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Downloading a Movie to Watch Together on a Saturday Night ADMISSION: FIGURING THE EARLY MODERN THEATRE by EVE PREUS B.A. (Honors), The University of Washington, 2004 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2008 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2017 © Eve Preus, 2017 Abstract Drawing from theories of the theatre that interrogate the master image/metaphor of theatre-as-life, my thesis “Admission: Figuring the Early Modern Theatre” develops a poetics of admission, or a theory of early modern theatrical form that takes into account its penchant for metatheatrical device and its obsession with the incorporation of strangers. What is a stranger? What might it mean to integrate the Other into the self and into society? The theatre stages a face-to-face encounter between two ostensible strangers—the performers and the audience. At the level of the medium, then, is an interest in the ways we come to know and let others in. The early modern stage was extremely interested in this process, self-consciously experimenting with, interrogating, and evaluating the tensions and possibilities inherent in the articulation of the human via live illusion. While the influx and management of strangers were growing concerns in the burgeoning metropolis of early modern London, the theatre became a sight to organize these concerns in a way that, perhaps unconsciously, returned them to their metaphysical origins. My thesis examines several early modern characters that are strangers, or become strangers, within the communities of their respective play realities: the deposed King Richard II; the outcast Jewish money-lender, Shylock; the bastard son of Troy, Thersites; and the revenge tragedians and madmen, Hieronimo and Hamlet. These characters, I argue, double as constitutive elements of theatrical practice: the character that seems to pre-exist its live iteration; the actor who must embody a character; the audience who watches on the periphery; and the theatrical event as a whole, or the constructed world that recedes once the performance is over. The metatheatrical effect of these characters who double as strangers and theatrical practice is a stage whose illusions and performance conditions consistently render the process of becoming human— of being recognized and incorporated into new worlds—as a process of admission. ii Lay Summary The theatre stages a face-to-face encounter between two groups of strangers— performers and audience. At the level of the medium, then, is in interest in how we come to recognize and give access to others. My thesis is interested in this process of admission, arguing that live illusion asks us to consider what it means to belong to given worlds. I take as my laboratory and case study the early modern theatre. I examine several characters who function as strangers within their play worlds, and I examine how they also function as constituent elements of theatrical practice itself—the actor and the audience for example. By appearing both as strangers within the world of illusion and as properties of illusion-making, these early modern characters suggest that the process of becoming human—of being recognized and incorporated into new worlds—is a theatrical process of admission. iii Preface This dissertation contains original, independent, unpublished work by the author, Eve Preus. iv Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...…ii Lay Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………………iii Preface …...……………………….………………………………………………………………………………..iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………………….…v Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................................vi 1 Introduction. Admitting Shakespeare…………………………………………………….1 1.1 The Critic: Knowing the Shudder…………………………………………...………11 1.2 The Stranger: Developing a Poetics of Admission…………..……..……..….14 1.3 The Character: Reading the Plays………………………………………..……....…38 2 Disappearing Richard: The Character Shadow……...……………………………..45 2.1 Recognizing Richard: The Shadow……………………….………….…..………...54 2.2 Desiring Access: The Divine King is Eclipsed……………………….....………63 2.3 Admitting the Absence: The Poet King……………………………………....…...78 3 Authenticating Shylock: The Actor’s Dilemma…………………………......…..…..85 3.1 Shylock’s Crisis of Admission: Theatricality as a Moral Wrong...….…..90 3.2 Recognizing the Actor: A Theo-politics of Possession and Authenticity………………………………………………………………………………..105 3.3 Given Access: The Actor as Shameful Labourer………………….….….......124 4 The Most Characteristic Thersites: Or, the Proper Audience……………..138 4.1 Recognizing the Proper Audience: From Romance to Satire………….144 4.2 Admitting Thersites: Spectacular Legitimacy………..………………………154 4.3 Accessing History: The Endogenous Witness from Outside……....…..178 5 Conclusions. Hieronimo and Hamlet’s Apocalypse: The Revelation of the Theatre………………………………………….……………..…..183 5.1 Recognizing Memory: Staging Revenge…..............................………………..187 5.2 Accessing Revelation: The Apocalypse Can’t Be Scripted…..………..…195 5.3 Admitting Hamlet: On the Archetype……………………………….……..……202 Works Cited………………………………………………..………………..……………….………….….…210 v Acknowledgements On some level, I find writing my acknowledgments to be a more all-encompassing project than the dissertation itself, especially for a dissertation about acknowledgment. One is tempted to write a genealogy of influence. I owe and feel the most gratitude to my supervisor and mentor, Patricia Badir. Her intelligence, patience, wit, playful encouragement, and critical and creative eye have made this book what it is. I always looked forward to our conversations and our meetings, and I look forward to future collaborations. I also want to thank Vin Nardizzi and Stephen Guy-Bray of my supervisory committee. Vin’s critical expertise and impeccable editing modeled a kind of scholarship to which I aspired, and Stephen’s irreverent sense of humour and unfailing support always helped me put my project in perspective. I feel lucky to be able to call my whole committee not just my mentors, but my friends. The Department of English at The University of British Columbia provided excellent material support. I especially want to thank my Graduate Program Advisor Louise Soga whose guidance and humour made her office a second home for me. I’d also like to recognize Paul Yachnin and the Early Modern Conversions Project for connecting me to an incredible group of scholars as well as creative research and workshop opportunities. Several colleagues encouraged and supported me along the way: Raquel Baldwinson, Mike Borket, Pavlina Cerna, Sarah Crover, Alicia Fahey, Bill Green, John Green, Paisley Mann, and Corey Moseley. Finally, there’s nothing quite like unconditional love when it comes to completing a project. Thank you to my family: Katrina, Phillip and Elliott Caron, Candis Houser, Rachel and Rob Mattern, Klem Preus, and Klemet and Janet Preus. vi There are many more who deserve thanks and acknowledgement—I’ve only named a few. To all my friends especially: thank you for admitting me. vii 1 Introduction. Admitting Shakespeare On May 22, 1934, Fritz Frankel gave Walter Benjamin 20 mg of mescaline subcutaneously in the thigh and then recorded his reactions. A “particular gesture” was made by Benjamin that sparked Frankel’s attention: “Subject lets his raised hands, which are not touching, glide from a distance very slowly over his face” (Benjamin, “Protocols” 12). Benjamin explained that his hands were drawing together the “ends of a net, but rather than it being a net just covering his head, it was a net covering the cosmos” (12). He then began a discourse on the net: B[enjamin] proposes a variation on the seemingly insignificant Hamlet-question, to be or not to be: net or mantle, that is the question here. He explains that the net represents the night side and everything in existence that makes us shudder. "Shuddering," he explains, "is the shadow of the net upon the body. In shuddering, the skin imitates a network." This explanation was connected to a shudder that traversed the test subject's body.1 (“Protocols” 12) Of course Benjamin’s hallucination here generates a philosophical musing that is more evocative than literal. My interest in that musing lies in what exactly it evokes 1 “Ausführungen über das Netz: B. schlägt vor, die ziemlich belanglose Hamlet-Frage: Sein oder Nichtsein, so zu variieren: Netz oder Mantel, das ist hier die Frage. Er erklärt, daß das Netz für die Nachtseite und alles Schauervolle des Daseins steht. ‘Schauer,’ erklärt er, ‘ist der Schatten des Netzes auf dem Leib. Im Schauer bildet die Haut ein Netzwerk nach.’ Diese Erklärung erfolgt im Anschluß an einen Schauer, der der V.P. über den Leib ging” (Benjamin, Über Haschisch 134). 1 and how. Benjamin metaphorizes Hamlet’s “to be” as a net and “not to be” as a mantle2 in order to turn the gloomy prince’s existential dialectic into a felt human phenomenon: the experience of shuddering. To be or not to be, from the vantage point of the shudder, is not a question of comparison or contradiction, it is a question of boundary—both the boundary between what is endogenous and what is adventitious as well the boundary between what is felt and what is expressed. When we shudder3 the feeling of something that covers, enfolds and envelops (the mantle, or the “not to be” sense of disappearing) is coextensive
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