Ibsen: The 19 th Century Theatre Sound Designer

Ibsen’s play When We Dead Awaken (1899) concludes with an on-stage avalanche, an extravagant authorial request that prompted one scholar to conclude that Ibsen never intended the play to be staged:

‘He [Ibsen] was too much a practical man of the theatre not to see that it would hardly be feasible to have a stream on the stage…still less a group of children playing in the distance. And what theatre could provide convincingly a thickening mist…or an avalanche that would sweep them away? Though Ibsen invariably visualised his plays in the clearest detail in the theatre of his own mind, here he thought primarily of reaching not an audience but a reader’

(Watts, 1974, 16).

The rationale given in the above citation overlooks the fact that such effects (crowds, water, and spectacular disasters) were frequently employed in 19th theatrical melodramas. Another important factor not taken into account is that these features are not purely visual. The children playing, the on-stage stream, and the avalanche also carry a sonic charge which will directly influence how the scenes in which they feature are interpreted. However, while the dialogue and visual instructions contained in Ibsen’s dramatic texts have been frequently subjected to analysis, the roles performed by the sound effects and soundscapes he specifies have commanded little academic attention.

This paper will consider the semiotic purposes and dramatic functions of the aural signs Ibsen used in his plays, how they were created, and to what extent they drew on mainstream theatrical techniques. The examples discussed will show that not only were the playwright’s sound requirements achievable prior to the arrival of recorded sound, but that their presence also added resonance, color and depth to the events depicted on stage and the narrative themes communicated.

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1) Introduction

As the 19th Century drew to a close, advances in stage machinery made it possible to theatrically recreate increasingly elaborate and realistic sensation scenes. These moments of spectacle were the cornerstones upon which Victorian melodramas were built. What McConachie refers to as the ‘melodramatic mandate to show all’ (227; see also Booth, 6) demanded the development of illusory techniques that would allow audiences to witness steamboats exploding, naval battles, boat races, chariot races, trains careering across the stage, fires, earthquakes, and avalanches.1 With each new ambitious blueprint for a visual spectacle came the need for an aural accompaniment of some kind to support the illusion presented on stage. Mechanical devices were employed to generate sounds that could sonically mimic these events, while non-diegetic music from the orchestra pit underscored the action as the scene built to its climax. The special effects, sound effects and emotive underscoring would have been a heady and evocative combination, comparable to the action sequences common in current mainstream western cinema. These are the scenes that epitomise melodrama. However, such moments were not the reserve of the melodramatic stage.

In the stage directions for his last play, When We Dead Awaken (1899), Ibsen gives instructions for a sensational finale that is more in line with melodramatic tradition

1 See Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1859), Harris & Hamilton’s The Armada (1888), Boucicault’s Foromosa (1869), Young’s Ben-Hur (1902), Daly’s Under the Gaslight (1867) & Boucicault’s After

Dark (1868), Boucicault’s The Poor of New York (1857), Harris & Meritt’s ‘Pleasure’ (1887), and

Boucicault’s Pauvrette (1858).

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than naturalistic conventions.2 Ibsen’s instructions for an on-stage stream, thickening mist, and a climatic finale featuring an avalanche that engulfs two protagonists led one Ibsen scholar to conclude that the playwright ‘was too much a practical man of the theatre’ not to know that such effects were unfeasible. Instead, Watts proposed that ‘[T]hough Ibsen invariably visualised his plays in the clearest detail in the theatre of his own mind, here he thought primarily of reaching not an audience but a reader (16).

However, not only were all of Ibsen’s requests ‘feasible’; they had already been achieved. Water, both simulated and real, frequently appeared on the 19th Century stage. Indeed, a small water feature such as an on-stage stream is a fairly conservative request considering that in 1803 Sadler's Wells theatre installed two water tanks for their melodramas, one beneath the stage holding 50,000 gallons of water, for boats to sail on, and another in the roof containing 7,000 gallons with which waterfalls could be created. Water was also commonly (and more cheaply) simulated with gauze and coloured limelight (see Booth, 167). Similar methods were used to create the impression of mist: ‘At the rising of the curtain a thick mist covers the stage and gradually rolls off. This is remarkably well managed by means of fine gauze’ (Pückler-Muskau, Letter 10). The other alternative for the theatres that could afford it was a system that used jets of steam to create atmospheric fog and mist effects as well as camouflaging scene changes.3

Ibsen’s stage directions also call for an on-stage avalanche that consumes two characters in its wake.4 By the late 19th Century avalanches had become a popular and frequent theatrical spectacle. The Missing Witness (Braddon, 1874), Hearts and Trumps (Raleigh, 1899), and Pauvrette (Boucicault, 1858) all feature a scene of this type. In the stage directions for Pauvrette Boucicault provides the following description of an avalanche that traps both the hero and heroine in a cabin:  

Large blocks of hardened snow and masses of rock fall, rolling into the abyss …. The avalanche begins to fall - the bridge is broken and falls into the abyss -the paths have been filled with snow and now an immense sheet, rushing down from the R., entirely buries the whole scene to the height of twelve or fifteen feet, swallowing up the cabin and leaving a clear level of snow - the storm passes away - silence and peace return. (9)

The sound of an avalanche could have been created with the aptly named ‘avalanche machine’ (Fig. 1), a manually rotated ‘hexagonal wooden drum filled with cannon balls or rocks’ (Collison, 93).

2 In Ibsen’s first version of the play the conclusion was far less dramatic as Watts explains: ‘The final scene was originally much different and more restrained. Ulfheim has a bottle of champagne atop the mountain, and all four characters drink a toast to freedom. When Ulfheim and Maia descend, Irena comments that "She has awakened from life's deep, heavy sleep". After disappearing into the mists on their way to the mountain top, there is no avalanche. The nun simply appears, looking for Irena, and the sun is seen gleaming high above the clouds’ (301).3 In the 1880’s this type of system was installed at Bayreuth Festspielhaus. 4 This is reminiscent of the conclusion to his earlier play Brand (1866) in which an avalanche sweeps down onto the title character. It is also worth noting that Ibsen saw Brand ‘...performed for the first time in Copenhagen in April 1898, just as he was beginning work on When We Dead Awaken (Moi, 321).

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Fig. 1

Turning the handle causes the rocks and cannonballs to collide, simulating the sound of an avalanche when placed in the correct context. However, in Ibsen’s play the aural requirements given in the stage directions and dialogue of this climatic scene would have necessitated the incorporation of numerous additional sound effect devices. This chapter will identify a range of equipment available to 19th Century theatre-makers that would have been used to meet the sonic demands of the closing scene in Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken (1899). Establishing these instruments provides an insight into the soundscapes 19th century audiences of this play would have experienced and the dramaturgical readings the closing scene evokes.

In order to achieve this I will divide the final scene of the play into sonic units and conduct a close analysis of each aural component as it is introduced to the soundscape. Where applicable I will also identify the mechanical devices that were employed to generate live sound effects during the period Ibsen’s play was first performed. Through this process I hope to highlight the composition and complexity of the soundscape, as well as its dramaturgic value and contribution to the ascription of character.

2) ‘storm-blasts from the peaks’: Wind

The soundscape Ibsen composed for the final scene of his final play begins with the sound of wind.

Ulfheim: [Urgently, pointing up toward the heights.] But don’t you see that the storm is upon us? Don’t you hear the blasts of wind?Professor Rubek: [listening.] They sound like the prelude to the Resurrection Day.Ulfheim. They are storm-blasts from the peaks, man! (Ibsen, 448)

As the storm develops it is represented visually in the form of clouds that engulf Professor Rubek and Irena, and aurally as the sound of ‘keen storm-gusts hurtle and whistle through the air’ (ibid, 456).

The variable sound effect Ibsen requires would have been performed on a hand cranked wind machine (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2

This mechanical device consists of a drum mounted on a frame and covered by a sheet of canvas (also attached to the frame). When the drum is rotated a wind effect is created as the wooden slats rub against the material. By varying the speed at which the drum is revolved and how taught the material is stretched, the player can manipulate the volume and sound of the wind.

There were many variations of this model developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1873 Moynet described an adaptation that used silk instead of canvas:

Une forte étoffe de soie est disposée sur le bâti, par-dessus le cylindre... Quand, au moyen d'une manivelle, on imprime un mouvement giratoire au cylindre, le frottement de la soie sur les languettes produit un grincement continu imitant, à s'y méprendre, le sifflement du vent qui s'engouffre dans les cheminées ou dans les corridors (Moynet, 1888, 169).

E. M. Laumann added a rosin coating to the silk and incorporated a pedal which allowed the operator to carefully control the material’s tension with his foot in order to produce a more realistic effect:

En actionnant le cylindre, nous produisions un bruit analogue à celui qu'on produisait dans les autres théâtres; mais en tirant ou en lâchant le ruban de soie maintenu par le pied, on obtenait des modulations, des sons aigres ou graves, tels qu'en produit réellement le vent (Laumann, 137).

An adaptation of the hand cranked wind machine that creates a sound more in line with the whistling wind Ibsen describes was developed by George Moynet who replaced material with ‘cordes de contrebasse’ in order to better imitate the ‘sifflements de la bise’ (Moynet, 1893, 268-9) (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3

As remains the case in the twenty-first century, the kit available to theatre directors and their companies would depend on the size and standing of the theatre. However, as Culver explains, although the device varied according to what individual playhouses could afford, even the smaller venues would have had a wind machine of some description: ‘Nineteenth-century theatres apparently achieved stage wind easily and at little cost. Those which could not afford silk or music wire used canvas successfully’ (Culver, 112). Culver also notes that they were ‘small in size’, ‘almost always portable’ and ‘cranked by skilled operators’(ibid.). Culver’s reference to the skill involved in operating a wind machine is an important reminder that simulating the sound of wind effectively did not require the operator to merely turn a handle. Like the musicians in the orchestra pit, the wind machine operator in the wings would need to respond intuitively to the scene as it unfolded, varying the speed and rhythm of the drum’s rotation and altering the tension of the material or wires. The operator would also be required to play alongside and in conjunction with other wind machines and sound effect devices, as well as the orchestra.

3) ‘a sound like thunder’: Thunder

When the storm in When We Dead Awaken reaches its peak, Ibsen punctuates the climax with an additional sound effect:

Suddenly a sound like thunder is heard from high up on the snow-fields, which glides and whirls downwards with headlong speed. Professor Rubek and Irena can be dimly discerned as they are whirling along with the masses of snow and buried in them. (Ibsen, 456)

Thunder was probably the first simulated sound effect to be used in the theatre and over the centuries numerous innovative methods of imitating this natural phenomenon have been developed. The first documented example of a thunder machine describes a metal box containing a set of staggered metal shelves, and a trapdoor (Fox, n.pag). Opening the trapdoor released a set of brass balls that crashed onto the shelves as they careered downwards before landing on a tin sheet at the bottom of the box. In 1554, Sabbatini utilised the aural effect of heavy spheres in motion and devised an elaborate method of creating thunder that consisted of a ‘stepped channel located in the heavens into which several thirty pound stone or iron balls were released imitating the sound of thunder’ (172). Sabbatini’s invention was a forerunner of what would later become known as a ‘thunder run’.

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A thunder run consists of a trough with wooden ridges along its base down which cannon balls (or similar objects) are rolled. The ridges cause the balls to spring up and then crash back down into the trough, thereby creating amplified peaks and rhythmically punctuated breaks in the sound. By altering the spaces between the ridges, the rhythm of the thunder could also be manipulated in order to sound sporadic and irregular. In addition, as the balls travelled along the run the sound effect would also be in motion, simultaneously descending and ‘panning’ forwards and backwards.

Thunder runs required a large amount of space in order to function effectively and were therefore often incorporated into the structural design of the theatre.5 Even though they are no longer in use, some thunder runs were never dismantled and can still be found in theatres such as the Bristol Old Vic (Bristol, built 1764-66). In 1944 Southern published his sketch of the thunder run at the Old Vic (Fig. 4) and in 1976 Collison6 described the effect created by this contraption:

Fig.4

Theatres such as the Bristol Old Vic still have these long gently sloped wooden chutes running down from the flies. The effect, which apparently rumbled and shook the entire building, was achieved by letting large solid iron cannonballs roll down the chute. Extra vibrations were created by ridges at irregular intervals which made the cannonballs jump (Collison, 89).

Southern’s sketch showing how the ridged slats and upright columns of the thunder run were arranged resembles a child’s marble run. The conjectural drawing of the theatre in 1766 (Fig. 5) also shows that the Old Vic thunder run was built directly above the audience, rather than the stage. As such, it is apparent that when thunder struck in the Bristol Old Vic the sound effect transcended the boundaries of the proscenium arch and encompassed the audience in an early ‘surround sound’ experience. Furthermore, when the cannonball descended over the ridges from slat to slat, gathering momentum and sending vibrations through the auditorium, the sound would move with it. This sonic motion and its thunder-like properties are both

5 Another contraption requiring ‘installation’ is the ‘pivoting thunder box’ one of which is on display at ‘The Drottingholm Theatre Museum’. This device is a coffin-like structure filled with stones that is tilted back and forth to produce the required sound (See Edstrom, S.) 6 Collison also recalls that the Moscow Arts Theatre created a similar effect by simply ‘rolling heavy weights around in the wings’ (89).

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referenced in Ibsen’s stage directions. Indeed his request for ‘...a sound like thunder ...heard from high up... which glides and whirls downwards with headlong speed’ (Ibsen, 456) is in itself an excellent description of the effect this type of thunder run would have created.

Fig. 5

In William Archer’s introduction to his translation of the play (the first in English and the one used in this chapter) he establishes the early performance history of the play and that it ‘...was acted during 1900 at most of the leading theatres in Scandinavia and Germany’ (xxvi). Such venues would undoubtedly have been equipped with the latest in stage technology. These ‘leading theatres’ would also have had secondary devices to add texture and depth to the sound created by the thunder run. Indeed, as Culver explains; ‘Few theatre managers and directors considered any one device adequate for all types of stage thunder’ (98).

A common secondary device was a thunder sheet (Fig. 6). This method for creating thunder was conceived of by John Denis in 1708 to accompany scenes from his new play Appius and Virginia. Dennis’ exclamation “Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder” upon discovering his play was cut and that a production of Macbeth had copied his technique, has of course passed into common usage. Dennis used a sheet of copper suspended by wires. The effect was created by holding the sheet at the edge and shaking it vigorously: the harder it was shaken the louder the effect. The same device was still in use throughout the 19th and 20th century. Moynet gives the average dimensions of the sheet as ‘2 mètres de hauteur sur 0",80 de larger’ as well as identifying two ways in which it could be played: ‘on l'agite à la main en la saisissant par le coin ou par une poignée adlioc’ (Moynet, 1893, 264).

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Fig. 6 Fig. 7

A device that complemented the metallic frequency of the thunder sheet was the ‘venetian blind’ system (Fig. 7). Like the thunder run, these devices created ‘une suite de chocs sonores et irréguliers’ and were often also located in one of the fly galleries (Moynet, 1888, 165). Indeed, they appear to offer a simpler, cheaper, and less permanent alternative to the fixed thunder runs. As Moynet’s sketch shows, wooden planks were strung together, hauled up by a pulley and then dropped. To replicate a thunderstorm in motion a thunder sheet would be used to imitate ‘bruit du tonnerre grondant au lointain’. Then, after a short pause, the venetian blind was released to relocate the thunder ‘tombant tout à coup dans un lieu voisin de la scène’ (ibid).

Another standard technique for simulating the sound of thunder was with a ‘thunder cart’ (Fig. 8). The first reference to this contraption is in Diderot's Encyclopaedia (1772) which describes a metal based cart with hexagonal wheels. The cart was filled with heavy weights and when pulled along the motion of the wheels caused the weights to bounce around in the cart and the metal base to resonate.

Fig. 8

Variations were developed with different types of wheels. A French version used at the turn of the 20th Century created the effect without any cargo or cart (Fig. 9). Instead, the sound of thunder was produced by rolling cogged wheels across a metal sheet above the stage.

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Fig. 9

Many theatres were also equipped with a thunder drum. Like the thunder run, the thunder drum dates back to antiquity (Mott, 5). Thunder drums came in a range of shapes and sizes. Moynet describes a type that is based on a kettledrum and played with ‘d'une baguette, ou plutôt d'un tampon de grosse caisse’ (Moynet, 1893, 265). However, these drums could be up to two metres larger than an average kettledrum and required ‘deux peaux d'âne bien tendues’ to cover them (ibid). A popular variant of the thunder drum was the thunder box. These large shallow square frames covered with stretched rawhide were standard issue in German opera houses by 1902 (Culver, 1981, 98). They were also used in British theatre throughout the 20th Century. Burris-Meyer includes a photograph of one in his 1979 publication Sound in the Theatre to illustrate the type of live effect still in use (Fig. 10).7

Fig. 10

The manner in which these instruments were played could also be varied. In addition to using padded drumsticks there are also accounts of the player ‘pounding with both fists’, or bouncing heavy balls off the skin (See Culver, 98 and 97).

4) ‘I am free!’: Maia’s Song

In addition to the thundering roar of an avalanche in motion and whistling wind from the wings, the climactic soundscape also features a song sung by an off-stage character.

Maia: [heard singing triumphantly far down in the depths below.]

7 Burris-Meyer refers to it as a ‘prop effect’ (Burris-Meyer, 1979, 25).

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I am free! I am free! I am free!No more life in the prison for me!I am free as a bird! I am free! (Ibsen, 456)

According to Ibsen’s stage directions, Maia's song can be heard from a position below the stage until the curtain drops (‘Maia’s triumphant song sounds from still farther down below’, ibid.). The character’s song has been heard twice before, once on-stage, when she sings it to Rubek (ibid., 428), and once off-stage ‘...among the hills’ (ibid., 432). The audience has also been informed that she will sing the song again if she gets down the mountain alive. However, the song’s final rendition does not only function as a confirmation of Maia’s safety.

When an aural sign is created by and/or directly linked to a character, its sounding signifies something about that character to the audience. As well as establishing physical position within the auditorium and storyworld, the sound often suggests something about that character’s current disposition (their impetus to create it) and the disposition of the characters in earshot (their response to its creation). Similarly, sound issued by a character can also recontextualise the events it accompanies and highlight pertinent issues and themes.

From these perspectives Maia’s song is not linked to a single character. Her repeated refrain reorients the image of Rubek and Irene’s death into a moment of liberation rather than tragedy. As Barranger puts it ‘Like Maia, who sings of freedom from the stifling cage of her existence, Rubek and Irene have found release from their guilt and despair. At this moment the avalanche descends... and Maia’s song of freedom echoes in the air as the play ends’ (297). However, Maia’s contribution to the soundscape also resonates as a musical oration of a theme that runs throughout When We Dead Awaken and extends into the body of dramatic works Ibsen began with A Doll’s House.8 In this context the song functions as a musical motif for freedom which evokes connections with Nora’s emancipation; the caged ‘song-bird’ (Ibsen, 1879, 56) is at last released in a manner that is unequivocally life affirming.9

The depth of meaning Ibsen achieves in this example creates a form of ‘aural deep focus’. Elisabeth Weis coins this term in her extensive analysis of sound in Hitchcock’s films. She uses it to describe the effect that occurs when ‘...a given song takes on a new and frequently different meaning’ (Weis, 1982, 113) depending upon the characters, perspectives, and situations it is aligned with. Versions of this technique can be found in a number of other Ibsen plays. In A Doll’s House a similar effect is created with the repeated tarantella motif, while in John Gabriel Borkman comparable readings are communicated with two renditions: the Danse Macabre and the sound of sleigh bells (see Dean, 2011, 51-70). 5) ‘The Sister of Mercy’: Screaming Nun and Religious Blessing8 Ibsen explains the connections between these plays in the following way: ‘What I meant by the term epilogue in this connection is simply that the play forms an epilogue to a number of my dramas, beginning with A Doll’s House, and ending now with When We Dead Awaken. The latter work comes under the experiences I have wanted to describe in these plays. They form a unity, a whole, and thus I have finished’ (Ibsen, 1899, cited in Moi, 321 & Hansen, 2001. 9 Such intertextual connections could also lead to the conclusion that her exit down the mountain carried by Ulfheim reduces her to the status of Ingrid in Peer Gynt (the bride-to-be that Peer carries up the mountain slung over his shoulder) (Ibsen, 1867, 48-51).

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The next sound Ibsen introduces to the soundscape is a ‘shriek’ (456) from a character referred to only as ‘The Sister of Mercy’.10 Following her shriek she cries out ‘Irene’, blesses the scene and speaks her first and only line, ‘Pax vobiscum’ [Peace be with you], as the curtain drops. 11 This overt theatricality and the overall dramatic impact of the finale would be greatly tempered by whether it was encountered as a reader or experienced live as an audience member.12

The sonic components of this final scene combine to create a sensational soundscape as follows: ‘Blasts of wind’ that ‘hurtle and whistle through the air’ provide an ostinato underscore to a ‘triumphant’ song about freedom. Then comes the crescendo or ‘stinger’(see Gorbman, 88; Kalinak, 84; Buhler, 52, and Dean, 114-117). A ‘sound like thunder’ is introduced to the composition; cannonballs crash their way down from the heavens, copper sheets are shaken, ‘venetian-blinds’ are dropped, thunder carts are set in motion, and large drums are pounded. Finally, the climax is punctuated by a screaming nun and concludes with a religious blessing in Latin. When the scene is considered from this perspective it seems more in line with Grand Opera than late nineteenth-century Naturalism. Indeed, just as Wagner’s old God’s are consumed by flames as Valhalla is destroyed at the end of the Ring Cycle in Götterdämmerung (1876), Ibsen’s oeuvre concludes with his aged characters buried beneath the remains of an ice church first referred to in Brand (Ibsen, 1866, 267 & 302).

6) Conclusion

Ibsen’s selection of sounds, their integration into the narrative and the timing of their deployment, is an important and innovative characteristic of his dramatic works. In Hedda Gabler and The Wild Duck he uses gunshots, in Little Eyolf, Enemy of the People and The Master Builder he works with crowd sounds, in A Doll’s House the opening and closing of doors ‘…reinforce the themes of the play’ (Meyer, xxxi & Quigley, 593), and in Ghosts the continuous sound of rain runs throughout the duration of the drama, only becoming conspicuous by its sudden absence during the play’s closing moments.13

Watt’s proposition referred to at the beginning of this article, in which he claims that Ibsen was ‘too much a practical man of the theatre’ (16) to envisage the final scene of When We Dead Awaken ever being staged, is reminiscent of Jonson’s 18th century assumption that Shakespeare ‘...found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudeness’ (n.pag.), a theory that would soon be overturned as historical research revealed the techniques and conventions of Elizabethan theatre (see Hodges, 2004).

10 James Joyce aptly described this character as Irene’s ‘voiceless shadow’ (Joyce, 1900, cited in Hansen, 2001, n.pag.).11 The stage direction is as follows: The Sister of Mercy: [Gives a shriek, stretches out her arms towards them and cries.] Irene![Stands silent for a moment, then makes the sign of the cross before her in the air, and says.]Pax vobiscum! (Ibsen, 456).12 Indeed, Joyce’s review of the published text even praises the manner in which Ibsen avoids cheap, trifling and gaudy effects at the end of the play; ‘ [E]ven when his dramatic theme reached its zenith he has not sought to trick it out in gawds or tawdriness. (Joyce, 1900, cited in Hansen, n.pag).13 Collison describes the principle as follows: ‘A sudden silence or absence of sound can be equally disturbing as a sudden loud noise’ (76).

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Jonson and Watt’s mistake is surely to overlook the fact that playwrights write for and within the various contexts of production that shaped the theatres of their time, while much contemporary criticism and analysis tends to look back from the perspective of the present. Or, to borrow from Michel Foucault’s thinking, the present often constrains our reading of history rather than revealing it. The facilitation of a more accurate assessment of the kind of staging Ibsen intended for his plays (and which they indeed received) would require a detailed analysis of the material conditions of which his dramas are a product. Although ambitious directions for sensational visual and sonic effects demanded innovative adaptation, many of these effects were nonetheless achievable and in some instances even conventional. Indeed, it is precisely because Ibsen was ‘a practical man of the theatre’ (Watts, 16) that he was able to weave melodramatic conventions into the fabric of his plays with such precision and effect.

While this chapter has focused on a single scene from Ibsen’s final play in order to align its conception by the playwright and its realisation on stage with the sonic devices available when it was first performed, the evidence and analysis given is intended to highlight the relevance of a wider-reaching project. It calls for a kind of ‘sonic archaeology’ in which instead of focusing solely on the relations between literary and visual aspects of dramatic texts in order to assess their feasibility as performances, we begin to reconnect with the methods, techniques, and skills required to manipulate the sound effect devices available when plays were originally produced. Such an endeavour will, as I hope to have demonstrated, allow for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the history and evolution of sound design, the mutually constitutive dialectical dynamic between playwriting and staging, and the critical role the engineering and production of live sound effects has played in the development of theatre.

Illustrations

Fig. 1 (Collison, 1976, 93)Fig. 2 (Collison, 1976, 92)Fig. 3 (Moynet, 1893, 268)Fig. 4 (Southern, 1944, 136) Fig. 5 (Leacroft, 1973, 115) Fig. 6 (Moynet, 1893, 264)Fig. 7 (Moynet, 1888, 163) Fig. 8 (Collison, 1976, 92)Fig. 9 (Culver, 1981, 85)Fig. 10 (Burris-Meyer, 1979, 25)

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