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Parisian Palimpsests and Creole Creations : Mme Marsan and Dlle Minette play Nina on the Caribbean Stage

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Prest_2019_EMFS_MinetteMarsan_AAM.pdf (326.8Kb)
Date
20/03/2019
Author
Prest, Julia
Keywords
Saint-Domingue
Colonial theatre
Creole theatre
Opéra-comique
Female performers
Mme Marsan
Minette
Mme Dugazon
Nina
Acting technique
PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
DAS
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Abstract
This article compares the theatrical careers in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) of two performers: Mme Marsan, a white European who dominated the public stage in 1780s Cap-Français, and a younger Creole woman of mixed racial ancestry, known as ‘Minette’, who performed in her home town of Port-au-Prince. Its focus is on performances of Dalayrac’s opéra-comique, Nina (1786), in which both women performed the lead role. Although Minette is regarded as a singer, it is argued that, by electing to put on and star in Nina, she was taking on one of the most demanding acting roles in the repertoire. The article considers the self-positioning – and positioning by others – of both performers in relation to the metropolitan performance model and the possibility of creating creolized forms of theatre. While Mme Marsan acknowledged that she was playing a role previously performed successfully in Paris by Mme Dugazon, Minette’s approach was more complex: drawing on unacknowledged references to a review of Dugazon’s performance, Minette also invoked a common Creole background that she claimed to share with her local audience. The metropolitan ‘model’ was thus not always imitated; it was also used as inspiration for new, subtly creolized forms of theatre.
Citation
Prest , J 2019 , ' Parisian Palimpsests and Creole Creations : Mme Marsan and Dlle Minette play Nina on the Caribbean Stage ' , Early Modern French Studies , vol. Latest Articles . https://doi.org/10.1080/20563035.2019.1592813
Publication
Early Modern French Studies
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/20563035.2019.1592813
ISSN
2056-3035
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Society for Early Modern French Studies 2019. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/20563035.2019.1592813
Description
The author acknowledges the generous support of The Leverhulme Trust, who awarded a Research Fellowship in 2017-18.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20801

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