Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue

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Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue is written by Julia Prest and published by Springer Nature. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 3031226917 (ISBN 10) and 9783031226915 (ISBN 13).

The French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) was home to one of the richest public theatre traditions of the colonial-era Caribbean. This book examines the relationship between public theatre and the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue—something that is generally given short shrift owing to a perceived lack of documentation. Here, a range of materials and methodologies are used to explore pressing questions including the ‘mitigated spectatorship’ of the enslaved, portrayals of enslaved people in French and Creole repertoire, the contributions of enslaved people to theatre-making, and shifting attitudes during the revolutionary era. The book demonstrates that slavery was no mere backdrop to this portion of theatre history but an integral part of its story. It also helps recover the hidden experiences of some of the enslaved individuals who became entangled in that story.