Theatre and Visual Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century

This project aims to locate theatre as a significant and integrated aspect of C19th visual culture. We wish to demonstrate the interdependency of the visual and the theatrical in developing new forms of entertainment and new ways of seeing the world. In so doing we hope to move away from historically dismissive attitudes towards the theatre of the C19th generally, and from simplistic assumptions about passive spectatorship. We also wish to support the argument - already established by some historians of visual culture - that the nineteenth century ushered in a revolution in the way people, looked, perceived, observed and, indeed, were looked at. We aim to demonstrate how theatrical spectacle was both a facet and a reflection of modernity. The interaction between new technologies and the visual arts (including theatrical spectacle) will inform our study. A particular (but not exclusive) focus will be understanding how spectacle and scenography contribute to the action and momentum of a play rather than function merely as static pictorial background. Further, we wish to demonstrate that familiar pictorial images are not merely recreated on stage through tableaux and scenic representations, but also take on new meanings and interpretations when integrated into a theatrical performance.

In order to focus on those who looked as well as on what they looked at, the project will consider images of spectators, and the extent to which such images interpret and comment upon modes of observation, highlighting immersion, activity, inattention and visceral responses, for example. In moving away from the separation of theatre and image in earlier studies of C19th theatre (even when the two are considered in tandem) we are offering a more integrated approach to popular visual and theatrical culture. We will investigate and articulate C19th conceptions of the 'real' as expressed through popular theatrical and visual representation.

Our study will be supported by extensive archival research, investigating not only visual evidence but also written descriptions, prompt copies and dramatic texts, and draw on recent work in Victorian Studies, Visual Culture, Art History and Theatre Studies to provide a conceptual framework. Through a series of monographs, articles, conference papers, symposia, a website and exhibitions based on our investigation of the ephemera of visual and theatrical culture, mounted in conjunction with the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at Exeter University, the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, and further disseminated UK-wide through a popular Peepshow developed in collaboration with Promenade Promotions, we will demonstrate our findings and provide models for further work on the interdependency of visual and theatrical culture in the nineteenth century.

Through the specialist collaboration offered by this project, we aim to achieve significant shifts in understanding as to how visual and theatrical culture in the nineteenth century functioned in an integrated and innovative way to reshape contemporary perception and awareness.

Our research will offer a major shift in thinking about the relationship between theatrical and visual cultures in the nineteenth century. We will demonstrate how theatre contributes to visual culture in shaping spectator perceptions of modernity.

Who might benefit from this research?
We will engage academic researchers working in C19th cultural history, art history, theatre and literary studies; curators and researchers in museums and art galleries; theatre practitioners, especially dramaturgs, scenographers and directors; museum-goers and theatre and film enthusiasts; teachers; and general audiences with an interest in popular entertainments.

How might they benefit from this research?
In proposing new ways to connect theatre and visual culture, our research challenges the boundaries between forms of high and popular culture. We argue that our re-presentation of nineteenth century theatre as experimental and innovative also requires us to re-examine the ways in which that theatrical past is remembered, revived, and considered in the present.

For theatre historians, art historians and scholars of visual culture, attention to visual experimentation in the early to middle part of the nineteenth century will revitalise interest in a relatively neglected area. By establishing a cross-disciplinary methodology for understanding the trans-medial circulation of images, motifs and modes, the project will facilitate future collaborations between the disciplines of theatre history, art history and visual culture.

We will offer constructive and productive ways for general museum-going audiences to challenge contemporary ambivalence towards mass popular culture. Our work will challenge the broad assumptions, deriving from C19th cultural critics, that mass popular entertainment (performance and visual culture) was devoid of aesthetic or moral value, and evidence of a debilitated or degraded society. Our research and public engagement activities will challenge these views, asking the non-academic users of our research to explore the aesthetic and intellectual possibilities of ways of seeing which developed over the long nineteenth century. We aim to offer to general audiences a revivified notion of the aesthetic and imaginative possibilities of popular culture, and to extend and stimulate their historical imaginations. We want our general audiences (including schools audiences) to have an expanded view of the value of popular culture and its history.

Our research will challenge conventional popular histories of the period and offer pathways for public engagement with our findings through work with project partners the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, the Bristol Theatre Collection and Promenade Promotions. We will develop exhibitions, with talks and workshops running alongside each exhibition, and a travelling Peepshow performance, all providing opportunities for interactive activities which demonstrate and test our research findings. These will encourage audiences to imagine historically and engage with C19th ways of seeing, through such activities as experimentation with optical toys, and encounters with stereoscopic views, magic lantern slides and narratives, mass cultural reproductions of panoramas, and the extensive collection of performance documentation held by the Bristol Theatre Collection, including material objects such as costumes, set designs and theatre models, as well as one of the world's largest collections of textual, visual and archival records of performance.

The research project will create a variety of outputs which will disseminate our research through our existing wide network of scholars in theatre history and the visual arts, both within the academy and more widely through curators and researchers working in museums and galleries, the general public interested in theatre history and in popular entertainment at festivals and fairs, and theatre professionals working in the creative industries