September 29, 2005
Clark University English Professor Virginia M. Vaughan Publishes Book
WORCESTER, MA-Clark University English professor Virginia Mason Vaughan recently released "Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500-1800" (Cambridge University Press). Her book examines early modern English actors' impersonations of black Africans and how blackface performances contributed to the way black characters were "read" by English audiences.
Vaughan examines plays, scenes and characters performed from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (including "Titus Andronicus," "Othello," and "Oroonoko") to identify the most important conventions used when portraying black characters. These include appearance, speech patterns, plot situations, the use of asides and soliloquies, and other dramatic techniques.
She argues that the use of blackface in English theatre provided audiences with "contradictory, yet compelling images of black Africans" during the period in which England became increasingly involved in the Atlantic slave trade. These performances, she said, helped give audiences an important frame of reference for a new culture and people they encountered.
According to Vaughan, there have been a couple of studies of black characters in English Renaissance drama, but none of them look at the dynamic interchanges that take place during any theatrical production between actors and audience.
"The dynamics of performance -- the ways in which repeated acting out creates social attitudes -- is key to the book," she said of "Performing Blackness."
Vaughan's book also contributes to a new development in her field called "whiteness studies," which take their cue from Toni Morrison's essay "Playing in the Dark." Morrison asked critics to look at literature written by white authors that uses black characters to contrast with whites and set up a sense of difference between the two. One of the chapters in "Performing Blackness" deals with the tragedy of "Othello," in which his lead actor, Richard Burbage, wore blackface make-up to portray a Moor.
Professor Vaughan celebrates her 30th anniversary with Clark this year. She has served as Chair of the English Department and Director of Clark's Higgins School of Humanities. She teaches Introduction to Shakespeare, Drama of the Western Tradition, and Studies in the Renaissance at Clark. She also co-teaches a cross-disciplinary course, Shakespeare from Page to Stage with Gino DiIorio, director of Clark's Theater Arts Program. The course attracts both English and theater majors and encourages literature majors to act and actors to critique Shakespeare.
Much of Professor Vaughan's research focuses on theatre and plays. She has published three books on Shakespeare's "Othello," and co-edited "Playing the Globe: Genre and Geography in English Renaissance Drama" with John Gillies (1998). With her husband, historian Alden T. Vaughan, she co-authored "Shakespeare's Caliban: A Cultural History" (Cambridge, 1992) and edited the Arden edition of "The Tempest" (Third Series, 1999). She recently served as a guest academic consultant for an exhibit on Shakespeare and Armor at the Higgins Armory Museum and has been instrumental in organizing undergraduate Shakespeare conferences in Central Massachusetts (another conference is planned for the spring of 2006).
Professor Vaughan resides in Worcester. Visit her faculty page at
Clark University is a private, co-educational liberal-arts research university with 2,000 undergraduate and 600 graduate students. Since its founding in 1887 as the first all-graduate school in New England, Clark has challenged convention with innovative programs such as the International Studies Stream, the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the five-year BA/MA programs with the fifth year tuition-free for eligible students.
Angela M. Bazydlo
Associate Director of Media Relations
Clark University
Worcester, Mass.
phone: 508-793-7635
www.clarku.edu
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