상업적 가치와 산업주의

Mercantile Value and Industrialism: the Post-Civil War Reconstruction and Identity of American Theatre

The post-Civil War period brought a birth to industrialism in America, which provided American theatre with a fertile market of potential audiences. In addition, technological development and inventions during the period led to the building of infrastructure for the industrialization of theatre business. Such environment motivated the development of American theatre into enterprise seeking for mercantile value, which in turn created new forms of genuinely 'American' theatre conventions such as combination and duplicate companies. After all, all these conventions were integrated to a new phase of mass-production and nation-wide distribution of standardized performance. What is worth noting is that all these changes took place after the Civil War, and this war was a significant momentum that America realized the true sense of independence from the English tradition that had still remained since the July 4th, 1776. Accordingly, the mentioned American authentic theatre conventions suggested the theatrical dimension of independence. Without royal or governmental sponsorship, American theatre had to be mercantile-oriented from the beginning, depending on the sole box-office income for survival. In short, the mercantile value was the in born identity of American theatre. The post-Civil War industrialization and commercialism of American theatre is regarded as the rediscovery and affirmation of its natural identity called mercantile value, foreshadowing the future course.