Caitlin Hubbard

Reading Between the Scenes: Spectacle as Action and Idea in Restoration Theater

Dissertation Description:
My dissertation, “Reading Between the Scenes: Spectacle as Action and Idea in Restoration Theater” argues that the introduction of changeable scenery to the public stage in the Interregnum and Restoration transformed the formal structure of English drama. It directly resulted in the dramatic unit of the “scene” being tied to the painted scene, to location, rather than to characters. Thus, scenic integration—writing the movement of the scenes into the fabric of dramatic action—became the new process for crafting English drama. Encouraged by theories of empirical learning to prioritize spectacle, late seventeenth-century English playwrights and theater-makers combined and experimented with changeable scenery, costumes, and actors to make moving pictures that both drove dramatic action and served as instruments of political and imperial pedagogy.

Advisors: Feisal Mohamed, Joseph Roach, Catherine Nicholson

Publications:
Peer-Reviewed Articles:

“More to Spectacle than Meets the Eye: William Davenant and the Pedagogical Power of Theatrical Spectacle.” Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700 48, no.1 (2024): 49-83.

Theater and Book Reviews:

“The Intimate Mannerisms of Place in the Lewis Walpole Library Production of Fashionable Friends.” Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research 35 (2023): 97-100.