A Theater of the Senses: a Cultural History of Theatrical Effects in Early Modern England

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A Theater of the Senses: a Cultural History of Theatrical Effects in Early Modern England Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 A Theater of the Senses: A Cultural History of Theatrical Effects in Early-Modern England Kevin Matthew Carr Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact lib-ir@fsu.edu THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES A THEATER OF THE SENSES: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THEATRICAL EFFECTS IN EARLY-MODERN ENGLAND By KEVIN MATTHEW CARR A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2013 Kevin Carr defended this dissertation on May 22, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Elizabeth Spiller Professor Directing Dissertation Robert Crew University Representative Bruce Boehrer Committee Member Gary Taylor Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above listed committee members, and certifies that the Dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE From Stagecraft to Science: Pyrotechnical Effects in Early Modern England ..............................14 CHAPTER TWO “All Fish and No Water”: Problems of Perspective and Ideology in the Court Masque ...............41 CHAPTER THREE Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Reformation of the Theatrical Image ............................................75 CHAPTER FOUR “But How is to be Questioned”: The Mechanics of Wonder .......................................................107 APPENDIX A .............................................................................................................................132 ENDNOTES ...............................................................................................................................133 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................161 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................173 iii ABSTRACT New or evolving stage technologies such as squibs, cranes, pulleys, cannons, trap doors, and other apparatuses all contributed to the rise in popularity of what I refer to as an effects- driven “theater of the senses” in early-modern England. Early modern theater and science shared a common interest in the performance of effects. The performance of these effects elevated the role of the senses in both theater and experimental culture. While demonstrating the diverse ways in which technology was employed on the early-modern stage (in the works of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson), A Theater of the Senses argues that the phenomenology of theatrical performance is a crucial context within which we can better understand the experimental culture of the seventeenth century. iv INTRODUCTION In his prologue to Every Man In His Humour (1601), Ben Jonson describes the technological devices employed on the Renaissance English stage as one of “th’ill customes of the age.” His own play, he argues, is of a different sort: as other playes should be. Where neither Chorus wafts you over the seas; Nor creaking throne comes downe, the boyes to please; Nor nimble squibbe is seene, to make afear’d The gentlewomen; nor roul’d bullet heard To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drumme Rumbles, to tell you when the storme doth come.1 Jonson describes theatrical devices such as the chorus, the “creaking throne,” the “nimble squib,” the “rolled bullet,” and the “tempestuous drum” as unnatural stage conventions which challenge the viewer’s sensibilities. He also criticizes other conventions such as stage makeup and the exaggerations of time which allow a character to age an entire lifetime over the course of a play. Jonson classifies these theatrical effects as “popular errors”: “Such errors, as you’ll all confesse/ By laughing at them, they deserve no lesse.”2 Jonson’s advice to his audience may seem strange to a present-day reader or viewer. If a contemporary audience laughed at the opening storm scene from The Tempest, for example, we might assume that such a response detracted from the integrity of the play or suggested amateurish production values. While theatrical effects were extremely popular on the early- modern stage, an early-modern audience was not consumed by verisimilitude and illusion in the same way as a contemporary audience is. For example, the appearance of the stage ghost, a 1 popular effect seen in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Thomas Middleton’s Revenger’s Tragedy, was described by one playwright from the period as A filthie, whining ghost Lapt in some fowle sheete, or a leather pelch, Comes skreaming like a pigge half stickt.3 Further, Stephen Gosson describes “many a terrible monster made of broune paper”4 that filled the early-modern stage. Given these descriptions, it is easy to imagine an audience laughing at such rudimentary theatrical effects. Beyond its criticism, however, Jonson’s prologue offers insight into some of the ways in which theatrical effects may have been received in early-modern England. For example, Jonson describes the “boys” enthralled by the sight of the “creaking” throne as it descends, and the fearful “gentlewomen” frightened by the appearance of squibs onstage. Jonson demonstrates the ways in which technology itself performs onstage. Technology performs like a surrogate actor on the stage, as it conveys meaning and emotional responses onto the action of the play. Jonson’s description actually anthropomorphizes stage technology. For example, as Jonson describes it, the rolled bullet “says” that it thunders, the tempestous drum “tells” you that “the storm doth come.” For Jonson, stage technology is inductive. In the Poetics, Aristotle criticizes the ability of spectacle to induce an emotional response. Like Aristotle, Jonson criticizes this inductive process, or the way in which theatrical effects manipulate the senses in order to produce an emotional response. In each effect that Jonson describes, technology induces dyads of emotion and effect: the descending throne produces pleasure while the squib incites fear. Jonson advises his audience to avoid such programmed responses to technology. Jonson wants to upset the conditioned emotional responses with laughter. He urges the viewer not to be 2 fooled, or to be drawn in emotionally, by the allure of stage effects. Rather, he encourages the viewer to consciously reject their ability to manipulate the emotions, and to laugh: “Which when you heartily doe, there’s hope left, then,/ You, that have so grac’d monsters, may like men.”5 Jonson argues that such a mastery of the senses, which rises above the emotional trappings of technology, can elevate and transform the viewer from a monster to a man. A Theater of the Senses will examine the history and significance of a variety of theatrical effects found in Renaissance plays and masques. New or evolving stage technologies such as squibs, cranes, pulleys, cannons, trap doors and other apparatuses all contributed to the rise in popularity of what I refer to as an effects-driven “theater of the senses” in early-modern England. Such effects were seen all throughout early-modern English culture. Technological effects were a part of royal, public and university theater productions, masques, Lord Mayor’s shows, pageants, and Royal progressions. These early-modern theatrical effects were more than just visual; they affected all of the senses. The early-modern theater truly was a “theater of the senses”. Theatrical spectacle, such as pyrotechnics (which frequently filled the stage with fire, light, smoke, and heat), the “rolled bullet” and “tempestuous drum,” and the deus ex machina (which raised and lowered actors to and from the stage), encompassed all of the senses for the early-modern audience. This dissertation will examine the implications of these technological experiences of early-modern drama. Over the course of the Renaissance, theater shifts from a predominantly aural to a more sensual experience. The significance of this shift has been noted by theater scholars who often focus on the innovations of Renaissance theater technology but not the significance of such innovations from a scientific, cultural, or philosophical perspective.6 Historians and philosophers of science and technology have addressed the philosophical and social significance 3 of technological developments in the early-modern era, but often neglect the cultural and aesthetic consequences of these technologies when they become part of the theater.7 This project seeks to connect these two strands over the longer classical history of science in the precise way that they were connected in the Renaissance: through a study of effects on the early-modern stage. My study of theatrical effects emphasizes the phenomenological implications of early- modern theatrical performance. For many classical and early-modern philosophers, vision was considered preeminent among all of the senses.8 Theatrical spectacle (from the Latin specto, spectare) is itself, obviously, primarily a visual phenomenon. However, A Theater of the
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