Performing Remediation: The Minstrel, The Camera, and The Octoroon

Sonstegard, Adam

doi:10.1353/crt.2008.0003

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 28 publications

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“…By 'anticipat[ing] the day when photos would be regularly admitted as evidence in courts of law, and subsequently implicated in all aspects of the law enforcement system', 44 Boucicault provides a hint of the power of a new technology, at the very start of what will become the 'very culture of photographic surveillance'. 45 While not as spectacular as the burning boat, the solution of the murder through photographic evidence provides a sensation of novelty, with the excitement of thwarting a villain in a new way. Boucicault does not simply present the photo plate as objective evidence of M'Closky's guilt, an idea that could be readily accepted by an audience who had seen the murder enacted on stage, but gives the moment greater emphasis by 'representing the camera as an instrument of divine justice'.…”

Section: Sensation Of New Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Curry¹

2019

Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film

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Dion Boucicault's 1859 sensation melodrama The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana attracted audiences with emotionally charged situations, such as a slave auction, combined with the visual sensation of a realistic depiction of a scene of spectacular danger, the onstage burning of a steamboat. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 2014 adaptation called An Octoroon, while departing significantly from Boucicault's approach to visual storytelling, also uses a visual sensation to create an emotional impact. Jacobs-Jenkins invites an audience to enjoy Boucicault's storytelling, revisiting a melodrama now rarely revived, while simultaneously inviting them to engage with and critique the troubling racial stereotypes of the original.

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Section: Sensation Of New Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Curry¹

2019

Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film

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Boucicault, Dion

Holder

2015

The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature

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Dion Boucicault was arguably the most popular and influential of Victorian dramatists. From a start writing comedies he became a master of melodramatic form and stage effect, writing and often acting in such works as The Corsican Brothers , The Octoroon , and Jessie Brown; or, The Relief of Lucknow . His plays increasingly dealt with such contemporary concerns as slavery and the wars of empire; he found perhaps his greatest success in a series of Irish plays beginning with the Colleen Bawn , works that proved hugely popular not only in England but also in Ireland and the United States.

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Caught in the Act: Photography on the Victorian Stage

Novak¹

2016

Victorian Studies

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Performing Remediation: The Minstrel, The Camera, and The Octoroon

Cited by 4 publications

References 28 publications

Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Boucicault, Dion

Caught in the Act: Photography on the Victorian Stage

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