Abstract: How modernist dehumanization impacts the emotional content of performance is less straightforward than models of aestheticist pure art or Brechtian estrangement might suggest. This essay offers a model of modern dehumanized affect, spanning 19th-century aestheticism and the Gesamtkunstwerk to 20th-century avant-garde theatre. The modern stage shifts focus from emotional identification with dramatic content to the affective cultivation of new aesthetic sensibilities.
