A Public Nuisance: A History of the Mummers Troupe

In the early pages of A Public Nuisance, describing his tour of Punch and Judy shows around Newfoundland before the founding of the Mummers Troupe and disputing the social value of Aristotelian catharsis (“a kind of projected anguish”), Chris Brookes comments that “if Punch and Judy had met Aristotl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Theatre Review
Main Authors: Brookes, Chris, Knowles, Richard Paul
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 1989
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.61.015
https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.61.015
Description
Summary:In the early pages of A Public Nuisance, describing his tour of Punch and Judy shows around Newfoundland before the founding of the Mummers Troupe and disputing the social value of Aristotelian catharsis (“a kind of projected anguish”), Chris Brookes comments that “if Punch and Judy had met Aristotle, they would have beaten the shit out of him.” If you find this as refreshing and entertaining in a work of theatre history as I do, and your name isn’t Donna Butt, you’ll like this book. Like the Mummers themselves, the comment is much more than irreverent, provocative and witty; in fact it contains the seeds of the book and the kernel of the Mummers’ history.