Living History Museums: Undoing History through Performance

by Scott Magelssen

Living history museums are cultural institutions that merge historical exhibits with live costumed performance. While unique and vitally important, they often compromise historical accuracy and authenticity for the sake of tourism and entertainment value. Many also pursue methods of performance and historiography that are becoming increasingly outdated. Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance examines the performance practices used by institutions such as Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg, and offers a new genealogy of living history museum performance in the U.S. and Europe.

Currently, existing scholarship on living history museums addresses the subject from a museum-studies or anthropology perspective. Author Scott Magelssen, however, approaches the material from a background in theatre history and theory, analyzing living history museums using postmodern methodology. Considering performance as a method for the study of history and exploring emergent non-traditional theatrical practices, the book offers suggestions for performance in an increasingly postmodern landscape. Concluding with an international listing of living history institutions and a complete list of sources, Living History Museums is a valuable resource for students and teachers of theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, folklore, popular culture, American studies, and museum studies.

Genres: Grad School, Nonfiction

252 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

Reviews

[May · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay I freely admit that I was really eager about reading this book but by the time I got 25 pages into it, my disappointment grew and I ended up skipping to the 3rd section which analyzed this "living history" aspect. Face it. Hiring actors/interpreters/docents to play historical characters is "performance art". It's not real. Yes, it may help museum attendees get a better sense of time and place, but this book doesn't really get into the nitty gritty problems of this type of "play-acting". For example, are these types of performances necessary at all? If they are merely for entertainment, how can they really be educational? How do you measure it's educational impact? There were just so many questions that I wanted this book to address but it got bogged down by its stilted narrative. Yes I get that many of these long-term performers do care about the characters they represent but it just makes the whole subject too academic for anyone to wonder or care about.

Another problem I had with this book is that the examples are from the States. This made me curious to see what was going on in Europe and Asia. Do museums there have "living history" performances? If not, why? Is it because North Americans seem further removed from its own past?

The more I read this book, the more questions I had and the more annoyed I got with it as it tended to skirt close to the answer and then jumped onto the next tangent. A real shame but it had great potential.