Staging the Séance: The Spirit Medium and the Gothic in Modern Theatre

Benjamin Poore

Staging the Séance: The Spirit Medium and the Gothic in Modern Theatre

Theatre, Film, TV and Interactive Media

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

Abstract

In this chapter, I set out to explore how Anglophone theatre in the 20th and 21st century has tried to represent the spiritualist séance. As I will show, this often involves allusions to the performance conditions and contexts of spiritualism’s nineteenth-century heyday. In the last few years, I will argue, the depiction of the séance has begun to move away from Gothic narratives of encounters with an unnameable evil, and back towards the séance’s show-business roots in commercial entertainment. Anglophone theatre has a legacy of séance plays to come to terms with whenever a medium is represented on stage, particularly in the form of Noel Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit (1941). Therefore, I contend, attempts by contemporary playwrights to write séance scenes and create spirit medium characters are haunted by the theatrical past, as much as by the past of their own narrative worlds.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Contemporary Gothic Drama
Subtitle of host publication	Attraction, Consummation and Consumption on the Modern British Stage
Editors	Kelly Jones, Robert Dean, Benjamin Poore
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan
Chapter	12
Pages	223-242
Number of pages	20
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-349-95359-2
ISBN (Print)	978-1-349-95358-5
Publication status	Published - 14 Aug 2018

Publication series

Name	Palgrave Gothic
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan

Access to Document

https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781349953585

Death and Culture
Poore, B. (Member of programme committee)
1 Sept 2016 → 3 Sept 2016
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Conference

Cite this

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title = "Staging the S{\'e}ance: The Spirit Medium and the Gothic in Modern Theatre",

abstract = "In this chapter, I set out to explore how Anglophone theatre in the 20th and 21st century has tried to represent the spiritualist s{\'e}ance. As I will show, this often involves allusions to the performance conditions and contexts of spiritualism{\textquoteright}s nineteenth-century heyday. In the last few years, I will argue, the depiction of the s{\'e}ance has begun to move away from Gothic narratives of encounters with an unnameable evil, and back towards the s{\'e}ance{\textquoteright}s show-business roots in commercial entertainment. Anglophone theatre has a legacy of s{\'e}ance plays to come to terms with whenever a medium is represented on stage, particularly in the form of Noel Coward{\textquoteright}s classic comedy Blithe Spirit (1941). Therefore, I contend, attempts by contemporary playwrights to write s{\'e}ance scenes and create spirit medium characters are haunted by the theatrical past, as much as by the past of their own narrative worlds.",

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Staging the Séance: The Spirit Medium and the Gothic in Modern Theatre. / Poore, Benjamin.
Contemporary Gothic Drama: Attraction, Consummation and Consumption on the Modern British Stage. ed. / Kelly Jones; Robert Dean; Benjamin Poore. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. p. 223-242 (Palgrave Gothic).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

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AB - In this chapter, I set out to explore how Anglophone theatre in the 20th and 21st century has tried to represent the spiritualist séance. As I will show, this often involves allusions to the performance conditions and contexts of spiritualism’s nineteenth-century heyday. In the last few years, I will argue, the depiction of the séance has begun to move away from Gothic narratives of encounters with an unnameable evil, and back towards the séance’s show-business roots in commercial entertainment. Anglophone theatre has a legacy of séance plays to come to terms with whenever a medium is represented on stage, particularly in the form of Noel Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit (1941). Therefore, I contend, attempts by contemporary playwrights to write séance scenes and create spirit medium characters are haunted by the theatrical past, as much as by the past of their own narrative worlds.

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Staging the Séance: The Spirit Medium and the Gothic in Modern Theatre

Abstract

Publication series

Access to Document

Activities

Death and Culture

Cite this