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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Pictorial Illusionism: The Theatre of Steele MacKaye

Pictorial Illusionism: The Theatre of Steele MacKaye

Sokalski, J. A.

Hardcover

Entertainment & Performing Arts

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ISBN10: 0773532048
ISBN13: 9780773532045
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: Apr 16 2007
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.51
Height: 1.01 Width: 7.11 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Steele MacKaye (1842-1894) was a major North American theatre artist - a director, actor, inventor, painter, theorist, and writer - best known for advancing a unified vision of pictorial illusionism, the central aesthetic of late nineteenth-century drama, by transforming grand theatres into jewel-boxes for gilded society. Pictorial Illusionism is the first full-length critical study of MacKaye's life's work.

Drawing together a wealth of primary sources, J.A. Sokalski examines the aims, inventions, and methods of the pictorial style that defined MacKaye's art. Sokalski shows how MacKaye's famous Madison Square Theatre, which featured a double stage reminiscent of an elevator, created whirling pictorial illusions for fashionable New York. He argues that MacKaye's infamous failure, the colossal Spectatorium theatre for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, was the most complete realization of this illusionary aesthetic. Sokalski also explores MacKaye's influence on Buffalo Bill Cody and how civil war cycloramas expanded his concept of pictorial space.

Sokalski fully documents late nineteenth-century stage practices, arguing for a greater recognition of the significance of pictorial illusionism in American theatre.

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