Daggers of the Mind
Shakespeare's Dark Matter
CAS Speaker Series Presents:
Andrew Sofer
Theater comes from the Greek word for "the seeing place." So why do invisible phenomena fascinate both playwrights and audiences? In this talk, scholar-director Andrew Sofer explores the uncanny power of the unseen in drama, theater, and performance, taking invisible presences in Shakespeare's plays as a prime example. Whether it be characters who never appear, scenes that are described without being dramatized, or objects that are visible to characters but invisible to spectators, theatrical "dark matter" is woven into the very fabric of theatrical performance--just as, in physics, all visible matter in the universe is surrounded by a gigantic halo of unknown matter whose gravitational effects shape the visible world.
Andrew Sofer is Professor of English at Boston College and teaches at Harvard's Mellon School for Theater and Performance Research. He is the author of Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theater, and Performance.