ABSTRACT
Spectacle has changed with the times as the medium of English drama developed from the thrust stage of the Elizabethan age to the proscenium theater of the Restoration era to the film screen, the television screen, and the mobile phone screen. First theorized as one of the six elements of drama in Aristotle’s Poetics, “spectacle” refers to the visual aspect of drama: costume, scenery and gestures. Although Aristotle thought it was the least important element of drama, the power of spectacle can be observed from the very beginning of English drama in the medieval church service. For instance, the opening scene of Game of Thrones required both a massive computer generated imaging (CGI)-created wall of ice and a decapitated head. In the early 1990s, films like James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park started blending live action with CGI animation effectively.
