ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 79 This increase in the visibility of minstrel
performance and minstrelsy-related performance exerted considerable influence on the
future aesthetics of the Royal Marionettes, and transformed the eidos of blackface
puppetry for the coming generations.
The Virginia Minstrels and their offshoots were staples of the nineteenth-century
stage. Their playbill is one of the most archetypal representations of blackface players
(see figure 8). According to Wittke, the Virginia Minstrels introduced the combination
Fig. 8. Front Cover of an 1863 playbill. Copied from Stephen Railton. “Index of
Popular Entertainments.” American Literature Since 1865 Syllabus. Richmond:
University of Virginia, 2004. Electronic Source. Accessed 16 May 2004.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/enam312/1860ent2.jpg.
of banjo, violin, bone castanets, and tamborine that would become a staple of the minstrel
stage. 80 Their image suggests more extreme transformations of the performers faces (the
wigs are especially gnarled and frizzy, their faces are heavily blackened). Yet, unlike
79
John Bell, Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet History (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of
the Arts, 2000), 28.
80
Carl Wittke, Tambo and Bones: A History of the American Minstrel Stage (Wesport:
Greenwood Press, 1930), 45.
59