Repertoire as intertext: The review, Shakespeare, and celebrity in the case of Cathcart vs. Brooke (1855)

Presented as part of the SLLL LSSS seminar series. In 1855 a sensational contractual dispute between actor Fanny Cathcart and actor manager Gustavas Vaughan Brooke hit the Melbourne press. After playing opposite Brooke during the first six months of his Australia tour, Cathcart took up an offer to play for better rates at a rival Melbourne theatre. Brooke promptly sought an injunction barring her performance with any other company. The consequent court hearings are documented in newspapers in and beyond colonial Victoria as a hilarious extension of the players’ roles as entertainers, including an ill-fated offer of marriage and a tale of ‘taming’. This paper examines ways in which onstage theatrical roles played by Cathcart and Brooke during the course of their dispute formed an integral part of the public discourse about gender and celebrity that it provoked. Kate Flaherty is a lecturer in English literature and drama at the Australian National University. She researches how Shakespeare’s plays in performance interact with wider public cultures. Her publications include Ours as we play it: Australia plays Shakespeare (UWAP, 2011), and articles published in Shakespeare Survey, Australian Studies, and Contemporary Theatre Review.

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Milgate Room (AD Hope 165), 14 Ellery Crescent, 2601 Acton,