implicitly recognized code, according to
which internally felt emotions were
represented by externally expressed signs,
and acting manuals of the day spelt out in
detail the gestures which were considered
appropriate means by which the actor could
convey particular feelings and attitudes.
Acting was not so much representation, by
which an actor would attempt to lose his
own personality in the character he was
playing and create the illusion of real life,
as presentation, by which he would rely on
acknowledged convention and artifice to
evoke a character.13) As with the Hollywood
star system in the movies of our own
century, an audience responding to such
acting was likely to be more interested in
the actor who was performing than in the
role which he was playing. The focus on the
virtuosity of the actor acting rather than on
the character of the personage being
portrayed was intensified in the early
nineteenth century by the number of roles
an actor routinely undertook, not just during
a season, but on a single night, and by the
stock character types of melodrama. In other
words, an actor in Dickens's day had much
in common with the skilled artiste of the
circus; he was admired not only as an
impersonator but also as a performer.
Recognition of these distinctive
characteristics of the nineteenth-century
theatre can help us to achieve a clearer
understanding of the theatricality in the
writings of Dickens. For a start, such
awareness can help us to see that a number
of his characters, and not just actors, are
closely related as theatrical entertainers.
Sometimes they move between one kind of
show and another, like Tom Codlin, the
Punch and Judy operator in The Old
Curiosity Shop, whose previous livelihood
saw him cast as a ghost in fairground
theatre booths; in the same novel, one of
Jerry's performing dogs has graduated from
the role of Toby in the puppet show. Chops
the Dwarf (in the Christmas Story "Going
into Society") is exhibited alongside a giant,
an albino lady and wild Indian; Doctor
Marigold, the cheap Jack, attracts customers
by developing a patter as entertaining as
that of any fairground barker. Matthew
Bagnet plays the bassoon in a theatre
orchestra; Frederick Dorrit plays the
clarionet; Little Swills (in Bleak House) is a
stand-up comedian in a public house.
Among these and other such theatrical types,
by far the most prominent are the actors in
Nicholas Nickleby and the circus troupe in
Hard Times. As the overlap between their
respective callings outlined above makes
clear, Crummies and Sleary are near cousins.
Both managers offer shows which include
dramatic pieces and variety acts: the actors
in Portsmouth perform not only plays but
the sword-exercise of the two Master
Crummleses, the balletic duet of "The Indian
Savage and the Maiden", a variety of songs
and dances, and they have the pony's talents
on call; the equestrians in Coketown have
riding routines in their repertoire and also
full-lenght hippodramas of The Children in
the Wood, Jack the Giant Killer, and the
blackface play in which young Tom
Gradgrind is cast. Moreover, the performers
in both companies have several essential
characteristics in common: they unashamedly
present themselves as entertainers; they are
