Animal Magnetism
8th September 2022
St Hugh's College, Oxford
by ELIZABETH INCHBALD
A Three-Act Farce (1788)
This script-in-hand performance was organised in partnership with The R/18 Collective, a group of scholars who are committed to working with theatre makers to explore how the forgotten plays of the eighteenth century can be reactivated for today’s audiences.
The theatrical repertoire from the 1660s to the 1830s provides insights into the histories of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and capital that continue to shape culture today. Performing plays such as Animal Magnetism (and our previous reading of Who’s the Dupe?) is the best way to think more deeply not only about their stagecraft but also about the relationship between their world – of language, bodies, and identities – and our own.
The Doctor keeps his beautiful young ward, Constance, under lock and key, and is determined to force her into marrying him. Constance in fact loves the Marquis. The Marquis’s servant, Le Fleur, arrives at the Doctor’s house under the guise of an expert in mesmerism, which the Doctor believes he can use to control Constance and ensure her affection. With the Marquis also gaining entry to the Doctor’s house, disguised as one of the mesmerist’s patients, the scene is set for the Doctor to get his comeuppance. Inchbald’s farce is a brilliant riff on the art of performance and a hilarious takedown of men’s insistence that they own and control women’s bodies.
The performance was made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
