 1995; the message of overcoming social class limitations continues to be a strong missive in the modern world.[3] More recently, Augustin Daly''s 1862 classic Leah the Forsaken , appeared before Manhattan audiences in Spring 2017, its message of the restrictive paradigms of anti-Semitism and resistance toward immigrants resounding with modern American images and challenges.[4] The Berkeley California Repertory Theater recently extended a sold-out engagement of a play based on Dion Boucicault''s 1859 classic, The Octoroon . The award-winning adaptation, dubbed An Octoroon , provides perhaps the most important contemporary theatrical insight on race in America.[5] The play, with African-American actors in whiteface and Caucasian actors in blackface, cleverly distorts the reality onstage to remind us that we can easily be manipulated by theatrical constructs. Stereotypes, it suggests, can be transcended. Less a component of popular culture today than during the Victorian era, the professional theater now draws primarily from college-educated Americans.

Yet, the theater of the Victorian West, heavily supported by working classes, more closely mirrors the popular entertainment of modern television. Shows such as Blackish , Fresh Off the Boat , and Modern Family, speak to the ability of entertainment to mitigate cultural differences, as did the Victorian theater. Popular culture, through its ability to normalize, individualize, and humanize, not only facilitates adjustments to societal change,[6] but establishes a function of the melting pot through its ability to reduce the sharp edges of cultural difference.[7] In the twenty-first century, to watch television is to discover America, but in the Victorian age, the theater reflected American life. In the American West, Victorians were challenged to rethink their perceptions through imagined ideas. The theater sold cultural forms which changed perceptions of what people could and should do. As a manifestation of the melting pot, people of different backgrounds mingled at these social institutions. Attendees viewed diverse theatricalities against a cultural framework acquired from previous lives and nationalities.

Patrons were furthermore asked to suspend disbelief in the theatrical product. Each patron, performer, and backstage professional brought a unique cultural filter through which they created and perceived the theatricality, shaping life in the region.[8] The stage provided numerous options for local and personal interpretations, and the power of a market economy influenced the sale of cultural forms. Cultural venues, typically found in the urban areas of the West--theaters included--were places where people met and conferred in face-to-face interactions. They followed social rules and created social geographies based on the cultural norms they had internalized as members of the larger culture. The cultural concepts of --manliness, the role of women, ethnic and racial identities, and ideals of respectability that theatergoers shared as members of a larger cultural order would structure and delimit the theatrical experience. The theater building''s architecture--its seating patterns, saloons, and separate entrance--as well as the theatricality presented onstage were subject to definition by the larger culture. Through the faux reality of the stage these customs were enforced, challenged, satirized through humor, or otherwise reinterpreted in some way and offered to audiences.

Cultural values, capitalism, society, and urbanization triggered the tensions that created the fantasy of the stage. Diverse audiences were spread thinly over a wide landscape of isolated settlements, necessitating travel between locations for mobile thespians ever anxious to make a living with their chosen passion. San Francisco dominated the West''s theatrical life and tied hinterland urban centers together in reciprocal exchanges. Larger towns exported theatricalities to smaller towns challenged by a lack of theater professionals. An examination of the Victorian theater includes the ways that it reflected, and also how it was shaped by, the exigencies of the western region, including the larger forces of American culture. In turn each western settlement followed a pattern of theatrical development based on the demographics of that location. And as these populations changed, the theater adapted to supply and demand. When young men dominated the population, a woman''s sexuality became a commercialized theatrical commodity.

Fallen women attended theatricalities both as patrons of the arts and as meeting grounds for potential clients. Although at times restricted to certain areas of the theater, their patronage sustained the business financially and influenced theater programming. As demographic gender imbalances decreased and towns developed a middle class, respectable women''s needs pushed entertainment toward greater gentility. Variety entertainments based on solo or small family troupes, a long list which included singers, dancers, magicians, musicians, tight-rope walkers, contortionists, child prodigies, trained animals, and lecturers, dominated Western theaters as practical and adaptable. Minstrelsy ruled the variety stage as its most common and popular form and eased adjustment to urbanization through humor. Minstrelsy elevated working-class conceit and challenged power structures for the dispossessed--particularly the immigrant Irish--facilitating assimilation for some, at the expense of marginalizing others. In responding to the challenges of the West, theater businesses demonstrated innovation and creativity. Some attempted to be all things to all people, rotating risqué entertainment with respectable legitimate theater--Shakespeare, melodrama and classic plays--while others split along class lines and made no attempt at respectability.

Poor economic times found the theater resorting to cost-cutting strategies and sensationalized theatricalities that would find support among working men and women. Only during good economic times did respectable patrons support legitimate presentations to the degree necessary for sustained success. Many of the greatest achievements on the Western dramatic stage resulted from the talents of those from Irish backgrounds who became role models for Irish immigrants struggling with discrimination. Borrowing plays and players from the Eastern states spread a common set of Victorian cultural norms, tempered by the challenges inherent in the region. Trouping performers demonstrated a self-reliance often attributable to the Western ethos. The story of Western theater is not one of crisp beginnings or ends. It is a story of transitions and adaptations to changing social and economic circumstances. The variety and legitimate theaters of the 1860s and 70s anchored the theatricalities of a cacophony of immigrant and native-born experiences.

Acting styles became more realistic, while the celebrity status of stars increasingly captivated Victorian sensibilities. Stock company actors--the back-up players at each discrete theater--developed extensive repertoires of musical and comedic talents. A typical night of entertainment meant a four or five-act melodrama followed by an afterpiece, a short farce. Entr''acte interest did not wane as the cast transformed an interlude into a song and dance opportunity before the curtain. The protean talents of stock compan.