Visual Media Use and Intermediality in Shakespeare Productions

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository STRANGE BEDFELLOWS? VISUAL MEDIA USE AND INTERMEDIALITY IN SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS By SHARI LYNN FOSTER A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Masters of Literature College of Arts and Law School of Humanities Shakespeare Institute University of Birmingham October 2013 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Drawing on archive material, reviews and personal observation, this thesis examines the use of visual media in stage productions of Shakespeare’s plays. Utilizing examples from the period between 1905 and 2007, the thesis focuses on intermedial productions, explores the media use in Shakespeare productions, and asks why certain Shakespeare plays seem to be more adaptable to the inclusion of visual media. Chapter one considers the technology and societal shifts affecting the theatre art and the audience and Klaus Bruhn Jensen’s three level definition of intermediality which provides a framework for the categorizing the media usage within Shakespeare productions. Chapter two discusses the presentational nature and history of western theatre and the commonly incorporated visual media sources as foundation for the study of the visual media incorporation. Chapter three focuses on the presentation of time and space within the theatre and media sources, and the incorporation of pre-cinematic effects and film within the theatre production in the first half of the twentieth century. Chapter four considers Jensen’s first level of intermediality dealing with “the combination and adaptation of separate material vehicles of representation and reproduction, sometimes called multimedia,” which encompasses the use of non-diegetic projected media as scenery or the presentation of memories or dreams (2008, p. 2385). Chapter five outlines Jensen’s second level of intermediality which “denotes communication through several sensory modalities at once,” which ii allows the narrative use of media sources to presentation of multiple perspectives and simultaneous situations through diegetic media(2008, p. 2385). Two types of Shakespeare productions fall into the third level of Jensen’s definition of intermediality, concerning “the interrelations between media as institutions in society, as addressed in technological and economic terms such as convergence and conglomeration” those in which the live actors interact with the incorporated non-diegetic media, which I discuss in chapter six, and those which explore the societal relationship with media through the use and manipulation of diegetic media, which I discuss in chapter seven. (2008, p. 2385). Chapter eight concludes by revisiting the question of media incorporation in productions of Shakespeare’s plays and considers the possible intermedial future of theatre and Shakespeare production. iii DEDICATION This work is lovingly dedicated to my family, without whose love, prayer, enduring support, and extreme sacrifice this work would not be possible. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Many individuals aided me in securing information and providing insight on the various productions and theories discussed in this thesis. I would like to thank the librarians and staff at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon- Avon; the National Theatre Archives in London; the Shakespeare Festival Archives in Stratford, Ontario; the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, the librarians at Central Washington University; Richard Pettengill and Samuel West. Without their help and the resources they found, this work would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my colleague Marisa Humphrey whose keen eye prevented many an error, and my advisor, Dr. Russell Jackson, who stuck by me and was my advocate in difficult times. He has been a valuable mentor. Lastly, none of this would have been possible without my family who sacrificed to see me through this. Without the foundation they laid, I never could have reached this point. In the course of the thesis I reference Shakespeare’s plays frequently. Although there are several good editions of Shakespeare, I have chosen 1998 The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, as my primary text for quotes, characters’ names, and play structure. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 – STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: MEDIA INCURSION IN SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS Visual Media Incorporation and Evolution...................................……..1 Visual Media in Shakespeare Production..………………………….…. 10 Evolution of Art, Technology and the Audience Perception..………….21 CHAPTER 2 – PRESENTATIONAL NATURE AND THE CHANGING AUDIENCE VIEW Theatre Presentation and the Audience………….……………………..27 The Cinematic Gaze……………………………………....………………34 Theatre’s Aural Nature and the Rise of Spectacle..……………………45 Cinema and the Theatre Connection…………………………………….56 CHAPTER 3 – WHEN TIME AND PLACE SHALL SERVE Conventions and the Representation of Space and Time..……………67 Pre-cinematic Media Incorporation in Theatre………………..………...80 Inception of Incorporation………………………………………….. …….89 Erwin Piscator and the “Living Wall”……………………………………..98 CHAPTER 4 – CAN THIS COCKPIT HOLD THE VASTY FIELDS OF FRANCE? The Evolution of Visual Media as Scenery …………………..……….104 Scenic Verisimilitude and Beyond ……………………………………..109 The Establishing Shot and Scenic Transition……………………… ...123 The Stuff that Dreams are Made on……………………………………129 vi CHAPTER 5 – THEN WE’LL SHIFT OUR GROUND— Media as a Narrative Tool………………………………………………..144 Staging Simultaneous Events.…………………………………………..152 Modern CCTV Surveillance in Shakespeare Productions …………...157 Media and the Changing Point of View………………………………...165 CHAPTER 6 – O BRAVE NEW WORLD THAT HAS SUCH PEOPLE IN’T! Supernatural Media………………………………………………………179 The Way of Apparitions………………………………………………….184 Spirit of Health or Goblin Damned………………..………………….…189 Airy Spirits…………………………………………………...…………….195 CHAPTER 7 – ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE, AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN MERELY PLAYERS Postmodernist, Intermedial Wooster Group Hamlet………………..…207 Mediatization of War, Politics and Propaganda………..……………...215 Postmodern Roman Tragedies……………………………………...…..227 CONCLUSION Adaptation, Remediation and Equilibrium……………………………..235 Intermediality and the Future of Shakespeare………………………..242 BIBLIOGRAPHY - ……………………………………………………….249 PERFORMANCES REFERENCED - ………………………………….268 PRIMARY SOURCES REFERENCED-………………………………..272 vii CHAPTER 1 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: MEDIA INCURSION IN SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS Visual Media Incorporation and Evolution The incorporation of film, video and more recently, computer-generated elements in stage productions is not a new occurrence, and some media and theatre theorists, including Marshall McLuhan, Chiel Kattenbelt, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, and Philip Auslander, would consider the incorporation of such visual media elements in theatre productions as a natural evolution within western theatre, which reflects changes within the society, the arts, and the audience. The history and development of western theatre and visual media like cinema, television and digital environments seem to support this idea. Evolution in art is contingent upon the human creators and viewers of the art, and their perception of the world around them. Societal changes affect both the citizens of that society and the arts created within the society, triggering aesthetic changes within each artistic genre and a changing audience perception of what constitutes art within the society. This phenomenon is explored by many philosophers, media theorists, and social critics. Walter Benjamin prefaces his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations, with a quote from Paul Valéry’s work “The Conquest of Ubiquity” (“La Conquète de l’ubiquité”), in which Valéry explains that, 1 In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years [1908-1928]1 neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art (Valéry 225). One of the main tenets of Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is that “During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well” (216). Within the essay Benjamin refers to the development of photography and the historical debate on the question of whether photography is an art. According to Benjamin, the theorists debated

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