Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance by Pascale Aebischer

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance by Pascale Aebischer Susan Bennett Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance. By Pascale Aebischer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xv + 242. $99.99. Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance opens with the story of Emma Rice’s short and controversial stint as the Artistic Director at Shakespeare’s Globe, an appointment that ended in cancellation by technology—Rice’s installation of sound and light equipment apparently a bridge too far at the seventeenth-century replica. Aebischer reads the decision to terminate Rice’s tenure as symptomatic of the fraught character of the UK’s stance toward Shakespeare, caught “between purist nostalgia for a simpler past of human interaction, associated with the Shakespeare brand as a universal guarantor of humanist value, continuity and national pride, and the acceleration of the technological innovation and digital communication that contribute to globalisation” (2). Her book, then, sets out to explore this tension via “a historically grounded spatial theory of technologically mediated spectatorship” (2), and to argue that the ways in which audiences receive, understand, and enjoy performances of Shakespeare’s plays have been fundamentally changed by the technologies exploited in many contemporary productions. Before this introduction and the book proper, however, Aebischer hails her readers through a short injunction, “How to Read this Book” (xv). She wants us to know that, while each of the substantial case studies can be profitably engaged on its own terms, it will be better understood if the introduction is fully digested first. This is good advice. The introduction provides a smart, detailed, and accessible walkthrough of key theoretical debates that range from the perennially knotty problem of liveness to practices of intermedial performance, from affective responses to impacts of spatiality. Aebischer’s meticulous engagement with relevant theory and criticism places the reader on a secure footing from which to investigate her case studies—the first of these, a study of two productions at the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe; the second, a survey of the burgeoning incorporation of digital technologies in live performance during her period of study (2009–16); and the third, an evaluation of live-to-screen broadcasting (a topic that has certainly become all the more commonplace and vital during the extended period of COVID lockdowns). [End Page 317] At the heart of Aebischer’s methodology lies a reanimated and technology-informed version of Robert Weimann’s concepts of locus, the fictional world of the stage and its most powerful occupants, and platea, the liminal areas of the stage and less powerful inhabitants. Added to this spatial dynamic is what she calls “offstage obscenity” (12)—scenes that are “hidden behind the tiring-house façade” or “fully or partially revealed in the discovery space” (19) and intended to pressure the audience to see what it might prefer to avoid. For Aebischer, the obscene “requires a mode of viewing which, with its strong gravitational pull on the spectator, intrinsically demands that spectators be response-able/responsible” (19). Part I offers finely detailed analyses of two Wanamaker productions, both directed by then-Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole: The Changeling (2015) and The Tempest (2016). The discussion is prefaced by a short chapter on the theater’s architecture and its deployment of candlelight. Aebischer reminds us that these elements are not authentic replications of a seventeenth-century indoor theater, but are “deeply implicated in current theatrical trends” (35). The “sensory environment” (35) of the space shares much, she suggests, with contemporary immersive and site-specific performances. This section also pays careful attention to the relationship between ticket prices and audience experience: “positions within the playhouse determine what is seen, how what is seen is perceived, and what it feels like” (43, emphasis in original). In the case of the theater’s use of candlelight, Aebischer argues that visual and olefactory experiences vary significantly by audience position: for example, someone seated in the upper gallery smells more and sees less than a person in the pit. Aebischer’s reviews of The Changeling and The Tempest—certainly effective for those who know the plays but did not see these specific productions—ably demonstrate that those who...