Playing Out the Empire Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films, 1883-1908. A Critical Anthology

The "toga play" is a genre of theatrical melodrama which flourished in the late nineteenth century and which re-emerged in silent cinema and later Hollywood "epics." This first collection of the most important playscripts and film scenarios of toga plays includes the popular Victorian melodrama The Sign of the Cross (1895), Claudian (1883), The Last Days of Pompeii , Ben Hur (both the play and the film), The Charioteer , and D.W. Griffith's earliest toga film, The Barbarian Ingomar (1908). David Mayer's detailed introductions show how the plays cast new light on Victorian attitudes toward issues of class, gender, religion, and imperialism. The volume is generously illustrated.

David Mayer is Professor of Drama at the University of Manchester.