Theatre and performance design a reader in scenography

THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE DESIGN Theatre and Performance Design: a reader in scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design The volume is organised thematically in five sections: • • • • • Looking: the experience of seeing Space and place The designer: the scenographic Bodies in space Making meaning This major collection of key writings provides a much needed critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design By locating this study within the broader field of scenography – the term increasingly used to describe a more integrated reading of performance – this unique anthology recognises the role played by all the elements of production in the creation of meaning Contributors include Josef Svoboda, Richard Foreman, Roland Barthes, Oskar Schlemmer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Crary, Elizabeth Wilson, Henri Lefebvre, Adolphe Appia and Herbert Blau Jane Collins is Reader in Theatre at Wimbledon College of Art, London, where she currently coordinates the contextual studies programme She is a writer, director and theatre maker who works across the UK and internationally Andrew Nisbet is a lecturer at Northbrook College, Sussex, teaching theatre practice and theory He has worked in conference, exhibition, event and temporary structure design and museum installations THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE DESIGN A Reader in Scenography Edited by Jane Collins and Andrew Nisbet First published 2010 by Routledge Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2010 Jane Collins and Andrew Nisbet, selection and editorial material; individual chapters © the contributors Typeset in Perpetua by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Theatre and performance design : a reader in scenography / edited by Jane Collins and Andrew Nisbet p cm Includes bibliographical references and index Theaters – Stage-setting and scenery I Collins, Jane, 1951– II Nisbet, Andrew, 1960– PN2085.T44 2010 792.02′5 – dc22 2009030782 ISBN10: 0–415–43209–X (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–43210–3 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–43209–2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–43210–8 (pbk) CONTENTS List of illustrations Contributors Foreword x xiii xxiii PAMELA HOWARD OBE Acknowledgements xxv Introduction JANE COLLINS AND ANDREW NISBET PART I Looking: the experience of seeing Appearance and reality 11 BERTRAND RUSSELL The simile of the cave 17 PLATO The draughtsman’s contract: how an artist creates an image 21 JOHN WILLATS The camera obscura and its subject 33 JONATHAN CRARY Meditations on a hobby horse or the roots of artistic form 40 ERNST GOMBRICH From Camera Lucida 43 ROLAND BARTHES v CONTENTS The most concealed object 51 HERBERT BLAU Fascination and obsession 56 SUSAN BENNETT PART II Space and place 65 Of other spaces 73 MICHEL FOUCAULT 10 From The Production of Space 81 HENRI LEFEBVRE 11 For a hierarchy of means of expression on the stage 85 ADOLPHE APPIA 12 A taxonomy of spatial function 89 GAY MCAULEY 13 axioms for environmental theatre: axiom three 95 RICHARD SCHECHNER 14 Site-specifics 102 NICK KAYE 15 Dancing in the streets: the sensuous manifold as a concept for designing experience 107 SCOTT PALMER AND SITA POPAT 16 Grounding 117 ANDREW TODD 17 Towards an aesthetic of virtual reality 123 GABRIELLA GIANNACHI 18 The house From cellar to garret The significance of the hut 128 GASTON BACHELARD 19 Making and contesting time-spaces DOREEN MASSEY vi 133 CONTENTS PART III The designer: the scenographic 139 20 Postmodern design 145 ARNOLD ARONSON 21 “Oh, to make boardes to speak!” 154 NICHOLAS TILL 22 Stage designs of a single gesture: the early work of Robert Edmond Jones 162 ARTHUR B FEINSOD 23 Foreword to The Stage is Set 171 LEE SIMONSON 24 Hope, hopelessness / presence, absence: scenographic innovation and the poetic spaces of Jo Mielziner, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller 178 LIAM DOONA 25 Brecht and stage design: the Bühnenbildner and the Bühnenbauer 188 CHRISTOPHER BAUGH 26 The diseases of costume 204 ROLAND BARTHES 27 My idea of the theatre 211 TADEUSZ KANTOR 28 Visual composition, mostly 215 RICHARD FOREMAN 29 Defining and reconstructing theatre sound 218 ADRIAN CURTIN 30 On performance writing 223 TIM ETCHELLS vii CONTENTS PART IV Bodies in space 231 31 Docile bodies 239 MICHEL FOUCAULT 32 Eye and mind 243 MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY 33 Of language and the flesh 246 THOMAS LAQUEUR 34 From Adorned in Dreams 252 ELIZABETH WILSON 35 The actor and the über-marionette 257 EDWARD GORDON CRAIG 36 Man and art figure 264 OSKAR SCHLEMMER 37 From Towards a Poor Theatre 279 JERZY GROTOWSKI 38 Woman, man, dog, tree: two decades of intimate and monumental bodies in Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater 285 GABRIELLE CODY 39 The will to evolve 295 JANE GOODALL 40 Glow: an interview with Gideon Obarzanek 301 CRISTIANE BOUGER PART V Making meaning 307 41 The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility: second version 315 WALTER BENJAMIN 42 Interaction between text and reader WOLFGANG ISER viii 321 CONTENTS 43 Semiotics 326 LOIS TYSON 44 Limits of analysis, limits of theory and Pavis’s questionnaire 330 PATRICE PAVIS 45 Sound design: the scenography of engagement and distraction 340 ROSS BROWN 46 Olfactory performances 348 SALLY BANES 47 The naturalistic theatre and the Theatre of Mood 358 VSEVOLOD MEYERHOLD 48 Theatre and cruelty 367 ANTONIN ARTAUD 49 The humanist theatre/The catastrophic theatre and The cult of accessibility and the Theatre of Obscurity 371 HOWARD BARKER 50 Drawing in rehearsal 377 RAE SMITH 51 Speech introducing Freud 386 ROBERT WILSON 52 From The Secret of Theatrical Space 390 JOSEF SVOBODA Index 395 ix ILLUSTRATIONS 3.1 Perspective: Canaletto, Venice: The Libraria and Campanile from the Piazzetta, mid-1730s The Royal Library, Windsor Castle Copyright reserved Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty The Queen 3.2 Oblique projection: Lady Wen-chi’s Return to China: Fourth Leaf, c 1100, Northern Sung Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ross Collection 3.3 Horizontal oblique projection: Master of the Blessed Clare, Adoration of the Magi, mid-fourteenth century, Riminese School Courtesy of Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Samuel H Kress Collection 3.4 Vertical oblique projection: David Hockney, Flight into Italy – Swiss Landscape, 1962 (detail) Courtesy of the artist 3.5 Vertical oblique projection: Feilden Clegg Design, Architects, Bolbeck Park, Milton Keynes, Commended Scheme, 1984 (detail) Courtesy of the architects 3.6 Orthographic projection: Bob Mitchell, Architect, Proprietor’s Cottage, Hollens Hotel, Grasmere, 1984 (detail) Courtesy of the architect 3.7 Orthographic projection: Arfan Khan, aged 7.5, House with a Huge Snowdrift 3.8 Utagawa Toyoharu, 1735–1814, A Perspective Picture of the Foxes’ Wedding Procession Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri 3.9 Min Qiji, A Moonlight Scene from Xi Xian Ji, Dream of the Western Chamber, 1640 Courtesy of the Far Eastern Museum, Cologne (no 702405) 3.10 David Hockney, The Second Marriage, 1963 Courtesy of the artist 4.1 Camera obscura, 1646 4.2 Comparison of eye and camera obscura Early eighteenth century 6.1 Photograph by Koen Wessing: Nicaragua, 1979 6.2 Photograph by Nadar: Savorgnan de Brazza, 1882 6.3 Photograph by R Mapplethorpe: Phil Glass and Bob Wilson 6.4 Photograph by G W Wilson: Queen Victoria, 1863 6.5 Photograph by R Mapplethorpe: Young man with arm extended 11.1 Stage design by Adolphe Appia: Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, Hellerau, 1912 Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, Geneva 12.1 Taxonomy of spatial function in the theatre x 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 29 30 34 37 43 47 48 49 49 87 90 S P E E C H I N T RO D U C I N G F R E U D things that impressed me most though about Freud as a person being and having these ideas which seemed to have influenced just about everything when reading about him was the fact that he was very human – intensely ordinary and very sort of bourgeoise in one sense – and that was precisely part of his enigmatic brilliance Yet while we know that attention is hardly ever given to that side of him History has recorded him as someone who was particularly motivated by having theories – theories which, by the way, structurally and systematically seem to defy just what we mean by the words structure and system and logic This piece though, as a kind of hybrid “dance play,” doesn’t deal with any big ideas – it just pays inordinate attention to small, detail things Although we see him plotting and making charts, notes, undoubtedly the most moving event in his life was when his prized grandchild, Heinerlie, died – he never got over that – something within him was smothered for the rest of his life He said that A very simple emotional experience A death And suddenly all of his ideas about living and theorizing about feeling were suspended, rendered meaningless There are a lot of reversals in this piece, such as the ending, a tableau in a cover with all those animals It’s like going back Going back to some indefinable time or memory too hazy to specify in exact particulars That is, in another sense though, I suppose, the same as moving continually ahead Isn’t that called retroactive? No, not actually I mean it’s going back as well as in the same time forward That is, Freud is plotting and scheming up these charts and yet what we see happening – the stage activity, is very human-like – someone running and someone sitting, another making small talk, someone pouring a drink, someone dancing, people doing ritualistic exercises The activities are just very mundane and thus in that way pointedly human Another thing that happens is that the stage is divided into zones – stratified zones one behind another that extend from one side of the stage horizontally to the other And in each of these zones there’s a different “reality” – a different activity defining the space so that from the audience’s point of view one sees through these different layers, and as each occurs it appears as if there’s no realization that anything other than itself is happening outside that particularly designated area People might associate this with Freud and the layers of consciousness – different levels of understanding, but that kind of obvious intention has been erased or eradicated from this production I see it more simply as a collage of different realities occuring simultaneous like being aware of several visual factors and how they combine into a picture before your eyes at any given moment Awareness in that way occurs mostly through the course of experience of each layer rendering the others transparent And this might, at first of course, confuse some people, because we are so being used to going to the theater and having the play explicitly narrated to us in verbal direct(ed)ness Like Shakespeare Like Shaw Like Tennessee Williams Those kinds of plays are primarily constructed with words, although other elements are included On the other hand in dance, people as diverse as Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham and Yvonne Rainer focus the intention of their work on the formal presentation of movement The focus here is neither verbal nor concerned with specifying the physicality of people in virtual space It’s simply more visual And people are just beginning to return again to discerning visual significances as a primary mode – or method – of communicating in a context where more than one 387 RO B E RT W I L S O N form, or “level” exists In that sense of overlays of visual correspondences we can speak of multi-dimensional realities [ .] See, we’re not particularly interested in literary ideas, because having a focus that encompasses in a panoramic visual glance all the hidden slices ongoing that appear in clear awareness as encoded fragments seems to indicate theater has so much more to than be concerned with words in a dried out, flat, one-dimensional literary structure I mean The Modern World has forced us to outgrow that mode of seeing We’re interested in another thing – another kind of experience that happens when encoded fragments and hidden detail become without words suddenly transparent Unfortunately, the usual bill of theater – like all those year-in-year-out tired Broadway productions mounted (and, destroyed) each season – is that they are dealing with all those stories, and those are the same old stories over and over The same stories Shakespeare told The same stories that the soap operas tell on television The same stories that Tennessee Williams is telling And they’re ok; they’re interesting, but like, you get that – you know that instantly you’re just being handed the same thing over and over differently disguised and I always say, well so what? You see we’re interested here in a theater that deals totally with another sort of thing, even though we’re not sure exactly what that is I feel that when theatre really connects with an audience or when a group of people really connect with one another that there are a lot of things involved It’s always a mystery, isn’t it, when you have to stop to analyze it? I am now remembering something a little girl said to me about years ago when I was her teacher This child had a speech impediment and had a very difficult time speaking at every stage of learning to say a word I was tongue-tied myself, and, so I was sympathic with her I could understand part of the problem though in an instant She wanted desperately to sing but she couldn’t get into the school choir, cause of course she couldn’t say the words and she couldn’t make those sounds You know, like that So I said, well, that doesn’t make any difference you know, you can, you can sing She said, well I can’t carry a tune She said, “I know I’d like to sing.” So I said, well just go ahead and, you know – sing So then she did and then after a couple of years of working with it she really developed an incredible thing with her voice and it was very moving to hear her sing And eventually by gaining confidence in herself this way she learned in the same manner to talk Two obstacles were removed And then one day I heard her working with another child – and this child was singing along with a Bob Dylan recording or something like that And that little girl, who originally had the speech impediment said emphatically  !  ,        ?  ,         ? You know she continued enthusiastically you can sing your own way No; don’t sing like the Beatles you know Don’t sing like Frank Sinatra Don’t sing like, you know Sing your own way And that’s what interests me 388 S P E E C H I N T RO D U C I N G F R E U D FURTHER READING Holmberg, A (2005) The Theatre of Robert Wilson: directors in perspective Cambridge University Press Marranca, B., ed (1977) The Theatre of Images New York: Drama Book Specialists Shevtsova, M (2007) Robert Wilson London: Routledge SOURCE S Brecht (1978) The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson London: Methuen, pp 419–22 389 52 FROM THE SECRET OF THEATRICAL SPACE Josef Svoboda Josef Svoboda is often described as “the father of modern scenography.” In the first extract he lays out the philosophy underpinning his practice which draws on fine art, symbolist poetry and the dynamics of musical structure He aims to create a “theatrical reality” composed of “discrete elements” which will only be unified in “the eye and mind of the spectators.” He cites Paul Klee’s assertion that: “Art should not picture the visible, but make the invisible visible ” and he applies it to the role of the visual artist in the theatre In the second extract Svoboda discusses opera and the challenges and opportunities this medium presents to the designer And theatre ought to be a place of magic Nothing from life can be transferred intact into the theatre; we must always create a theatrical reality and then fill it with the dynamics of life In that principle lies one of the essences of modern art There was a time when I considered Mallarmé’s graphic poems and Apollinaire’s calligraphy as mere games to fill empty hours And yet they represented the highest possible efforts towards a purification of elements, towards a rejection of conventional expressive accretions, towards an artistic evolution in the direction of synthesis These were precisely chosen, deliberate words revealing an economy suggesting that the words were to be carved in stone tablets but were instead broken up into letters arranged in a graphic pictorial layout A picture confronted, completed, and heightened by words – or words heightened by form This evolution of word as well as of form resulted in a still further significance Purification – the tendency toward simplification and elimination of non-essentials – is one of the typical and general signs of modern art I followed it intensely in the hope that by this path I might arrive at a true synthesis of essential elements in new relationships The basic difference between the synthetic theatre of the ’30s and our efforts at the end of the ’50s and ’60s was in fact right here: E F Burian,1 for example, wanted to achieve synthesis by erasing the boundaries between individual arts, to create a new homogeneous form from analytically dispersed elements We, on the other hand, insisted on a purity of discrete elements, with their impressionistic union to be completed in the eye and mind of the spectators Of course, every phenomenon – if it is not to be a mere static fact – must be observed in the flow of time And time is expressed through change Not mechanical change, but change as the flowing current of a lively imagination, like the clouds above a landscape that never acquire substance, never become a solid spatial form Inspiration came 390 F R O M T H E S E C R E T O F T H E AT R I C A L S PA C E from music, from Proust, and from Bergson This special perception of change – as a fluid current – was taken as its own by the visual symphony of film, and taken as its own even by theatre We, too, adopted this image of an unbroken stream, but we replaced its coherence with changeable and variously oriented layers so that its flow on the stage did not become monotonous, so that it could be modified in order to mesh with the tripartite nature of time – its past, present, and future, which, indeed, found their point of intersection on our stage And we are back to theatre space, polyscenic space But polyscenic-ness does not merely mean simultaneity or the indication of several actions occurring concurrently in several distinct places Polyscenic-ness is an expression of a free and many-sided time-space operation, in which one and the same action is observed from several optical and ideational angles which set cause and effect next to each other and take their measure Polyscenic-ness means a visible joining and severing of these “axes,” these relationships – a breaking up of the linear continuity of a theatre action, and its transformation into separate events or moments But any process, if it is to be perceivable, must be divided into definite, deliberate cycles with a precise rhythm And so one day we found ourselves considering the problem of pauses, intermissions, breaks of whatever kind in the flow of action, which are as necessary in theatre as they are in music, where rests are as necessary as notes; rests are instruments of articulation in that they help organize and emphasize musical patterns In theatre, if a pause has a precisely calculated length, it can heighten dramatic tension and become a dramatic fact The effectiveness of pauses depends, of course, on their placement in the current of the action, and also on their frequency Therefore, we carefully placed pauses where they would dramatically reinforce coherence As a result, drama stopped being a condition and became a process Time and rhythm acquired a precise, almost tangible quality And I suddenly realized the true sense of Paul Klee’s assertion: “Art should not picture the visible, but make the invisible visible, which means that it must translate the world into new pictorial laws or principles Instead of the phenomenon of a tree, brook, or rose, we are more interested in revealing the growth, flow, and blossoming which takes place within them.” Klee’s observation should apply to theatre as well, if it wants to be a valid art of the twentieth century An effective rhythm of the dramatic process arises from alternating the complex and the simple, and in revealing the complexity beneath a simple surface But all this would be pointless if this process weren’t capable of resonating in the consciousness of the spectator If we did not believe in this resonance and sense of identification between spectator and dramatic action, we would have to give up hope of even partially revealing what art is, and instead pursue mere cultural education If our work is to have meaning, we must count on having an equal partner in our public We depend on spectators to whom we don’t have to explain the story of Romeo and Juliet, of Hamlet, because they all know it It’s necessary, then, not merely to illustrate a literary text, but to transform it creatively into specific theatrical elements It means adding to the triad of Fact-Sign-Emotional convention the direct joining of facts and emotional conventions, the expression of which we used to call a “ceremony,” specifically, a familiar folk ceremony The goal of our creative work was always elementary theatre, nothing but the simplest of simplicities Radok2 always rejuvenated ceremonies; he wanted to create new embodiments for them, which would be vital and communicable at any given moment I recall, for example, 391 J O S E F S VO B O DA how the maids in the House of Bernarda Alba (1967) scrubbed the floor and set up the chairs They touched them and sat on them for a moment, the way people when working At that moment they were suddenly transformed into a still life in a portrait studio The setting for this drama, in which even a bell and a voice were gestures, had to have a precise demarcation within the white walls of a black house The walls didn’t merely demonstrate that the house is isolated from the rest of the world; they played an important and active role in the acoustics of the performance Acoustics must prove as malleable as spatial proportions or projected images Steps and work noises were produced with great fidelity and precisely graded intensity The sound of hate and dissension was captured in the crash of an ironbound wooden bucket against the wooden gate of the stable Precisely at that moment the director suspended the dialogue and let the sound of the metal – this nonverbal “speech” – resonate to its end He also used sound to reinforce the piercing of Martirio’s palm by a needle in order to evoke an image of blood and hatred The space had to provide a different “coloration” to the sound of the steps which walked the house at night, a different one to the singing of harvesters returning from the fields, and another to the sound of the people from the village The walls could muffle and deflect every sound from their interior as well as intensify or emphasize disturbing sounds from without With lighting, the walls could acquire an expressive texture or become instantly smooth Interacting with lighting and the actor, they could create a particularly striking effect: a figure pressed against the wall and illuminated by increasingly intense rays of light falling next to her began to darken When a white rectangle of light is projected onto a gray surface, the rest of the surface optically darkens In Bernarda Alba I merely chose the opposite approach At other times, I was faced with the problem of moving large objects on stage How to avoid having the orchestration of such movements seem mechanical, insufficiently variable, or merely repetitive even when they were fundamental and any changes would be impossible, unthinkable without them? The worst that can happen is the breakdown of available resources when you try to too much at once: for example, projections, the movement of objects, plus the imposition of external details It’s always necessary to establish from the start a definite principle of restriction, to make the scenery and the furniture homogeneous elements, capable of disappearing at the right moment It’s also essential to weigh minutely the significance of the setting’s every detail, which means starting with the detail and finally returning to reappraise it with the whole in mind This is the only way to be certain that the whole is properly composed in its larger strokes I often begin with a simple drawing to capture an “image” of the scene with a mere few lines The result is a caricature-like abbreviation, emphasizing the characteristic features of a scene Such a drawing will reveal the excessive details that can infiltrate a dramatic production And it’s just this abundance and excessiveness that you must guard against, whether its source is the author’s stage directions, the director’s concept, or the producer’s bias You mustn’t merely fulfill commissions and try to please You must stubbornly search for what all the elements have in common, what is possible to unify in an eloquent but still single form [ .] My greatest discovery about opera was that one did not stage the libretto at all One’s first 392 F R O M T H E S E C R E T O F T H E AT R I C A L S PA C E and enduring obligation is to stage the music This recognition first startled, then overwhelmed me Ultimately, it liberated me A confusing libretto ceased to be unduly oppressive The directorial and design activity centered on the music And we approached the music with modesty; after all, it carried within itself a message that didn’t require help in coming to life It did mean learning to understand the music; how to read a piano score; how to grasp the principle of phrasing – as well as the potentialities and dangers of thematic repetitions However – although opera is primarily music, it is not only music Opera is theatre, theatre of the highest possible stylization; in fact it is stylization of stylization Its own essence makes it impossible to be any sort of direct reflection of reality It either gravitates toward universal issues of life and death, or else it takes as its subject an anecdotal story It’s rather difficult to sing of contemporary themes, since even contemporary opera so often reaches back to the past for its subject matter, even while viewing it through contemporary eyes One of the welcome characteristics of opera is that it blatantly disregards the logic of time and place, allowing those who stage it the same freedom It makes time so relative that a mere moment of thematic repetition may force us to consider the significance of that moment again and again Take death, for example As we all know, death occurs very often in opera A brief obituary makes the point: Cavaradossi and Tosca, Mimi in La Bohème, Violetta in Traviata, and Lensky in Onegin; Carmen, Salome, Siegfried, Tannhäuser, Rusalka and the Prince, and so on and so on And through their singing – as if we were with them – we cross the threshold of the eternal unknown, that which lies beyond everything we know, the threshold of the fourth dimension Deaths certainly occur more often in operas than in plays, with the possible exception of Shakespeare and some of his contemporaries We become aware, each time, how death clings inseparably to our lives Yet it is as though singing eased this recognition for us The obsessive exploration of this realm may be the reason why opera, so often declared dead, will never lack enthusiastic audiences nor lose its allure For a designer, opera provides great opportunities and severe challenges The designer has to arouse the spectator’s fantasy without ever coercing it He mustn’t compel him to a conclusion, but merely act as a catalyst to a gradual revelation by means of precise suggestions He provides the atmosphere for a solo or a choral passage, but must himself remain invisible The designer must achieve an intangible effect by tangible means And the means must be those of theatre, not reality In my most important opera productions abroad, I worked most often with the German director Götz Friedrich, the longtime collaborator of Walter Felsenstein We met for the first time during Bizet’s Carmen in Bremen in 1965 Here was another director, after Kasˇlik and Radok, with whom I immediately discovered a mutual alphabet, a mutual language The sheer variety of ways to interpret Bizet’s Carmen! As a picture book of Spain for tourists, as a bittersweet story that merely connects perennially fresh arias Our Carmen lashed together passion and an unbridled desire for liberty Song functioned as an erotic magnet in this drama which must inexorably end in death In terms of design, my starting point was the smugglers’ scene in the mountains The style of this scene often seems to deviate from the style of the overall production, but from this scene I was determined to make a universal environment for everything else: the scene 393 J O S E F S VO B O DA in front of the factory, the tavern, the arena and its spectators I built an x-shaped construction of stairs without risers up to a height of twelve meters, consisting of an inclined section of wooden planks that intersected with an oppositely inclined section The audience could easily see through this entire structure In the final scene the chorus with their colorful scarves covered these stairs, sat on them with their backs to the audience, and thus created the effect of an arena that awaits the toreador’s victory Both protagonists then stood on stage confronting each other, dazed by erotic desire A second Carmen, which I did in 1972 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with director Goran Gentele, had a still more distinctive social character A burning sun dominated the noon break in front of the tobacco factory The air was motionless; the exhausted, resigned women workers rested on bales of tobacco in the only shade they could find No one was in direct light; everyone was annihilated by the heat and by dull boredom And at this moment of a phantasmic high noon, Carmen began her dance and song, like a challenge to the limitless apathy around her, her manifestation of indomitable vitality, which finally provokes violence and crime I put together the scene for this Carmen solely with light I used 150,000 more watts than usual for a theatre performance It was so hot on stage that we had to install special air conditioning The light was so intense that we painted some walls black to make them appear white and not blindingly dazzling I composed the architecture of the space in such a way as to interrupt and break up the light in various ways At the very end of the opera, Carmen, in white, stood by a brilliantly white wall; opposite her, in black, stood Don Jose, with a bloody stain on his costume And in that harsh light, Carmen was simply consumed as if in a white-hot furnace EDITORS’ NOTES E F Burian (1904–59) Leading Czech leftist avant-garde director of the 1930s Alfred Radok (1914–76) Czech theatre director under Burian in the early years of the German occupation and one of the founders of the Theatre of the Fifth of May He was director of the National Theatre in Prague for different periods starting in 1954 FURTHER READING Burian, J (1984) “Aspects of central European design,” TDR/The Drama Review 28(2), pp 47–65 Howard, P (2002) What is Scenography? London: Routledge SOURCE J Svoboda (1993) The Secret of Theatrical Space, trans J M Burian New York: Applause, pp 20–5, 72–4 394 INDEX abstract: figure 169, 273; form 68, 213, 231; abstraction 221, 236, 264, 270, 371 aesthetics 7, 95, 114, 180, 236, 307; aesthetic moment Africa 140, 259 ambiguity 105, 109, 114, 158, 209, 308, 349 anatomy 194, 213, 239, 240–1, 246, 248, 368 appearance 7, 11, 13, 21, 24, 86; reality 6, 7; stage 140, 188, 195 Appia, A 2, 68, 85, 145–9, 152, 162 architecture 99–100, 136, 140, 191, 196, 218 Aristotle 52, 140, 247; Aristotelian 69, 139, 140, 155, 201; catharsis 52, 201, 353 aroma design 311, 348–53, 355 Artaud, A 51, 54, 152, 220–1, 331, 367; Artaudian 68, 291; Les Cenci 218, 220 Asia 60, 257, 259, 261; Asian theatre 257 atmospheric 175, 343 auditorium 89–92, 281, 283, 311, 342–3, 368 aura 236, 315, 317–18, 342, 350 authentic 106, 183, 207, 316, 318–19, 359; authenticity 37, 62, 212, 220, 316–19, 354 author 140, 265–6, 308–9, 324, 362–3, 373–4 avant-garde theatre 221 Bablet, D 65, 147, 236 Bachelard, G 69, 128 backstage 89, 90 Barba, E 331 Barthes, R 8–9, 52, 308, 313, 326–7, 349; on clothing 142–3, 204 Bauhaus 95, 97, 143, 152, 236 Bausch, P 201, 234, 237, 285–6, 288–94 Beckett, S 51, 53; Waiting for Godot 93 Benjamin, W 236, 309, 315 Bennett, S 6, 9, 56, 310 Berger, J 5, Berkeley, G 14–15, 33 Berliner Ensemble 189, 195, 198 biomechanics 236 Blau, H 6, 9, 51 body: language 51–2, 237, 240; parts 13, 288; see also human Bonnard, P 149 Bouffes du Nord 69, 117, 119 Brecht, B 70, 141–3, 150–1, 188–201, 208, 236; Brechtian 95, 190, 197, 200–1, 233; Baal 189; Drums in the Night 189; Man is Man 189; Mother Courage 192, 200; The Caucasian Chalk Circle 194, 197, 199–200; The Threepenny Opera 189 Broadway 162–3, 180–1, 183, 200, 388 Brook, P 57, 59–60, 119, 160–1, 312–13; Mahabharata 65–7, 59–60, 117, 351; The Empty space 160 Brueghel 150 Bühnenbauer 141, 188, 191, 193, 198 Bühnenbildner 188, 191, 193 buildings 65, 89, 107–8, 115, 133 Cage, J 151–2, 331 camera obscura 8, 33–8 Carlson, M 60 CAVE (Automatic Virtual Environment) 69, 123–6 Certeau, M de 61–2, 69, 104–6 395 INDEX Cheek by Jowl 201 Chekhov, A 66, 285, 362–3; The Seagull 93, 360, 363 Chinese painting 23 cinema 47, 53, 77, 208–9, 224, 367–8 Cixous, H 60 classical: acting 66; dance 234, 289; drama 343; Greece 175; literature 151; music 44, 290; theatre 53, 149, 151 clothes 45, 52, 151, 233, 252–3, 255 see also costume collaborative 141–3, 147, 162, 198, 201–2, 257, 279; collaborations 139, 186, 189; collaborator 141, 178, 183 collage 98, 149, 151–2, 387 colour 12, 13, 15, 31, 61, 175 commercial 89, 147, 183; commercialism 157 common sense 12, 14, 83 community 58, 171, 253, 296, 374; local 136 compositions: musical 152, 313, 345; spatial 236; theatrical 175 consciousness: human 310–1; national 61; self 113, 146, 359 constructivism 145, 213; constructivists 101 Copeau, J 91, 331 costume 142, 204–8, 233–4, 270–1; designer 2, 149, 220 Craig, E.G 2, 142–5, 147–8, 162, 168, 201, 236 Crary, J 3, 6–8, 10, 33 CRICOT-2 214 cubism 143; cubists 22, 30, 97 cultural 56–8, 61, 186, 218–19, 317, 348 Cunningham, M 152, 387 cyborg 299–300 dramatist 85, 157, 188, 199, 361 dramaturgy 139, 188, 191, 195, 304, 342–3 dramaturgical 183, 185–6, 190, 337–8, 344: noise 311, 340, 343 drawing: machine 21–2; systems 8, 21, 23, 28–31 dreams 75, 83, 128–32, 183, 332, 368; daydream 129–30, 132 dress 234–5, 252–3, 255–6, 286; see also costume Duchamp, M 143 Durer A 21 Eco, U 145, 308 embodied 5, 107, 234, 343 empirical 34, 134 emplacement 67, 74 Enlightenment 246, 249–50 environmental theatre 68, 95, 97–8 Etchells, T 143, 223 ethnographic 255 Euripides 52; The Bacchae 52 European 6, 21, 33, 162, 189 experimental theatre 279 dada 66, 143, 150, 252 dance 201, 215, 288–9, 301, 304–5, 362 Danto, A.C décor 92, 147–50, 160, 330 demographic 66 Descartes 5, 8, 33, 36, 38 Désormière, R 221 dialogue: scenic 95; spoken 100, 148, 338, 343, 392; text 190, 323, 361 Dionysus 52; Dionysian facsimile 182, 185, 318 fashion 235, 252–6, 328, 359 female body 235, 246, 353 film 51, 53–4, 93, 281, 309, 315–17; see also cinema fine art 68–9, 107, 139, 143 Fischer-Lichte, E 58 Forced Entertainment 143, 223 Foreman, R 140, 145–6, 151, 215 formalism 68, 143, 208, 288; formalize 71 Foucault, M 6, 35, 66–7, 234–5, 239, 249–50 fragmentation 123, 139, 185, 333 Freud, S 53, 386–7 Fried, M 103 front of house 89–90 furniture 66, 81, 92, 195, 364, 392 Galileo 74 gaze 1–4, 69, 83, 106, 311, 344–5 Genet, J.: The Maids 93, 235 German Romanticism 151 396 INDEX gestures 44, 240, 266, 289, 327, 368 gestus 142, 204–5, 208, 233, 285, 333 Glass, P 46, 48 globalisation 133–4 Globe Theatre 118 Gombrich, E 40 graphic art 315–16 Greek 117–18, 140, 256, 327, 348 Greenaway, P 21 Grosz, G 191 Grotowski, J 65, 279, 312 Gurawski, J 3, 236, 279 Happenings 152 hearing 12–13, 53–4, 143, 341–3, 346, 373 Henderson, M 185 heterotopias 67, 73, 75–9 hierarchical 85–6, 159; hierarchy 74, 90, 140, 184, 248, 296; spatial 68 hieroglyphic 291 high-tech 133 Hockney, D 23, 30, 147 Homer 19 horizon of expectations 9, 221, 310 Howard, P 140–1 human: body 209, 240, 244, 268, 271, 295; figure 236, 270–1, 273 humanist 373–4; theatre 312, 370–1 Husserl 35 hybrid pictures 9, 21, 28 hypertrophies 204 iconoclasts 156 iconography 200 identity 9, 56–8, 61–3, 134, 246, 270 ideologies 197, 231 illusion 17–18, 68–9, 123, 129, 196, 368; illusionistic 30, 143, 150, 162, 268 imagination 129, 312, 361, 364, 371 imagined communities 61–2 impressionism 30–1 impressions 129, 158, 182, 201 improvisation 99, 143, 223, 225–6 installation 69, 107, 109–15 intermedia 95, 98 interpretation 149, 182, 190, 307–8, 322, 375 intimacy 119, 121, 367 Jarry, A 149; Ubu Roi 149 Jones, I 141, 154 Jones, R.E 2, 180, 182 jouissance 9, 52 Kantor, T 140, 143–4, 211, 286 Lacan, J 33, 52, 332 landscape 125, 150, 209, 219, 237, 301 language: body 51, 327; performance 60, 178; scenographic 187; written 315; visual 141 Laqueur, T 235, 246 Lecat, J G 69, 117 Lefevbre, H Lehmann, H.-T 231, 234 Lehrstücke 190, 191 Leibniz, G 15, 38 Leonardo da Vinci 21, 364 light 12, 19, 30–1, 85, 107–9, 113 lighting 107, 150, 199; effects 29, 148, 283; designer 2, 108, 141 liminality 109, 114 literalism 159 lithography 315–16 liveness 354; live act of theatre 117 Locke, J 8, 35–6 looking 5–9, 53, 191, 215, 244, 288 machines 295–6, 343; mechanisation 236, 264 mainstream: audience 168; theatre 140, 348–9 Marx, K 51 masque 154–6 Massey, D 70, 133 Matisse, H 30 McAuley, G 68, 89 meaning: construction 94, 141, 178, 373; making 307, 309, 312, 358; production 3, 308, 338 medieval 36, 60, 67, 151, 163, 361; middle ages 73–4, 253, 315 Merleau-Ponty, M 232, 234–5, 243, 311 metanarrative 146 metaphors 42, 211, 248 metaphysical 37, 119, 128, 216, 248–9, 275 397 INDEX Meyerhold, V 191, 312, 358 Mielziner, J 139, 178–87 Miller, A 53, 142, 144, 178, 183, 185; Death of a Salesman 142, 178–9, 181–5 minimalism 69, 102–3; minimalist 103, 160, 162, 168 mirror 53, 75–6, 105, 110, 377 mise-en-scene 215, 220, 331–8, 341–2, 345, 349 Mnouchkine, A 57, 61 model 206, 277, 358 modernism 141, 145–6 modes of seeing 386 Monk, E 193, 195 morality 373–4; of dress 255; plays 99 multiculturalism 61 music 218–19, 284, 337, 344–5, 353, 393; musical 152, 190, 262, 343–5, 362, 390–1; musicality 148, 284, 343–4; music hall 363, 367–8 naked 52, 209, 236, 255, 269, 273; eye 12–13 Naturalism 66, 142, 236, 311–12, 348, 358; naturalistic: acting 233; director 359, 361–2; drama 99, 147, 233–4; theatre 191, 358–61 naturalised 6, 67 Neher, C 141–2, 188–9, 191–8 New Criticism 154, 158 New Stagecraft 142, 162–3, 180, 182–3, 185 Nietzsche, F 6, 33 non-verbal 82, 113, 328 observation 6, 33–6, 118, 233, 279, 346; observer 33–7, 121, 246–7 OISTT (International Organisation of Scenographers and Theatre Technicians) 198 olfactory: design 2; effects 348–50, 352–4; performances 349, 354; sensations 348 optically 7, 23, 198, 392 ornamentation 162 painted 66, 86, 150 Palladio, A 118 paradigm 296–7, 311; shifts 142, 336; spatial 69 participant 9, 109–12, 114, 124 participation 118, 313, 324 Pavis, P 57–9, 232, 311, 330 perception 8, 53, 123, 259, 311, 317–8; conscious 69, 103, 341 perceptual structures performance: art 68, 201, 300, 349; body 232–3; live 51, 309, 310; theatrical 89, 126, 160, 176, 310–11, 333 perspective drawing 21, 140 Pfister, M 158 phenomenology 5, 66, 69, 346; phenomenological 128, 218–19, 243, 321 photography 21, 30, 43–4, 126, 315–16; photographer 45, 50; photorealism 145 Picasso, P 147, 175 Piscator E 191 place 69–70, 104–5, 136, 211, 244, 342 plastic form 85–6, 268 platforms 92, 96–9, 148, 215 Plato 7, 17, 54, 154, 156, 176; platonic 7, 148, 156 play texts 157 playwright 85–7, 142, 147, 172–3, 194, 343 plot 140, 150, 155, 338, 344 poetic: imagination 69, 184; realism 139, 145, 178–9 portrayal 40–1, 290 postdramatic 234 Postmodernism 106, 141, 145–6, 150–1 practitioners 89–90, 93, 139, 190, 231, 343 presence 107, 126, 232–3, 331, 346 properties 162–3, 167, 195, 316, 364; props 60, 92, 140, 150, 212, 217 proscenium: arch 121, 191; opening 363; stage 68, 85, 98 psychoacoustic 341–2 psychology 6, 183, 246, 255–6, 367 punctum and stadium 8–9, 43–8 puppets 17, 258, 260–1, 267; puppetry 257 reading 6, 102, 104–5, 321–4 realism 145, 147, 150, 257, 348, 352; photo 124–5; poetic 139, 145, 178–9; selective 143, 132; social 183, 185, 198 realistic 42, 66, 91, 165, 236, 363 398 INDEX reception 103, 22, 310, 331, 335; performance 89, 143, 310, 330, 336; sound 219, 220 rehearsal 94, 99, 140, 171, 194; in 3, 195, 198, 312 Renaissance 107, 118, 151, 174–5, 235–6, 343 representation 35, 159, 331, 335; exact 312, 353, 258–9; theatrical 289, 332; see also visual ritual 9, 281, 311–12, 318–19, 348, 350–1 Rosenberg, H 98 Russell, B 7, 11 Said, E 56–7 scenery 66, 92, 95, 97, 99, 147–50, 211–13, 216; representational 157–8; rhetorical 142; see also decor scenographic 65, 67, 180, 231–2, 313, 341 scenography 142–3, 157, 160, 182, 188, 201, 220, 309 Schechner, R 59, 68, 95, 114, 215 Schlemmer, O 2, 142–3, 231, 236–7, 288 scopic drive 9, 51–3, 62 seating 97, 100, 120 Sellars, P 149, 345 semiotic 102, 233–4, 311, 326–8, 348–9, 352 sensory 5, 37, 221; channels 348–9; experience 33, 143, 330 sensation 13–14, 124, 205 sensuous manifold 71, 107, 110, 112–14 sign see semiotic silhouette 125, 209, 284, 365 Simonson, L 142, 162, 171 simultaneity 35, 73, 391 site-specific 1, 65, 69, 102–4, 141, 151 sketch 165, 189, 195, 206 sound: sound design 218–21, 311, 340–5 soundscape 219–22, 297, 311, 340–1, 343, 345–6 space: abstract 268–9; audience 68, 89–90, 92–3, 95, 337; empty 53, 75, 169, 341; found 1, 95, 99–100, 139, 141; inhabited 129; inner 8, 36; private 67, 74; public 67, 74, 97, 114; social 67, 74, 81; stage 65–6, 85–6, 90–2, 94–5, 147–8, 211; urban 889, 136; virtual 1, 65, 69, 75–6, 309, 387 spectacle 66, 68, 140, 142, 204–9, 327; visual 155–7 spectator see audience stage: design 141, 143–4, 146–7, 155, 159–60, 212; picture 146, 157, 162, 173, 191, 215; set 147, 158, 212; see also space Stage Society of New York 163 States, Bert O 66–7, 142, 311 Stelarc 231, 237, 295, 297–9 Strindberg, A 145; Miss Julie 66 structuralism 73, 310–11, 328, 335 styles: acting 236, 257; design 139, 145–6; fashion 253, 255–6; period 149, 359; stylization 208, 212, 393; stylized 42, 44, 365 studium see punctum subconscious 183, 213, 341 Surrealism 145, 213 Svoboda, J 149, 158, 160, 313, 390 symbol 41, 261–2, 327, 348–9, 352; symbolization 41; symbolists 66, 348 tableau 143, 150, 387 techné 218, 340–1, 346 technology 110, 264, 295–8, 301, 304–5, 315 technologies 6, 110, 123, 135, 155, 333; electronic 12, 306; new 237, 301 text: dramatic 158, 194, 220–1, 335, 337–8; visual 194, 351; written 93, 104, 200 texture 12, 140, 392 Théâtre de Complicité 201 theatre design 1, 160, 180 Théâtre du Soleil 61, 201 Theatre Guild 162, 171 Theatre Laboratory 279–80 Till, N 136, 141, 154 time-space 133–5, 391 Toulouse-Lautrec, H 149 tradition 1, 9, 57, 93, 139, 317–18 traditional theatre 68, 89, 91, 95, 98, 191 transfiguration 236, 264 transformation 98–9, 105, 107–8, 184, 270–2, 391; transformative 107–8 translated 157, 175, 181, 185, 362 transparency 38, 107, 112–13 Tsypin, G 151 Ubersfeld, A 92 399 INDEX unconventional: juxtapositions 143; techniques 182 unity 117, 139, 146, 148–9, 220, 234 utopias 75 verbal 66, 82, 223, 257–8, 341–2, 387 via negativa 279–80 Victorian 48, 159, 255, 296, 341 viewing 5–6, 92, 103, 146, 291, 393 virtual reality 69, 123–6; see also space visual: artist 1, 141, 186, 307, 390; elements 147–9, 264; fields 7, 9, 23, 31, 244; images 7, 119, 147, 157, 160, 349; representations 33, 159; visuality 5, 6, 62, 157, 336 Vitruvius 118; Vitruvian 115, 343 vocabulary 42, 68, 140, 143, 234, 373 voyeurism 51–3 well made play 140, 143, 234, 371 Western Theatre 93, 143, 162, 198, 348, 352 Willats, J 3, 8, 21 Williams, T 142, 178–80, 182–6, 387–8; The Glass Menagerie 142, 178–84, 186 Wilson, E 235, 252 Wilson, R 46–8, 57, 201, 308, 312, 386 Wooster Group 223, 334 writing 66, 209, 241, 315, 335, 342 Wuppertal Tanztheater 285–6 Zarilli, P 56 400 .. .THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE DESIGN Theatre and Performance Design: a reader in scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related... Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data Theatre and performance design. .. event and temporary structure design and museum installations THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE DESIGN A Reader in Scenography Edited by Jane Collins and Andrew Nisbet First published 2010 by Routledge Park