Otto:The Theater of Electricity

Since the 1880s, electrical energies began circulating in European theaters, generated from fossil fuels in urban power plants. A mysterious force, which some still regarded as a romantic life force while others saw it as a symbol of progress, entered performance venues. Engineering knowledge, control techniques, and supply chains fundamentally changed how theater was created and perceived. The mechanical image machine from Renaissance and Baroque times was transformed into a thermodynamic engine. Modern theater emerged as electrified theater. This book aims to trace what happened backstage before the Avantgarde took to the front stage, proposing to write the genealogy of theater's modernity as a cultural history of theater technology.