Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue by Julia Prest (review)

Reviewed by: Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue by Julia Prest Logan J. Connors Prest, Julia. Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue. Palgrave, 2023. ISBN 978-3-031-22690-8. Pp. 353. With this book, Julia Prest has authored a comprehensive study of the multifaceted relations between slavery and theater in France's most profitable and brutal Caribbean colony. Across six chapters and a conclusion, Prest shows that enslaved people "were an integral part of the story of public theatre in Saint-Domingue"—a story that is often told as one of emulation of and desire for metropolitan French norms (6). On the contrary, Prest shows how enslaved black and mixed-race populations were "inextricable, not incidental" (242) to nearly every aspect of theatrical life in the colony from the conception of and participation in locally produced dramatic works and concerts to wig making, theater building, backstage domestic work, and more. Grounded in archival research, close analysis of eighteenth-century plays, and the kind of "speculative reading" (150) that is necessary to unearth hidden and marginalized groups, Prest offers her readers an interdisciplinary voyage from the origins of Saint-Domingue's colonial theatre to its dismantling during the Haitian Revolution. Prest argues that enslaved people in colonial theatres were "mitigated spectators" (13)—an unrecognized presence that has largely eluded the gaze of scholars working on the colony's white-centric theater. In chapter two, Prest details the multiple ways that enslaved people could (and did) attend theatrical performances and participate in theater making. In chapter three, she discusses slave "ownership" by theatre directors and actors, and even actors who starred in sentimental, anti-slavery plays. Prest places the term "ownership" in quotes to show the inherent problems and difficulties of slave ownership. However, this reader wonders if Prest's attempt to flag ownership's paradoxes ends up diluting the real horrors entailed by one person (legally and economically) owning another. Chapter four focuses on the creole repertoire—"works written and set in the contemporary Caribbean" (101). Prest employs her skills in speculative reading to provide rich analyses of several plays that were performed in the colony but for which no dramatic text exists today. Chapter five sheds light on the "concealed contributors" (153)—the builders, musicians, tailors, and others who have received little attention but who were nonetheless "active participants in the theatre-making world" of Saint-Domingue. Prest's final chapter details the growing gap between the political and theatrical worlds of the revolutionary French metropole and those of a colony where many residents were still committed to racial inequality and slavery. Prest's book is the first study to combine close readings of dramatic works that were performed in Saint-Domingue with archival and historiographical information on slavery in the French Caribbean. This work will interest students and scholars of theatre studies, cultural history, Atlantic history, the history of slavery, revolutionary studies, and much more. Prest has written the definitive book on the colonial theater of Saint-Domingue and she has reinserted the island's most marginalized group into a dynamic and impressive cultural scene. End Page 101 Logan J. Connors University of Miami (FL) Copyright © 2024 American Association of Teachers of French