This nuanced study of early North American patriotic drama underscores the troubled, complex and omnipresent relationship between British and colonial theatre during the eighteenth century. Like other scholars who have explored the dynamics of circum-Atlantic exchange, Shaffer examines a wide variety of performances to reveal the tangled and tense rapport between the two cultures. As a result, he is able to offer valuable insights into the theatrical dimensions of politics and protest.
His method centres on identifying thematic echoes across time and texts – ‘repetition[s] with revision’ (p. 9). Closely reading dramas and paratheatrical material (from poetry to oratory and statuary), Shaffer discovers cross-cultural references and resonances that are seemingly hidden in plain sight. Each chapter focuses on a particular play or performance medium. After a brief prologue in which he meditates on The Patriot (2000), the cinematic Revolutionary drama starring Mel Gibson, in his first chapter Shaffer describes three characters – the tyrant, the sacrificial victim and the patriot – that generate the ‘spectacle from which sentiments of patriotic fellow-feeling can spring’ (p. 21). The second chapter explores North American appropriations of a British tragedy, Addison's Cato. In addition to detailing its popularity in the colonies, the author tracks what he calls ‘the Catonic effigy’ (p. 39) in political pamphlets, dramatic prologues and public speeches, such as the legendary final words of Continental Army captain Nathan Hale. Next, he analyses repertory choices of early American professional touring companies (including Richard III, Julius Caesar, Rowe's Tamerlane, and Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, among others) in light of shifting politics and tastes over time.
Two comparatively understudied genres – amateur theatricals on college campuses and Revolutionary propaganda plays – serve as the subjects of the fourth and fifth chapters, respectively. The study then concludes with an epilogue about how Royall Tyler's post-war comedy, The Contrast, seems to revise and temper previous depictions of American patriotism. Employing an ‘Atlanticist rather than a nationalist perspective’ (p. 69), Shaffer participates in the ongoing scholarly reconsideration of ‘American drama’ as a genre defined by performance conditions and context rather than by authorial nativity. Assessing how British plays were presented, quoted and invoked by North Americans, Performing Patriotism suggests that such iterations of a text reveal the anxieties, hopes and aspirations of a nation in progress.
