Reviewed by:

• Antitheatricality and the Body Public by Lisa A. Freeman
• Logan J. Connors (bio)

In a new book about antitheatricality across different times and places, Lisa A. Freeman unearths a series of historical moments when public figures leveraged debate about theatre and performance for political, economic, and social goals. Antitheatricality and the Body Public, in the author’s own words, “examines the particular ways that the theater. . .has been taken up repeatedly as a site of contestation for positing and projecting publics” (5). Through five case studies spanning approximately 350 years, the author proves her ultimate thesis that polemics surrounding theatrical events reveal crucial information about the formation of partisan politics, the role of performance in wider sociocultural debates, and the ways in which groups of people exclude and become excluded by others. From a methodological standpoint, Freeman’s book underscores the importance of historical specificity and archival research in theatre and performance studies—a discipline known more recently for its theoretical analyses of transhistorical or contemporary phenomena than for the granular, archive-driven work that informs Freeman’s project.

The book’s most important and original theoretical concept is the body public, a manipulation of the more well-known and critically rehearsed body politic. Through her theory of the body public, Freeman has the double-edged mission of both demonstrating “the ways in which sovereignty itself is a fragile chimera” and highlighting “the ways in which those who inhabit that body politic may just as easily stand apart form it in a posture of critique” (4). More than discursive entities and abstract concepts (i.e., “the State” or “the Church”), Freeman’s bodies public, she argues, emerge “in concrete, visible, and embodied forms” (5) such as theatres, performance art, and even defendants and plaintiffs at court. Freeman then goes on to tease out the means by which bodies public were created, manipulated, attacked, and defended in a series of precise historical cases.

In chapter 1, the author describes a constellation of documents surrounding the publication of William Prynne’s Histrio-Mastix and Prynne’s subsequent Star Chamber trial in 1634. Unlike most scholars of antitheatrical discourses (Jonas Barish in The Antitheatrical Prejudice, for example), Freeman refuses to limit [End Page 137] herself to analysis of Prynne’s famous theatrephobic tome. Instead, she treats the Histrio-Mastix alongside a series of court documents from his trial, where Prynne faced charges of libel and instigating public havoc. Freeman reinterprets the arc of the Puritan antitheatrical movement in England by showing that, contrary to most critical assessments of the polemic that portray the text as the launching point for a sober theatrephobic period in London (Martin Butler in Theatre and Crisis, for example), Prynne’s text “had no significant impact on either theatrical business or playing practices” (14). Freeman’s interest in the Prynne affair is less teleological and more contextually grounded in the political cultures of Caroline London.

Chapter 2 connects Jeremy Collier’s A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage to a series of his politically charged responses to England’s Glorious Revolution (1688). By combining her analysis of Collier’s text with an examination of several works from Collier’s overtly political corpus, Freeman illustrates precisely why “many of his contemporaries considered the publication of this antitheatrical pamphlet as much a political event as a dramatic or literary one” (98). As in her analysis of the Prynne controversy, Freeman shows in this chapter the “kinds of historical, social, and political concerns that are mediated by antitheatrical incidents” (99). Collier, according to Freeman, deployed antitheatrical arguments for political gain and as justification for past events, including the polemic surrounding his actions as a “nonjuror” (member of the Anglican clergy who felt legally bound to James II after the Revolution) and harsh critic of the accession of William and Mary in 1688 and 1689.

In chapter 3, Freeman moves into the eighteenth century to tease out the political and religious controversy surrounding John Home’s Douglas (1756). Freeman reads Home’s tragedy as revelatory of a...

审核人：

• 丽莎·A·弗里曼（Lisa A. Freeman）的反戏剧性与身体大众
• 洛根·康纳斯（生物）

在一本有关不同时期和地区的反戏剧性的新书中，丽莎·弗里曼（Lisa A. Freeman）发掘了一系列历史时刻，当公众人物利用有关戏剧和表演的辩论来实现政治，经济和社会目标时。反戏剧性与身体大众用作者自己的话说，“研究剧院的特殊方式。。已被反复吸收，作为集会和投射公众的竞赛场所”（5个）。通过大约350年的五个案例研究，作者证明了她的终极论点，即围绕戏剧事件的辩论揭示了有关党派政治的形成，表演在更广泛的社会文化辩论中的作用以及人们排斥和成为人群的方式的重要信息。被其他人排除在外。从方法论的角度来看，弗里曼（Freeman）的书强调了戏剧和表演研究中历史特殊性和档案研究的重要性。这是一门以跨历史或当代现象的理论分析而闻名的学科，而不是颗粒状的，历史悠久的学科。

本书最重要和最原始的理论概念是公开公开身体，这是对更为著名和经过严格演练的身体政治的操纵。通过她的身体公开理论，弗里曼担负着双重角色：既展示“主权本身是脆弱的嵌合体的方式”，又强调“居住在该政体中的人可能同样容易分离的方式”。以批评的态度”（4）。她认为，弗里曼的身体不仅是话语实体和抽象概念（即“国家”或“教堂”），还以“具体，可见和体现的形式”出现（5），例如剧院，表演艺术和甚至法庭上的被告和原告。弗里曼然后继续梳理一下在一系列精确的历史案例中，公共尸体被创造，操纵，攻击和捍卫。

在第1章中，作者描述了一系列有关William Prynne的Histrio-Mastix和Prynne随后在1634年进行的Star Chamber审判的出版物。与大多数反戏剧论点的学者不同（例如，《反戏剧偏见》中的乔纳斯·巴里什（Jonas Barish ）），弗里曼拒绝限制[结束第137页]她自己只能分析Prynne着名的剧院恐惧症书。相反，她对待Histrio-Mastix连同来自他的审判的一系列法院文件，普林在法庭上遭到诽谤和煽动公众破坏的指控。弗里曼（Freeman）重新诠释了英国清教徒反戏剧运动的弧线，表明与对批判性辩论的大多数批评性评估相反，该辩论将文字描述为伦敦清醒的仇视恐怖时期的起点（例如，剧院和危机中的马丁·巴特勒（Martin Butler ））， Prynne的案文“对戏剧业务或戏剧实践均无重大影响”（14）。Freeman对Prynne事件的兴趣较少是目的论，而是更多地基于Caroline London的政治文化。

第2章将杰里米·科利尔（Jeremy Collier）的英语舞台不道德和亵渎行为简短介绍他对英国光荣革命（1688）做出的一系列政治上的回应。通过结合对科利尔文本的分析和对科利尔公开政治语料库的几本著作的考察，弗里曼准确地说明了“为什么许多他的同时代人认为出版这一反戏剧性小册子既像是戏剧性或文学性的政治事件”（98） 。就像在对Prynne争议的分析中一样，Freeman在本章中显示“由反戏剧事件引起的历史，社会和政治关注的种类”（99）。根据弗里曼（Freeman）的说法，科利尔（Collier）部署了反戏剧论点，以谋取政治利益，并为过去的事件辩护，

在第3章中，弗里曼进入18世纪，提出了围绕约翰·霍姆（John Home）的道格拉斯（Douglas）（1756）的政治和宗教争议。弗里曼（Freeman）将霍姆（Home）的悲剧解读为启示