Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance. By Pascale Aebischer

Abstract

Pascale Aebischer’s ambitious book discusses the technologies used in recent English productions of plays by Shakespeare and other early modern dramatists, examining how these technologies affect spectatorial experience and audience engagement. Through case studies of productions from 2009 to 2016, Aebischer defines and develops what she calls “a historically grounded spatial theory of technologically mediated spectatorship” (2). Theorists such as Peggy Phelan and Hans-Thies Lehmann have argued that the power of performance, its potential effect upon spectators, depends on face-to-face contact—the absence of mediation. To structure her counter-argument, Aebischer grounds her spatial theory in the scholarship of Robert Weimann: his term locus designates a part of the stage physically and therefore emotionally distant from the audience, while platea defines the area closer to the audience on which actors can engage with the audience more directly and viscerally. Aebischer asserts that early modern dramaturgies are “adapted and reimagined in present-day technological mediations of theatrical space and characterization” (14). Early modern spectators in London theaters could “fluidly move between contemplation and aesthetic appreciation of the mimetic locus, the collaborative mode encouraged by performers on the platea, and the excited imaginary projections and the call to action provoked by … the discovery space” (20). English theaters today seek to enable similar experiences through various technologies. Aebischer suggests that technologies, far from distancing spectators, can engage them in ways that encourage collaboration with performers.