Uncanny Audio: The Place and Use of Sound in Gothic Performance

Abstract

Although we typically think of Gothic performance as a realm of visual spectacle, it is a place where the auditory may be even more important. Throughout theatre history, pioneering developments in audio technology have found an affinity with the uncanny. The audiences of Greek plays, Renaissance drama, nineteenth-century stage illusions and melodrama or the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol had their moods manipulated by efficacious sound effects and music. Contemporary live performance continues to develop ingenious sound design: from ‘in-the-dark’ stage plays such as Hattie Naylor’s Going Dark (2010) and Glen Neath and David Rosenberg’s binaural productions to experiences created by Disney or the London Dungeons, the auditory can be exploited on physiological and psychological levels to place the audience in an extraordinarily uncanny or alienated position.