“Le Premier Cadre”: Theatre Architecture and Objects of Knowledge in Eighteenth- Century France by Pannill Camp B.A., University of Puget Sound, 1999 A.M., Brown University, 2001 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island May 2009 ii © Copyright 2009 by Pannill Camp iii This dissertation by Pannill Camp is accepted in its present form by the Department of Theatre, Speech, and Dance as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre and Performance Studies. _______________ ______________________ Date Spencer Golub, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council ________________ ______________________ Date Rebecca Schneider, Reader ________________ ______________________ Date Jeffrey Ravel, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council ________________ ______________________ Date Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School iv VITA Pannill Camp was born in Austin, Texas in 1977 and grew up in Aurora, Colorado, where he graduated from Overland High School in 1995. He studied English and Theatre at the University of Puget Sound, graduating with a B.A. degree in English Writing, Rhetoric, and Culture in 1999. Pannill began pursuing a master’s degree that year in theatre studies at Brown University, which he completed in 2001. During the course of his studies for this degree he directed The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen at Brown’s Production Workshop and Mac Wellman’s Dracula on the theatre department’s mainstage, for which productions he was awarded the Weston Award for Theatre Directing in 2001. After spending a year living and working in New York City and a year creating English language instruction materials for the Spanish Army in Madrid, Pannill returned to Providence in 2003 to begin work on his doctorate in theatre and performance studies in the Ph.D. program that commenced the previous year as part of the Brown/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium. His research during the early years of his doctoral studies focused on problems related to the application of Husserlian phenomenology to theatre and performance criticism. His article, “The Trouble with Phenomenology,” appeared in the fall 2004 edition of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. While working on this article, Pannill became interested in the use of figures of theatrical staging in 20th century philosophy and began to study the history of such invocations of theatre. He wrote an article entitled “Theatre Optics: Enlightenment Theatre Architecture in France and the Architectonics of Husserl’s Phenomenology,” that drew links between v his research on phenomenology and theatre architecture reform. This essay was published by Theatre Journal in late 2007. He spent the 2006-07 academic year in Paris, conducting archival research and attending Professor Pierre Frantz’ seminars on eighteenth-century theatre at the Sorbonne-Paris IV. For academic year 2007-08, Pannill received a dissertation completion fellowship from Brown University’s Cogut Center for the Humanities. While working toward his doctorate, Pannill served as a teaching assistant for the theatre history course cycle, and designed and taught the first theatre history course for acting and directing M.F.A. students in the Brown/Trinity Consortium. He has also taught English to officers and soldiers in the Spanish Army, and test preparation classes for Kaplan in New York and Providence. In 2004, he directed August Strindberg’s The Father at Brown’s Production Workshop, and in 2003-04 was David Henry Hwang’s research assistant for his play Yellow Face. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with distinct joy that I recall the many individuals who have helped me bring this project to completion—and have pointed the way to the work that will go into its future incarnations. First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge the guidance of Spencer Golub, who as my qualifying examination committee chair and dissertation advisor was a steady source of encouragement, sage counsel, and high standards as well as a reminder of the virtues of hard work and intellectual fearlessness. Rebecca Schneider, since I started down the path of inquiry that led me to this project, has vigorously engaged my early, not-yet-coherent questions and helped me frame my ideas in a range of critical vocabularies. She has unfailingly emboldened me to expand upon my ideas and pointed out theoretical blindspots I took too long to see myself. Jeffrey S. Ravel generously agreed to be a reader for this thesis in 2006, and went on to point out crucial resources and dispense invaluable knowledge about Parisian archives without which my research would have been much impeded. Beyond the members of my committee, I have benefited from instruction, inquiry, advice and moral support bestowed by a number of the faculty of Brown University, where I first began graduate study in 1999. Don B. Wilmeth championed my early attempts to write theatre history and instilled in me an appreciation for the work required of serious historians. John Emigh, whose intellectual generosity is astounding, has taught me more than I can attempt to describe in this space. During the course of my research and writing, Patricia Ybarra has offered both insights grounded in historiographical sophistication and considered editorial advice. I am grateful for the instruction, advice, vii mentorship and interlocution I’ve received from Pierre Saint-Amand, Virginia Krause, Nancy Armstrong, William O. Beeman, and Rey Chow. After years of financial support from the Graduate School at Brown, I was the fortunate recipient of fellowship support from the Cogut Center for the Humanities during the 2007-2008 academic year, which allowed me the time needed to finish this project and the opportunity to share my work with a generous and brilliant group of peers. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Michael Steinburg, Nauman Naqvi, Michael Rohlf, Rob Newcomb and Amy Vegari for their comments and comradeship during this past year. In addition to the debt I owe these members of the Brown community, I must thank Professors Michal Kobialka and Joe Roach, who each provided guidance and encouragement while this project was in its infancy. In Paris, Pierre Frantz allowed me to attend his vibrant seminars on eighteenth-century theatre and dramatic literature at the Sorbonne. He and Michèle Sajous D’Oria kindly encouraged my research into theatre architecture when my French and my archival skills were sorely in need of development. A special note of gratitude must be sounded here for Daniel Rabreau, whose doctoral thesis I had the pleasure of reading in the Sorbonne archive. Professor Rabreau’s dissertation proved an indespensible guide to archival documents related to theatre architecture, which are widely distributed around Paris and other municipal archives. It would have been impossible to conduct sufficient research for my thesis during my time in France without this aid, and Professor Rabreau’s encouraging response to my explanation of my work has sustained me since I met him in early 2007. My research, thinking and writing has been enriched during the past five years by a cherished group of fellow graduate students at Brown, many of whom have generously viii lent their talents directly to helping me complete the present work. Katie Chenoweth reviewed and helped improve my translations of French, while Eric Parks and Benedetta Gennaro provided translations of texts in Latin and Italian respectively. This work has also profited from the bibliographic suggestions, careful editing and lively interrogation of Christine Mok, Amanda Lahikainen, Paige McGinley, Elise Morrison, Christine Evans, Ken Prestininzi and Charles Mulekwa. I have been blessed to be part of a group of such generous, creative and smart colleagues. I finally wish to thank my mother Vicki Camp and my sister Melissa Camp for their support and patience as I pursued my graduate studies, as well as John Pannill Camp Jr., who would have been pleased to see my studies conclude. Sic transit gloria theatri. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Vita ....................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ vi Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ x List of Illustrations ................................................................................................ xi Introduction......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 The Reformulation of the Theatrical Frame in French Dramatic Theory, 1657-1773................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 2 Experimental Physics Lecture Demonstrations and the Architecture of Expérience in Enlightenment France ................................................................. 76 Chapter 3 The Architectural Construction of Spectatorial Function in France, 1748-1785 ............................................................................................................. 123 Chapter 4 Optics and Representations of Stage Space in Eighteenth-Century French Theater Design..........................................................................................