ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the “theories and practices” of eighteenth-century performance. The author guides readers through a discussion of four keywords that she flags as having particular relevance to both contemporary performance studies and performance culture of the time: adaptation, ghosting, embodiment, and audience. In subsections that weave contemporary theoretical analysis of these terms with historical detail on their applicability to a primary eighteenth-century performance event, the author demonstrates how eighteenth-century spectators, actors, and playwrights theorized performance in their own moment, and how eighteenth-century performance events can be used to develop theories of performance today.
