ABSTRACT
The 19th century witnessed an enormous global surge in theatre activities which was channelled through cosmopolitan centres strewn along the coasts of the colonial empires. This surge was propelled by an unprecedented economic expansion and technological innovations, in particular the steam engine, which accelerated the speed of movement and expanded the flow of people moving around the world. These growing flows included theatre troupes that toured not only the major cultural
centres of the Western world on the boards of the Atlantic Ocean, but also the budding urban port towns of Africa and Asia, where they brought the latest trends in cultural entertainment of the metropole and spurred new developments in local cultural traditions.
