搜章擿句、翻箱倒篋：以檔案編劇場史

Scrap-Scrounging and Dumpster-Diving: Theatre Historiography in the Archive

Heather S. Nathans

《臺大文史哲學報》 62期 (2005/05) Pp. 23-45

https://doi.org/10.6258/bcla.2005.62.03

摘要

在此論文中，我自問檔案裡找到的史料如何決定身為史學家的切入觀點。我對於美國早期劇場的著述曾為人冠以各式各樣的名稱，諸如經濟史、政治史、文化史和敘事史。我以為，它是這些形式的綜合體，而它的不定性，與其說是我的作為，毋寧說是檔案對我的要求。是我的研究要我輪番成為早期國家銀行系統的學者，詮釋殖民政治機制的專家，或能夠分析文本、建立表演理論的劇場史學家。我知道這樣的過程或許忽略了一個問題，即若不採取特定的編史法或著手點，如何從事學術計劃呢？然而，我於此篇論文提出的，是讓檔案裡的斷簡殘篇以新的方式發聲，不但要檔案主導我們的研究內容，也主導我們的研究方式，如此一來，定會產生許多叫人驚喜的可能性來。舉例來說，拙作從《大革命到湯瑪士‧傑佛遜時期的早期美國劇場》一書的出發點，即鎖定十八世紀的波士頓劇場史進行直接的檔案搜尋。當我追溯當時的報紙社論，搜尋關於興建市內第一座劇場的爭議時，意外發現這位提請建造新劇院的人士，同時也和名為「波士頓互助會組織」的企業有所牽連。因為我對此組織在早期美國境內如何運作一無所知，便著手對此機構及其成員進行調查。結果發現，此組織本質上等於私人銀行，並且投注了兩百萬美元以上的資金供創辦者自由運用─這權限使得保守黨當權的市政府大感威脅。因而對地方領導者來說，反對興建劇場的支持者無異於反對此協會。到最後，這半途走岔了路、投入環繞此組織的經濟史和政治史研究轉而成為我的著書基礎，徹底轉變了編劇場史的初衷。在我摒棄了預先規劃的「藍圖」，只遵循這些檔案指引我的「路徑」之後，我覓得了最豐碩的研究成果。

關鍵字

劇場史 ； 檔案研究 ； 清教主義 ； 早期美國劇場 ； 聯合養老保險

並列摘要

In his essay, ”Cultural Systems and the Nation-State: Paradigms for Writing National Theatre History”, Bruce McConachie creates a fascinating case study for theatre historians and historiographers by applying three different historigraphical methods to one set of historical data, and asking the reader to evaluate which approach makes the most convincing interpretation of the material. McConachie’ essay helps the scholar understand both the flexibility and the limitations of the data and the methods he applies, and his essay is an invaluable tool both in and out of the classroom.In my paper, ”Scrap-Scrounging and Dumpster-Diving: Theatre Historiography in the Archives,” I propose to begin at the ”other end,” asking how the material I find in the archives determines the approach I take as a writer of history. My work on early American Theatre has been variously described as economic history, political history, cultural history, and narrative history. I consider it a synthesis of all of these forms, and I would argue that its mutability has been shaped not by what I bring to the archives, but rather what they have demanded of me. My research has required that I become, by turns, a scholar of the early national banking system, an adept in interpreting the dynamics of colonial politics, as well as a theatre historian able to analyze text and theorize about performance. While an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship is almost a given in the twenty-first century, I have often been surprised at how much more coherent my historiographical investigations seem when they arise organically from the material I am researching.I realize that such a process may beg the question of how one can begin a research project without a specific historiographical method or point of attack, and of course every scholar must acknowledge both preferences and prejudices. What I suggest in this essay, however, is that by allowing the scraps and treasures in the archives to speak to us in new ways, by allowing them to direct not only what we research, but how we do it, many exciting possibilities begin to emerge. For example, I began the research that became my book Early American Theatre from the Revolution to Thomas Jefferson: Into the Hands of the People, with a fairly straightforward archival search into the history of the eighteenth-century Boston theatre. As I tracked contemporary newspaper articles on the controversy that surrounded the city’ first efforts to build a theatre, I was struck by the fact that the same men who seemed to be linked to the proposed new playhouse were also embroiled in a venture described as the ”Boston Tontine Association.” Moreover, opponents to the theatre aligned themselves against the tontine as well. Having no sense of how a tontine functioned in early national America, I began my investigations into the organization and its membership, and discovered that a tontine can essentially function as a private bank, and that the Boston Tontine Association put over two million dollars in the hands of its founders to use as they pleased - a power that proved an intolerable threat to the city’ conservative government. Thus, for the local leaders, opposing the agenda of the theatre’ supporters and the tontiners became inextricably linked, as all of the subsequent debates on the playhouse demonstrated. Ultimately, my sideways swerve into the economic and political history that surrounded the Boston Tontine Association became the foundation for my book and fundamentally transformed my approach to theatre historiography and research. While I cannot help but enter the archive with a set of questions, hopes, and expectations, I have found some of my most fruitful research comes when I abandon my preconceived ”map,” and simply follow the ”path” that the archive lay before me.

並列關鍵字

Historiography ； archival research ； Puritanism ； early American theatre ； Tontine

參考文獻

Ann Fairfax Withington(1991).Toward a More Perfect Union: Virtue and the Formation of American Republics.New York:Oxford University Press.

Barbara W. Tuchman(1981).Practicing History: Selected Essays.New York:Alfred A. Knopf.

Billy Smith(1990).The Lower Sort: Philadelphia's Laboring People, 1750-1800.Ithaca:Cornell University Press.

Brook Thomas(1991).New Historicism and Other Old Fashioned Topics.Princeton:University of Princeton Press.

Bruce McConachie(1997).Cultural Systems and the Nation-State: Paradigms for Writing National Theatre History.New England Theatre Journal.8,29-44.