ABSTRACT
The Victorian taste for spectacle in theatrical production has long been a subject of comment, often dismissive, but not, on the whole, a matter for explanation and understanding. The contrast with our own tastes in production is extreme. For both economic and artistic reasons, spectacle effects, at least in Britain, are now the province of ballet, grand opera, pantomime and musicals, and even here, for the same reasons, they are becoming rarer. When these effects intrude on a small scale into other kinds of theatre, audiences are surprised. Indeed, a positive austerity dominates contemporary Shakespearean production and the staging of much new drama. Actors move in an empty space defined and limited by light, against a selective and non-representational scenic background (if any), whose materials and textures are closely related to the world of the play. Lear and the Fool stand in light on a bare stage; the scenic illusion of a wild heath is not attempted. Half a dozen actors represent the coronation procession of Henry V; there are no cheering crowds, no scattering of flowers, no painted or built-up streets of London. The visual image can be strong, but there is no show, no mass, no profusion of colour, no picture-making, no rich splendour of lighting or decor, no sensual feast for the eye of the spectator – in short, nothing of what we mean by ‘spectacle’. The current modes of taste in production are so antagonistic to Victorian styles that a real effort of historical understanding is necessary before the existence and importance of spectacle in the Victorian theatre can be properly appreciated. Yet such an effort should be made, since not only is a full comprehension of this theatre impossible without it, but also one finds in the development of the spectacle style a social and cultural microcosm of the age. Theatre is, after all, a social activity and never exists in isolation from the social and cultural pattern of its own age. This is as true of the Victorian theatre as any other, and the way in which society and culture nourished the spectacle style – as it did all the other styles of Victorian theatre is of considerable interest in itself. Lastly, the knowledge of how the Victorians held entirely opposite views to ourselves about the production of Shakespeare and other drama and yet translated these views into effective, 2popular, and long-lasting practice should make us aware that there have been ways other than our own that worked, and that our methods may not be the only right ones. But that is another subject.
