Wilson Barrett, Man of Feeling, Actor, Manager, Playwright
SOLD OUT
22nd April 2010, 1-2pm
Emerald Grand Hall
Professor Kate Newey, University of Birmingham
This talk will focus on the Leeds-based actor-manager, Wilson Barrett, whose fine work as an actor, dramatist, novelist, and manager in the last third of the nineteenth century has been overshadowed by his more famous contemporary, Henry Irving.
Wilson Barrett has long been dismissed as a barn-storming melodramatist, yet his productions were acknowledged as among the finest of the late nineteenth century. Barrett was also an advocate of the stage as a moral and educative force for good. In new melodramas such as The Silver King, and The Sign of the Cross, and in stagings of classics such as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Barrett offered his audiences all over the world the opportunity to feel strongly and sympathetically with Barrett's stage heroes.
Tickets: FREE (must be booked in advance)