Spectacle in the Theatre

Abstract

In his history of the Crimean War Henry Tyrrell describes the victory celebration held in Green Park, London in 1856. The celebration began with a burst of color in the night sky. Then “for two hours, followed every conceivable design of elegant and dazzling pyrotechnic art. Flights of rockets, a hundred at a time; revolving wheels, suns, stars, golden streamers, and fiery serpents chas[ed] each other through the air.… The triumph, however, of the entertainment was reserved for the close of it.…” A stationary piece blazing and revolving fantastically, “exhibited the words ‘God save the Queen. … ‘”