The Theater of Electricity: Technology and Spectacle in the Late 19th Century by Ulf Otto (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• The Theater of Electricity: Technology and Spectacle in the Late 19th Century by Ulf Otto
• Sarah Kriger (bio)

The Theater of Electricity: Technology and Spectacle in the Late 19th Century By Ulf Otto. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2023. Pp. xxvii + 314.

Ulf Otto's The Theater of Electricity examines a wide range of electrical presentations and technologies in use on the western European stage in the titular time period. Geographically, Otto examines mainly German cases, although the book also covers certain performances in France and England. His case studies include examples from opera, spectacular theater, dance, and technological exhibitions. Using these, Otto analyzes how electrical technologies, such as carbon-arc and incandescent lights, were integrated into and developed within theatrical material culture and how famous performances involving these and other technologies both influenced and were influenced by the cultural meaning of this new source of power. He is interested in particular in what he calls the "aesthetic regime" of electricity, which makes it possible to reconcile then-developing modernism with industrial materiality by permitting audiences and artists to avoid directly perceiving the labor that made electrical power possible.

Otto shows the collaborative influences of theater, culture, and electrical technologies through eclectic historical examples; in fact, The Theater of Electricity often feels densely packed with these examples, each one seeming as though it could be expanded into a more detailed study. He draws on a rich variety of primary and secondary sources, exploring his thesis from many angles. Importantly, he is careful not only to describe the effects of electrical technologies on audiences and performers but also to integrate the backstage engineers and technicians to provide a fuller picture.

However, for scholars who focus on the technological, not the theatrical, this wide-ranging approach is sometimes disorienting. This is in part because the author aims this book at an audience familiar with histories of theater but less so with histories of technology. His historiological purpose, he explains, is to criticize the tendency of history of theater to treat science and technology as distinct entities developed in the world outside the theater and then adapted for theatrical practice. Instead, he argues through example, performance histories must regard theater and technologies as interconnected, each influencing the other within the larger context of social, cultural, and economical changes. He explicitly incorporates approaches learned from histories of technology, such as Morus's work on electrical demonstrations in Victorian England, and integrates STS concepts, such as Latour's actor-network theory. Because Otto assumes readers' background in historiographies of theater and culture, scholars coming from a history of technology and/or STS background may find some theater-history methodologies and [End Page 737] performance events to be underexplained; nevertheless, they will surely find Otto's combination of theoretical lenses to be of interest.

Finally, a review of the English version would be incomplete without mentioning the caveat from the author's note that this book was translated using AI. Though the translation was checked prepublication by human readers, some errors remain. More critically, it's occasionally unclear whether the author chooses particular terms intentionally, in order to embrace or reject established theoretical vocabularies. Likewise, since the choice of whether to use a historical or modern term and/or an original or translated term is often laden with meaning, it can be ambiguous whether an untranslated or contemporary word is purposeful or accidental.

The method of translation also makes it difficult to tell if some minor historical imprecisions are due to the author or the software. For example, in relation to this reviewer's area of study, Otto tangentially mentions magicians and similar figures, such as John Henry Pepper, using incorrect names or terminology inappropriate to the contemporary view of them (p. 282). These details are tangential to Otto's overarching arguments, not necessary to the analysis in which they appear, but the errors detract from otherwise thorough research.

Overall, because of Otto's breadth of examples, historians of technology with various interests will find parts of this book to be a rewarding read. Those who study technological and scientific exhibitions may enjoy the sections on nineteenth-century German industrial exhibitions; those interested in European displays...