Associate Professor Gillian Arrighi

Dr Gillian Arrighi’s research into childhood actors at the turn of the 20^th century critically assesses their contribution to modern ideas about ‘childhood’

Before the advent of film, theatre was at its zenith at the turn of the 20th century, and at its heart were many talented and wildly popular child actors.

Dr Gillian Arrighi, a researcher in Creative and Performing Arts, is honing in on the contribution of children to the globally connected theatre industries in London, New York, Melbourne and Sydney prior to World War One.

She is currently writing a book, Pinafore, Prodigies and Precocities: child actors on popular stages 1879-1914 that applies the critical lenses of education and labour reform, repertoire analysis, industrial conditions, and biography to argue the popular theatre of the era transmitted socially transformational ideas about children and childhood.

“Through this project I’ve uncovered children’s extraordinary performance abilities. Their high levels of energy, intelligence, wit, and creative skills really shine through in this research. These amazing children had a broad psychological feeling range they could portray on stage. They were highly skilled dancers and comedians. Some as young as six years old were touring around the country doing up to 400 performances a year, so they also had remarkable endurance,” Dr Arrighi said.

Dr Arrighi said the children consummately presented their unique blend of innocence, agency, and competence while appearing in commercial productions of drama, pantomime, comic opera, variety/vaudeville and musical comedy alongside the biggest stars of the era.

“Some of them became major stars in their own right during childhood, some sustained adult careers in the theatre and early film, and many of them travelled vast distances on the touring circuits of the era, contributing to the transmission of theatrical trends and advancing modernising ideas about children and childhood.”

Most of the child actors of this period were female, many were from middle class homes without familial links to the entertainment business, and then as now, professional teachers of dance, singing, and elocution supported their entrée to the entertainment business.

“The predominance of young girls in the theatre industry and the support they received from their families disrupts our understanding about turn of the 20^th century aspirations for young women in the work force. “

Dr Arrighi contrasts the extraordinary talents and abilities of the child actors of this era with the modern treatment of children.

“This research suggests that the abilities of children today are undervalued. It points to the way we can wrap children in cotton wool and perhaps limit their exploration of their creative capacities and emotional intelligence. Fear and concern for safety has changed the way society treats children, we’ve tightened our control on children and what spaces they can occupy,” she said.

“These days child actors in theatre and film work according to strict rules that acknowledge the need for education, rest, limited hours of work etc. Workplace recognition of children’s natural needs and rights was becoming established in the theatre industry in the 1880s and today’s regulations of child actors have their genesis in legal cases and changing industry practices dating from the late-nineteenth century.

The time frame for Arrighi’s study is 1879-1914, a significant period when the theatre industry in Australia, the United States and Britain was central to the national culture. Actors were becoming professionalised and industrial mechanisms supporting the occupational status of actors, such as actors’ agents and stage trainers, became entrenched within the industry. Cultural developments, including the activation of a mass media and the cult of celebrity, influenced the social impact of child actors.

It was in 1879 that a surge in popularity of child actors occurred worldwide which Dr Arrighi says coincided with increasingly determined efforts to legalise the importance of a universal education, to place the caprices of entertainment within an ordered structure of legal precedent, and to accommodate the economic significance of children as providers and consumers within the developing middle-class constructions of childhood.

“From 1880 onwards there was this incredible fascination with seeing children on stage. At the same time labour and education laws were coming into force. It was almost like the audience was saying now this is forbidden we want to have more of it. Ideas about what constituted a middle-class childhood were becoming strongly established in this period. The theatre has always reflected society and its challenges and problems. This upwelling of child actors performing ‘childhood’ on stage came at a time when not everyone could afford to give their children a middle class childhood, but they could witness aspects of modern childhood modelled on stage,” Arrighi noted.

Companion to the circus

Dr Arrighi’s next book to be published by Cambridge University Press is titled The Cambridge Companion to the Circus. Dr Arrighi is co-editor on this landmark publication, which will provide a complete guide for students, scholars, teachers, researchers, and practitioners seeking perspective on the foundations and evolution of the modern circus, the contemporary extent of Circus Studies, and the specialised literature available to support further enquiry.

The book brings together 18 commissioned chapters from international scholars. For some of these this will be the first time their research has been published in English.

“Circus is a global phenomenon and there are many researchers working in different languages and often their important findings are missed if they are not translated into English. This book makes international research available in English,” Dr Arrighi said.

Circus Studies is an interdisciplinary field that draws from theatre and performance studies, from social and anthropological studies, cultural history, sociology, and the health sciences. Dr Arrighi says it’s a burgeoning field and one that is gaining interested globally.

“I first started circus research 15 years ago and I’d go to conferences and be the only person talking about circus. Journals would say they wouldn’t publish on it and I had to argue for why they should publish. That has really changed. In the last decade, there are many different disciplines studying circus and there’s an increasing interest in the correlation between circus and science with several recent conferences on that topic,” Dr Arrighi noted.

Bringing the Victoria Theatre back to life

A 2018 project has spurred on the revival of Newcastle’s defunct Victoria Theatre. Dr Arrighi delved into old newspapers, photographs and drawings and interviewed former patrons of the Victoria Theatre to research the original theatre space and what it was used for. She discovered evidence that shows the Victoria Theatre was a major cultural destination.

“Newcastle wasn’t a backwater. It was on the circuit for elite producers and companies from Australia and overseas. Most of the productions at the Victoria Theatre were comedies and there were few dramas. That gives us an insight to what the local population enjoyed. In that time theatre productions were all commercial, this was well before government funding, so nothing went on at the theatre unless it was going to make money,” she said.

The Victoria Theatre still stands in Perkins Street Newcastle, although now derelict and not used as a theatre since the 1960s. Dr Arrighi said it was a challenge to reconstruct what it looked like, but with the help of the UON Innovation Team who created a virtual reality experience building on Dr Arrighi’s research, we are now able to visualise the interior of the old theatre.

“Nobody knew what it looked like, because there are no photos. To decipher what the interior used to look like we used highly detailed eye witness accounts, trade catalogues from the 1890s, visual and architectural references derived from other theatres of the era that have a photographic record; as well as colour and design information gleaned from contemporaneous interiors by the firm contracted to decorate the Victoria Theatre,” Dr Arrighi said.

The virtual reality experience was launched at the theatre site with two public open days. Dr Arrighi says the response from the community was overwhelming and has spurred the theatre site custodians into action to revive the theatre.

“For researchers that work with musty old newspapers that kind of outreach to industry and community is wonderful. So many people came to the open days with their memories of the theatre and the significance of it to them. There was this rich sense of community ownership of that theatre and an immediate and enthusiastic engagement by community members which was very satisfying to see.”