Performing Power: The Political Secrets of Gustav III (1771-1792)

Performing Power explores 18th-century fabrication of the royal image by focusing on the example of King Gustav III (1746–1792) – one of Sweden’s most acclaimed and controversial monarchs – who conspicuously chose theater as the primary media for his image-making and role construction.

The text postulates that Gustav III was motivated by theater’s ability to aid him in fulfilling Enlightenment’s tenet of broadly educating the populace and inculcating it with royal ideology. That he was an am...