The Potentials of Spaces

The Theory and Practice of Scenography & Performance

Alison Oddey, Christine White, Alison Oddey, Christine A. White

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781841509495
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

The Potentials of Spaces interrogates the relationship between scenography and performance in contemporary dramatic activities. The book provides an illuminating platform for discussion concerning the interrelations between theatrical movement and gesture in physical space. In exploring territories of performance, the author equally combines theoretical research with details of dramatic methods and performances, thus providing a valuable insight into working practices. Avant-garde and experimental approaches towards sensory, spatial and visual aspects of the stage are described and explored. Through a discussion regarding the performance possibilities viable through technological development and new media in recent years, the book aims to challenge tradition and inspire new creative directions upon the stage. The book breaks new ground on dramatic and spatial awareness within the tropics of theatre. An essential text for those interested in, or studying, theatrical practice and scenography.

PART I: DIFFERENT BEGINNINGS

DIRECTORS AND DESIGNERS

IS THERE A DIFFERENT DIRECTION?

Pamela Howard

The visionary architect Adolphe Appia saw that ‘creation’ meant the synthesis of space, light and performance achieved by one total personal vision. Diaghilev introduced the painter to the theatre and artisan scene painters such as Vladimir Polunin, previously a bespoke decorator, became an interpreter. In 1935 Robert Edmond Jones observed, “the excitement that should be in theatres is found only in baseball parks, arenas, stadiums and racecourses.” In the twentieth century and twenty-first century the move out of playhouses into new spaces demands an exploitation of the architecture before relying on design. Logically this results in the work of designer and director merging to become a single and unique creator of text and vision.

In reality the collaboration between directors and designers is often uneasy. In 1988 at a conference organised by The Society of British Theatre Designers on this subject at Riverside Studios, an entire panel of invited directors declared that they never had ‘any trouble’ collaborating with designers, and described a life of sweetness and light with ideas flowing freely back and forth culminating in, as they saw it, riveting and groundbreaking productions. A packed house, mostly of designers listened thoughtfully, their minds focussing on the panel of designers who would soon be asked to respond. Many designers had refused to be on such a panel, fearing that were they to voice their views on the director/designer relationship truthfully, they would probably never work again. However, there were some senior designers willing to be on that panel with a large enough reputation to make them able to speak out, and voice the thoughts of many of their more vulnerable colleagues. What emerged were two very different views of the same experience. When a director felt that there was a good ‘shorthand’ with the designer, the designer often had taken the easiest way out just to avoid conflict. ‘Designer speak’ and intricate subterfuge was quickly revealed. When a designer saw that the agreed space could be better used, the suggestion to the director had to be framed within a question, “Do YOU think it would be a good idea if….” Above all, it emerged, a designer had to be like a wife – supportive, a friend and a partner, ready to co-operate at all times and on all occasions, good with money, decorative, good sense of humour, and accepting that no relationship is finite and when someone else came along, you would be passed over.

At this time there were hardly any designers who were also directors – the one exception being Philip Prowse at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Prowse was part of a triumvirate with Giles Havergal and Robert David MacDonald who teamed up in the early 1960s at the Palace Theatre, Watford. They worked on the principle that the most important thing was to be able to do the plays they were passionate about. Their passion would communicate directly to the audience. From 1978 to 1985, they produced plays that could not be seen anywhere else in Britain, and confounding all box office myths, they played to capacity audiences.¹ They educated themselves as well as the audiences, exploring drama, and playing out their individual passions – each of the three making work in their own visual language. They created a generation of daring actors, and used young designers straight out of college that they thought could add to their stable. But Philip Prowse had a very clear individual vision, and at this famous meeting at Riverside Studios he was able to state that, “the best conversation I ever had with a director was with myself in bed at night”. In fact Philip Prowse was not really interested in the concept of ‘designing’. He did not do elaborate drawings or renderings, rarely made scale models, but created around him a team of interpreters who understood his visual vocabulary which, used similar elements over and over again in different combinations. He was only interested in how to stage plays that he was able to choose himself, and he was prepared to take full responsibility for success or failure. The most original of the Glasgow Citizens’ productions, and in particular Philip Prowse’s, were usually reviewed as being ‘European’ and that became the euphemism for designers who dared to break out of their boxes.

In retrospect, it can be seen that Philip Prowse was doing no more than following a vision presented by the visionary architect and theatre-maker Adolphe Appia at the turn of the century. Appia saw that ‘creation’ meant the synthesis of space, light and performance achieved by one personal vision. The Czech architect and scenographer Josef Svoboda (1920–2002) used exactly the same words in 1973 to define his own works.² Although the obituaries carefully used the word ‘co-operated’ rather than ‘collaborate’, Svoboda worked with several directors, notably Alfred Radok, but his true contribution to the advance of theatre-making was in his self-authored productions. Here, in total control, he was able to combine direction and design in one creative statement. Working autonomously, he invented and patented lighting and projection techniques that sculpted the dark void of the stage space where creation always meant starting from zero. “Scenery”, Svoboda said, “is not an end in itself, but a logical component of the complementary arts of the stage. The scenic artist collaborates on equal terms with the author and the director.”³

In his note to the third edition of The Development of the Theatre, Allardyce Nicholl describes his, “belief that we stand in an age where there is urgent need of a boldly fresh orientation toward stage form, involving an abandonment of worn out devices, and the creation of new theatrical concepts.”⁴ In the preface he draws attention to the American stage pioneers Lee Simonson, Donald Oenslager, Jo Mielziner and Robert Edmond Jones, crediting the American public as being, “specially sensitive to visual appeal.” Nicholl’s readers are directed to read the visionary lectures of Robert Edmund Jones, who, in Theatre Arts Monthly of 1941, warned of the imminent death of the realistic theatre stating, “…the best thing that could happen to our theatre at this very moment would be for playwrights and actors and directors to be handed a bare stage on which no scenery would be placed, and then told they must write and act and direct for this stage. In no time we should have the most exciting theatre in the world.” As a further warning, Jones observed, “the excitement that should be found in theatres is only found in baseball parks, arenas, stadiums and racecourses” – a view many people hold today. However, a deep division had already happened with the evolution of two distinct creative pathways – the director and the designer. Way back in 1911, while Appia was experimenting with space and light and human form at Hellerau in Germany, Diaghilev, the impresario extraordinaire, was inviting painters to create scenery and costumes for the theatre, and creating an incredible synthesis of colour, music and movement that enthused the world. Masked balls were held with the ‘Ballets Russes’ theme, and fashion designers such as Patou and Chanel were inspired to use the bold patterns and colours that were seen on stage. The word ‘theatrical’ became descriptive of expressive and individualistic dressing and decoration, and the concept of ‘stage décor’ was born.

These artistic collaborations between composers, painters and choreographers naturally brought together the primary artists commissioned to create new work that had a sensual non-verbal impact on the spectators. The parallel stream of Drama that used words and therefore actors, while creating new works with writers, also took the responsibility to re-create the dramatic repertoire, and needed a manager of the stage at the very least to make sure the actors went in the right doors and did not crash into each other. Producers, who financed and planned productions, devolved this responsibility to a new breed of people known as Stage Directors. These Stage Directors were charged to realise the Producer’s wishes, and over the course of the century have developed into ‘signature’ performers in their own right. The rise of the Stage Director meant that the artisan scene painters who had previously provided stock scenery to suit all needs, found themselves working with a specified designer who provided drawings and even models for made-to-measure scenery. Thus, these two interpretive professions evolved, and before long had become accepted as the way things worked, for better or for worse. But this was never, from the beginning an equal or balanced relationship. Crucially, it meant that designers, or visual theatre artists could only, and more or less can still only, work through the directors. The designers cannot choose the play they really want to do and then hire the director they would like to work with. A Designer may long to work on a particular drama or opera, but the likelihood that a director’s choices will coincide with the designer’s dreams is remote. Paradoxically, at the turn of the century it was normal for visual artists to initiate productions and add to their theatre work, writing, graphics, interior design and architecture. Vladimir Mayakovsky, and the Czech scenographer/director Frantisek Zelenka (1904–1944) are just two examples. These cross-disciplinary artists also extended their vision to embrace the new arts of film-making and projections, using them creatively as an integral part of the staging. However, by 1972 despite the exhortations of Robert Edmond Jones, the American lighting designer and scenic pioneer Joe Mielziner was telling design students at Yale University that, “the designers never precede the dauphin in the theatre. They are hardworking worms.”⁵ The accepted role of the designer became not only the logical mission to serve the play, but also to be the servant of the director. And just like in novels, the more obedient and obsequious the servant, the more the master classes believed they were good and enlightened employers, enjoying a unique and trusting relationship. In theatre terms this led to the illusion that the ideal collaboration involved artistic shorthand where the designer was so tuned in to the director that he, or sometimes she, could interpret what was in the director’s head and produce it on the stage without prolonged discussion. Ralph Koltai defined and refined this as the art of, “giving directors something they have never envisaged.”⁶

Custom and practice is an insidious thing. In a very short time, it seems impossible to remember that things can and often were done differently, for on the whole it is often easier not to upset the applecart, but to find devious methods of operating within the system. In many ways the theatre hierarchy replicates the architectural structures in which they operate. Producers and management offices are usually on the upper floors of the building in good light with perspective views, while the theatre artisans are usually located i...