Identity, Movement and the Turn to the Modern in Trans-Atlantic Performance History

In this paper I would like to consider the movement the British performer Lydia Thompson over to America while on tour between 1868 and 1882. Nineteenth century British Burlesque, of the type that Thompson toured with, was laden with examples of cultural and societal hegemonic contestations, contestations over the proper place and performance of gender and class, both on the American stage and among the American audience. I forward notions of the rise of middle-class female spectator and the feminisation of the social sphere and touch on double-consciousness in performance in terms of the gender differential in Thompson’s audiences. This case study deals very much with the idea of persona and the personal, the de-centering of individuals who travel and the (re)making of persons who sell persona as part of the package. I believe Thompson may have influenced how women reconsidered themselves in the social sphere and I will argue that Thompson, as she performed herself, might be seen to have spurred on the late nineteenth century fashion in femininity – the ‘Modern Woman’ or ‘New Woman’. Thompson’s strategies of brokerage and agency, her performance of self and touring all clearly demarcate her as a Businesswoman in the field of intercultural exchange. Thompson’s identity performance as a ‘new’ [business] woman – one with agency and acumen enough to distribute, market, and continual re-frame her product in a foreign climate – was the cultural material backing her assimilation strategy.