Selling the Bird: Richard Walton Tully's The Bird of Paradise and the Dynamics of Theatrical Commodification

Abstract

This article examines Richard Walton Tully's forgotten play The Bird of Paradise (1912) that became a major box-office success for over twelve years before being forced to close due to alleged plagiarism. The play is set in 1890s Hawaii and was a major influence in popularizing Hawaiian performance culture throughout the US and beyond. The article argues that the play's disappearance from theatre historiography is largely due to the discipline's adoption of a modernist privileging of aesthetics, which has largely obscured theatre's impact on cultural history. To rectify such lacunae the article proposes a commodification paradigm that considers theatre and commercially successful plays as cultural commodities rather than as aesthetic objects.