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View and Interested Spectators Must Be Willing to Use Their Imagination to Fill in the Gaps Left by Such Materials Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2018 The Disembodied Theatre of Edward Gorey Anthony Gunn Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS THE DISEMBODIED THEATRE OF EDWARD GOREY By ANTHONY GUNN A Dissertation submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Anthony Gunn defended this dissertation on April 3, 2018. The members of the supervisory committee were: Beth Osborne Professor Directing Dissertation Jennifer Koslow University Representative Mary Karen Dahl Committee Member Samer Al-Saber Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii To my wife Lesley and our girls Attison, Thia, and Cleo. They inspire me daily and put up with me while I wrote this dissertation. I sincerely hope it was worth it. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To begin, the person who deserves the most thanks for the construction of this work is my dissertation chair Dr. Beth Osborne who tirelessly mentored and lead me through the process. Her feedback, advice, and guidance have been crucial to my success, and I will always be grateful for her kindness and patience. The committee members have also greatly influenced this work. I so appreciate Dr. Mary Karen Dahl for the way she helped me think through ideas with so much grace and warmth. Dr. Samer Al-Saber gave so much motivation and inspiration as I transitioned from student to candidate, and Dr. Jennifer Koslow provided the tools and mentorship I needed to bridge the gap between theatre and public history. Other professors in the School of Theatre have also helped to shape my thinking in profound ways. Dr. Aaron C. Thomas, Dr. George McConnell and Dr. Patrick McKelvey all provided helpful feedback and guidance with this and other projects. I’m very appreciative of my undergraduate assistant, Ellen Boener, who made so many connections and helped facilitate this project into being. I am also very grateful to my colleagues in the School of Theatre graduate program for their camaraderie. My PhD cohort, Sean Bartley and Kate Pierson, have provided consistent friendship and care that have often buoyed me up when I needed it. I’d also like to thank Rebecca Ormiston, Brian Schmidt, Shannon Hurst, Jeff Paden, Josh Inocencio, Allison Gibbes, Deborah Kochman, Aaron Ellis, Christy Rodriguez de Conte, Devair Jefferies, Elizabeth Edgeworth Sickerman, Shelby Lunderman, Michael Valdez, Cassandra White, Nick Richardson and Kasey Kopp for their friendship. A very special thanks to Rick Jones and Greg Hischak of the Edward Gorey House for being so generous with their time and forthcoming with information. The Gorey House is in very good hands under their care. Finally, thanks to my mom and dad, Lorraine and David Gunn, for always being so incredible and supportive to me throughout my life. And, last but not least, thanks to my wife Lesley and children Attison, Thia and Cleo for blessing my life each and every day. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 2. MR. EARBRASS WRITES A PLAY: SNAPSHOTS, CAMP, AND THE ART OF EDWARD GOREY’S PAINFUL PLEASURE.............................................................................26 3. TREMENDOUS SUCCESS AND TERRIBLE FAILURE: THE BROADWAY SHOWS OF EDWARD GOREY .......................................................................................................................55 4. FROM KUNSTKAMER TO COMMUNITY CENTER: AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EDWARD GOREY HOUSE .........................................................................................................75 5. PERFORMANCE PRESERVED: LE THÉÂTRICULE STOÏQUE PLAY THE EDWARD GOREY HOUSE ...........................................................................................................................99 6. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................126 References ................................................................................................................................... 133 Biographical Sketch .....................................................................................................................138 v LIST OF FIGURES 1 The front sign of the Edward Gorey House .............................................................................13 2 Two members of Le Théâtricule Stoïque at the Gorey House .................................................25 3 Frank Langella in Dracula .......................................................................................................55 4 Act one set from Dracula. .......................................................................................................62 5 Edward Gorey, back turned, with the cast of Gorey Stories ....................................................69 6 The Edward Gorey House ........................................................................................................76 7 An old shingle, now on display at The Edward Gorey House .................................................80 8 The scavenger item for “G is for George smothered under a rug,” at the Gorey House. ........95 9 Scavenger item for “L is for Leo, who swallowed some tacks,” at the Gorey House .............96 10 Members of Le Théâtricule Stoïque on display at The Edward Gorey House. .....................101 11 Dancing puppets, one beaked and one wearing a fuzzy hat, at the Gorey House .................115 vi ABSTRACT Edward Gorey (1925–2000) is primarily known as an enigmatic artist, author, and personality. All told, Gorey wrote and illustrated over one hundred books during his lifetime and designed book covers for countless others. He has an enormous cult following of fans that buy up his numerous books and prints and make pilgrimages to his old home, now a museum, to learn and lurk where he lived and worked in the later stages of his life. What is mostly unknown—both to Gorey aficionados and scholars—is that Gorey wrote, directed, designed, and acted in a wide variety of plays and theatricals throughout his life. Despite Gorey’s reputation as artist and author, his sizable work in the theatre, and his notable fan base, there is virtually nothing written about his theatre work from a scholarly perspective. Gorey produced “more than a dozen full-length plays and ‘entertainments’ for Cape Cod theatres, plus half a dozen shorter pieces”1—almost all original works—in Cape Cod between 1987 and 1999. He played an active role in these productions, writing, directing and designing many, and even creating an original and unique puppet troupe—La Théâtricule Stoïque—that became a signature aspect of this work. What were these plays and entertainments like? Did they share characteristics with his books? How would knowing more about these performances change the conversation about Gorey’s work? I also began to question how these performances might exist beyond the confines of any given production—if there was some way that one could experience them outside of the original performances. While these questions initially centered on Gorey, how might they also extend to other performances? Can performances stretch beyond the boundaries of a given space and time in a 1 CJ Verburg, Edward Gorey On Stage: Playwright, Director, Designer, Performer, A Multimedia Memoir (San Francisco: Boom Books, 2012), Kindle edition. Location 34. vii way that pushes past the experience of the text or extant ephemera? And, in line with the dark and somewhat mysterious nature of Gorey’s art, what theatre might still be present after human actors have finished? Can there be disembodied theatre? Do performances continue after they end? My dissertation will delve into the theatrical and literary art of Edward Gorey, bringing Gorey into theatre history as a popular and well-known artist, even if he is largely unknown to scholarship to date. Just as importantly, Gorey will also serve as a case study for an exploration of the ontological nature of performance, especially as performance merges with public history. Gorey is an ideal case study for this exploration because Gorey’s work in the theatre can still be accessed through various public history sites, and I will consider the different ways that the items and sites preserve and showcase these performances. With this work I hope to bring attention to a tremendous artistic talent, as well as contribute to the way we conceive of the potential of performance to endure beyond the liveness of the theatrical encounter. With this investigation I am testing to see if the spectral meanings of a performance can be transmitted through disembodied means such as archival materials and things on display. I imagine disembodied theatre takes place away from the theatre, in spaces of public history such as a library, archive, or museum space.
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