/UPDATE/: " 'FOUR-FOOTED ACTORS': LIVE ANIMALS ON THE STAGE " / University of Valencia, Spain / 12-14 December 2012
Writing in 1899, Frederick Dolman argued in an article titled "Four-Footed Actors: About Some Well-Known Animals that Appear in the London and Provincial Stage" that the "growth of variety theatres and the decay of comic songs" had developed in "several kinds of diversion, not the least of which is furnished by the art of the animal-trainer" (The English Illustrated Magazine, Sep. 1899, 192, p. 521). Dolman was describing the large-scale entertainments starring animals that had taken over traditional spectator recreations for the last century in a manner not unlike the success of music-halls and professional sport.