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
2 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.
1. 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

1

JANE COLLINS AND ANDREW NISBET

PART I

Looking: the experience of seeing
1

5

Appearance and reality

11

BERTRAND RUSSELL

2

The simile of the cave

17

PLATO

3

The draughtsman’s contract: how an artist creates
an image

21

JOHN WILLATS

4

The camera obscura and its subject

33

JONATHAN CRARY

5

Meditations on a hobby horse or the roots of artistic form

40

ERNST GOMBRICH

6

From Camera Lucida

43

ROLAND BARTHES

v


CONTENTS

7 The most concealed object

51

HERBERT BLAU

8 Fascination and obsession

56

SUSAN BENNETT

PART II

Space and place

65

9 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 6 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


L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S

13.1
13.2
15.1
15.2
15.3
15.4
15.5
16.1

Frederick Kiesler’s Endless Theatre
Longitudinal section of Kiesler’s Endless Theatre
The square in which the installation was located. (Photo: Scott Palmer)
The two computers in the second-floor room. (Photo: Scott Palmer)
Ghostly footprints following participants. (Photo: Paul Davies)
The Cat’s Cradle image. (Photo: Paul Davies)
The football game being developed in rehearsal. (Photo: Scott Palmer)
The plans of the Bouffes du Nord and of the remains of the Rose
Theatre
22.1 The Devil’s Garden, Act I

22.2 Promptbook sketch for Act I of The Devil’s Garden
22.3 The Tower of London for Richard III, 1920
22.4 Richard’s backlit throne before the Tower of London
22.5 Back and sidelighting on Richard III’s throne
22.6 Hamlet, 1922: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech
24.1 The Glass Menagerie: exterior of the Wingfield apartment, rendering
by Jo Mielziner
24.2 The Glass Menagerie: interior of the Wingfield apartment, rendering
by Jo Mielziner
24.3 Death of a Salesman: a memory of the Loman house, rendering
by Jo Mielziner
25.1 Production photo from the 1928 The Threepenny Opera at the Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm. © bpk/Willi Saeger
25.2 Neher’s scenographic sketch for the scene from Brecht’s unfinished
play The Breadshop (1929–30). © Ulrike Stöll. Image supplied courtesy of
the Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich
25.3 Karl von Appen’s Arrangementskizzen for Turandot. Courtesy of the author
and the Brecht Archive
25.4 Von Appen’s drawing for the peasant wedding in The Caucasian Chalk
Circle. Courtesy of the author and the Brecht Archive
34.1 Fashion as change: “Changing with the times” by Fougasse, 1926.
Reproduced by kind permission of the proprietors of Punch
36.1–36.14 Oskar Schlemmer’s original illustrations and diagrams from Man
and Art Figure
37.1 View of the scenic action for Kordia based on a text by Slowacki,
drawing by Jerzy Gurawski
37.2 The Constant Prince based on the text by Calderon-Slowacki, drawing
by Jerzy Gurawski
37.3 1963 Dr Faustus based on Marlowe’s text, drawing by
Jerzy Gurawski

38.1 Scene from Pina Bausch’s Nur Du. (Photo: Ursula Kaufmann)
38.2 Pina Bausch’s “Dance choir” performing in Tanzabend Nelken.
(Photo: Ursula Kaufmann)
xi

96
96
109
110
111
113
115
119
164
165
166
167
168
169
179
181
184
190

192
197
199
254
265–77
282

282
283
286
287


L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S

38.3 Pina Bausch’s Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört. (Photo: Ursula
Kaufmann)
38.4 and 38.5 Exemplary moments from Two Cigarettes in the Dark and Nur Du.
(Photos: Ursula Kaufmann)
39.1 Stelarc: Sitting / Swaying: event for rock suspension. Tamura Gallery, Tokyo,
11 May 1980. (Photo: Keisuke Oki)
39.2 Stelarc: Handswriting: writing one word simultaneously with three hands.
Maki Gallery, Tokyo. (Photo: Keisuke Oki)
40.1 Glow, performed by Kristy Ayre. (Photo: Rom Anthoni)
40.2 Glow, performed by Kristy Ayre. (Photo: Artur Radeki)
49.1 Plan for the fortification of an imaginative work
50.1–50.7 Rae Smith’s original concept sketches for Warhorse

xii

290
292–3
298
299
302
302
372

378–384


CONTRIBUTORS

Adolphe Appia (1862–1928) was a Swiss stage and lighting designer and theorist. Appia’s
influential ideas for a unity between all the elements of staging and performance need to
be seen in relation to the Symbolist movement in the arts, although his vision is specific
to theatre. It is set out in his theoretical writing: The Staging of Wagner’s Musical Dramas
(1895), Music and Stage Setting (1899) and The Work of Living Art (1921). It was Appia, at
the end of the nineteenth century, who saw the potential for electric stage lighting to
become an integral and expressive element of performance rather than working simply as
a means of illumination.
Arnold Aronson is Professor of Theatre at Columbia University and President of the
History and Theory Commission of the Organisation Internationale des Scénographes,
Techniciens et Architectes de Théâtre (OISTAT). He has written a number of books on
theatre design and scenography including American Set Design (1985) and The History and
Theory of Environmental Scenography (1981).
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) was a French actor, director, writer and poet. He was
one of the early associates of the surrealist movement headed by André Breton,
but he broke away from the movement when Breton became a Communist and wanted
to involve the rest of the members in the party. However, Artaud continued to see
himself as a surrealist and in 1927 wrote the script for the famous surrealist film
La Coquille et le clergyman. Artaud’s radical ideas on theatre were first published in
France in 1938 and appeared in English in 1958 in a collection of essays entitled The
Theatre and its Double. This collection had a major influence on a generation of theatre
makers.
Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) was a French professor of philosophy and natural sciences
and a key figure in twentieth-century scientific thought and literary criticism. Until
recently he was relatively unknown outside France but he was a significant influence on

the early work of writers like Foucault and Althusser. He combined his study of the
history of science and philosophy with his study of literature to explore the creativity of
imagination. In publications such as The Poetics of Space (1957) and The Poetics of Reverie
(1960), Bachelard theorised daydreaming as the highest state of the mind. He taught
xiii


CONTRIBUTORS

philosophy at Dijon University in the 1930s and at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1940,
where he held the chair in History and the Philosophy of Science.
Sally Banes is Marian Hannah Winter Professor of Theatre History and Dance Studies at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her many books include, Writing Dancing in the Age
of Postmodernism (1994), Dancing Women: female bodies on stage (Routledge, 1998) and
Subversive Expectations: performance art and paratheater in New York 1976–85 (1998).
Howard Barker is a radical dramatist and poet. He is the author of over 30 plays which
have been translated into a number of languages and performed all over the world. He
writes for radio in England and Europe and has also written three librettos for opera. As
well as his theoretical works he has published five volumes of poetry. He is also a painter
with works held in national collections in England (V&A London) and Europe. His bestknown plays include Scenes from an Execution, The Castle, The Bite of the Night and The
Europeans.
Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was a French philosopher, literary theorist and critic. His
work extended over many fields, including writings on the theatre, particularly Brecht
and Artaud. He was an important influence on many schools of theory including
semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, existentialism and Marxism. At the time of
his death he was Professor at the Collège de France.
Christopher Baugh is Professor of Performance and Technology at the University of
Leeds. As a scenographer he worked in Bristol, California, Oregon, Manchester, London
and with the Abbey Theatre Dublin, winning a New York Drama Critics Tony award for
The Borstal Boy. With Mecklenburgh Opera he won the Prudential Award for Opera. He has

written Garrick and Loutherbourg (1990), “Stage design from Loutherbourg to Poel” in
J. Donohue, ed., The Cambridge History of British Theatre (2004) and “Scenography and
technology 1737–1843” in J. Moody and D. O’Quinn, eds, The Cambridge Companion to
British Theatre, 1737–1843 (2007). His book Theatre, Performance and Technology: the development of scenography in the 20th century (2005) was nominated in 2007 by the United
States Institute of Theatre Technology for a Golden Pen Award.
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German Marxist philosopher, cultural and literary
critic, essayist and translator. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and was a
friend of Bertolt Brecht, writing an analysis of his work. Benjamin committed suicide
while escaping the Nazi occupation of France. He is now regarded as one of the most
important twentieth-century thinkers on literature and modern aesthetics.
Susan Bennett is Professor of English at the University of Calgary. Her research is concerned primarily with areas of contemporary performance and critical theory. However,
she is also engaged in researching the Early Modern period including Shakespeare. She is
the author of Performing Nostalgia (1996).
Herbert Blau is an American director, cultural critic and prolific writer on theatre
and performance. He was co-founder and co-director of The Actor’s Workshop in San
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CONTRIBUTORS

Francisco in 1952 and later became director of the repertory theatre at the Lincoln
Center in New York. He introduced American audiences to European avant-garde drama,
including Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet. He also directed the first American production
of Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht.
Cristiane Bouger is a theatre director, dramaturge, performer and video artist. Born in
Brazil, she lives and works in New York. In 2003–4 she was a member of the Publishing
Council of the performance e-magazine Relâche (Brazil). She has published works in the
Movement Research Performance Journal, Critical Correspondence, on idanca.net and in Interatividade, o controle da cena e o público como agente compositor, organized by the scholar Margie
Rauen (EDUFBA, Brazil). In 2009, she was a collaborator and writer for PERFORMA
09 – The Third Visual Art Performance Biennial, in New York, curated by RoseLee

Goldberg.
Ross Brown is Dean of Studies and Reader in Sound at the Central School of Speech and
Drama, London. Between 1986 and 1994, Brown created sound and music for the RSC,
BBC, Red Shift, Glasgow Citizens, Lancaster Dukes Playhouse, Avignon Festival and
directors Elijah Moshinsky, Robert Sturua, and Peter Hall among many others. He joined
Central in 1994, where he developed the first honours and master’s degree programmes
in theatre sound design. He continues to research theatre sound and aurality, recently
completing the AHRC-funded project Noise Memory Gesture, investigating the aural theatre
of the memorial minute’s silence. His latest book, Sound: a reader in theatre practice, was
published in 2009.
Gabrielle Cody is Professor in the Department of Drama at Vassar College, where she has
taught since 1992. She concentrates her areas of teaching in dramatic literature, theory
and criticism, and performance studies. Cody is the author of Impossible Performances: Duras
as dramatist (2000), the editor of Hardcore from the Heart: Annie Sprinkle solo (2001) and the
co-editor of Re:Direction: a theoretical and practical guide (Routledge, 2001). She is also
the co-General Editor, along with Evert Sprinchorn, of The Columbia Encyclopedia of
Modern Drama (2007) and the editor of Performance Studies: the key concepts, forthcoming
from Routledge.
Edward Gordon Craig (1872–1966) was an English actor, theatre director, designer,
producer and theorist whose ideas were a major influence on the development of the
theatre in the twentieth century. He was the son of the famous actress Ellen Terry and
began his own career as an actor but quickly switched to directing and designing. He
challenged the scenic conventions of naturalism, experimenting instead with more
abstract forms of expression which exploited the potential of light, music and movement.
He was a prolific writer and in 1898 he launched the theatre journal The Page; then in
1908 The Mask (until 1929). Among his many books, On the Art of the Theatre was
published in 1911.
Jonathan Crary is Professor of Art History at Columbia University and has written widely
on contemporary art and the origins of modern visual culture. His book Suspensions
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CONTRIBUTORS

of Perception: attention, spectacle and modern culture (2000) won the 2001 Lionel Trilling
Book Award.
Adrian Curtin is a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama
at Northwestern University, and a member of Northwestern’s Society of Fellows. His
dissertation, entitled “Soundscapes of the European theatrical avant-garde, 1890–1935,”
examines the function and significance of sonic experimentation in vanguard theatre from
symbolism to surrealism. He has written articles on works by W. G. Sebald, James Joyce,
Ben Jonson and Peter Maxwell Davies, and an essay on teaching and trauma for the
journal Pedagogy.
Liam Doona is Head of the Department of Art and Design at Dun Laoghaire Institute of
Art, Design and Technology. He is also a freelance theatre designer. Doona was a founder
member of the Association of Courses in Theatre Design and alongside his educational
work has maintained a practice as set and costume designer which enables him to work
for a number of leading touring theatre companies and theatres. Doona teaches Ireland’s
first B.A. Honours Degree in Design for Stage and Screen at Dun Laoghaire.
Tim Etchells is a writer, director and artist. He is best known for his work as artistic
director and writer of the UK-based performance ensemble Forced Entertainment. He
also develops his own projects in a variety of media including SMS, video and installation.
He has written widely about performance and contemporary culture, and in addition to
Certain Fragments – a collection of theoretical writing and performance texts (Routledge,
1999) – he has published: The Dream Dictionary (2001) and Endland Stories (1999). Etchells
is currently a Creative Research Fellow in the Department of Theatre Studies at Lancaster
University.
Arthur B. Feinsod is currently the Chair of the Department of Theatre at Indiana State
University and Artistic Director of the Crossroads Repertory Theatre. At ISU he teaches
an introduction to theatre for majors as well as courses in playwriting, directing, theatre

history, the history of theatrical style, and mask acting.
Richard Foreman is an American writer, director, designer and avant-garde theatre maker.
He founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968. His prolific output of work
includes writing, directing and designing over 50 plays, international touring, workshops,
symposiums and multimedia events. Several volumes of his plays have been published
throughout the world. In 2004, Foreman established the Bridge Project to promote
dialogue in the arts and international exchange between countries throughout the world.
In 1990 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Endowment for
the Arts.
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French academic, philosopher, historian, sociologist
and cultural theorist. Foucault’s work is hugely influential and informs critical discussion
in a wide range of disciplines, including the arts. His writing on madness and insanity,
prisons, discipline and punishment, and sexuality reflects his interest in the relationship
between knowledge and power. In 1970 Foucault was elected to the prestigious Collège
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CONTRIBUTORS

de France. Madness and Unreason: history of madness in the classical age (1961), The Order of
Things (1966), Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976) stand out
among a large number of other publications.
Gabriella Giannachi is Associate Professor in Performance and New Media and a director
of the Centre for Intermedia at Exeter University. Her research engages with the aesthetics and politics of mixed-reality performance, and the impact of virtuality on the performing arts. She is currently investigating the construction and performance of presence in
mediated and simulated environments, working with artists and computer scientists from
Europe and the United States.
Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) was a professor and influential art historian. He was the
author of many works of art criticism and art history, including The Story of Art (1950),
which is regarded by many as one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts.
He was born in Vienna but he worked in London from 1936 until his retirement in 1976.

He was knighted in 1972.
Jane Goodall is Associate Professor, Writing and Society, at the University of Western
Sydney. She has written extensively on arts in the modern era, with a special interest in
the relationship between the arts and sciences. Her academic publications include Artaud
and the Gnostic Drama: performance and evolution in the age of Darwin (1994; winner of
the Australasian Drama Studies Association’s Robert Jordan Prize) and, with Christa
Knellwolf, the collection Frankenstein’s Science (2008), which contextualises Mary
Shelley’s work in contemporary scientific and literary debates. Her book on Stage Presence
was published by Routledge in 2008.
Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999) was a Polish theatre director, performer, actor trainer and
theorist who founded the Laboratory Theatre in Wrocław, Poland. The Laboratory was
devoted to researching the art of theatre, with particular focus on the actor and the spatial
relationship between actor and audience. His book Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) has had a
major influence on actor training and experimentation in theatre around the world.
Wolfgang Iser (1926–2007) was a German literary scholar who, together with Hans
Robert Jauss, is credited with founding the “Constance School” of Reception Aesthetics.
Iser shifted the focus from the author to the reader by analysing what occurred during the
act of reading. His theory, which became known as “Reader Response,” had a major
impact on literary criticism in the late 1960s.
Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990) was a Polish artist, writer, designer and theatre director. He
was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków where he studied under the stage
designer Karol Frycz, who was a great admirer of Edward Gordon Craig. In 1955 he
founded the Cricot 2 group with a number of theatre and fine artists dedicated to
exploring non-realist modes of expression in theatre. His work was at the forefront of the
European avant-garde in the second half of the twentieth century and his influence spread
to America. He left a body of theoretical writings in which he outlines the rationale
underpinning his radical theatrical ideas.
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CONTRIBUTORS

Nick Kaye is an academic and researcher in post-war experimental performance. He is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and currently Professor of Performance Studies
at Exeter University, where he is also co-director of the Centre for Intermedia. Kaye’s
many publications include Postmodernism and Performance (1994), and as well as contributing
articles regularly to a number of journals he has also devised and directed research-based
multimedia performance projects shown in London, Dresden and Beijing.
Thomas Laqueur is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His
publications include: Religion and Respectability: Sunday schools and working class culture
(1976); and with Catherine Gallagher he edited The Making of the Modern Body (1987) and
Solitary Sex: a cultural history of masturbation (2003). Making Sex: body and gender from the
Greeks to Freud (1990) has been translated into over 12 languages.
Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) was a French academic, philosopher and sociologist. Lefebvre
wrote widely on politics, philosophy and sociology and is best known for two key
publications, The Critique of Everyday Life (1947) and The Production of Space (1974).
Lefebvre’s writing has had a significant influence on a wide range of disciplines, particularly human geography and urban planning. More recently it has informed the discussion
and critique of space in theatre and performance.
Gay McAuley is Honorary Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the
University of Sydney. She has made a significant contribution to the development of
research into space and place in the context of performance. In 1989, after almost two
decades of development work exploring modes of collaboration between academics and
practitioners, McAuley established the Department of Performance Studies as an interdisciplinary centre at the University of Sydney. Space in Performance (1999) was awarded
the Rob Jordan Prize by the Australasian Drama Studies Association.
Doreen Massey is a social scientist and geographer. Her research (re)-examines the geographical organisation of society, and our conceptions of space and place, and looks at the
effects of globalisation on social and political interaction. Massey considers these spatial
issues in terms of gender, race, identity and the power politics of multinationalism. In
1982, Massey joined the Open University where she is currently Professor of Geography.
She is co-founder and co-editor of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture. In 1998, she
received the Prix Vautrin Lud, the prestigious International Geography Prize. Massey was

made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2000.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) was a French philosopher and phenomenologist.
Phenomenology challenges Cartesian dualism and the separation of mind and body and
seeks to develop a radical redescription of embodied experience which gives primacy to
perception and ways of “being-in-the-world”. These ideas are associated with existentialism: a philosophical movement which became famous in the 1940s and 1950s through
the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Merleau-Ponty wrote on art,
literature and politics but he also engaged with the sciences, particularly psychology and
cognitive science.
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CONTRIBUTORS

Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940) was an influential Russian actor, director, producer
and writer. His avant-garde productions challenged the conventions of naturalism. He
worked with the Bolsheviks after the revolution and was a key figure in the transformation
of post-revolution theatrical aesthetics emphasising the visual aspects of performance
and employing constructivist scenic elements. He developed a system of acting known as
“biomechanics,” which displayed the kinetic potential of the human body through highly
stylised movements. He was arrested in 1939 as part of the Stalinist purges and shot
in 1940.
Scott Palmer is a lecturer in Scenography at the University of Leeds. His research interests
focus on lighting design and the interaction between technology and performance. Palmer
is the author of the Essential Guide to Stage Management, Lighting and Sound (2000), and has
published articles on technical training and lighting design practice in the British theatre.
He is currently joint editor of the Association of Lighting Designers’ Focus journal.
Patrice Pavis is a renowned international scholar who has written extensively on Theatre
and Performance. Professor of Theatre at Paris VIII University, he is the editor of The
Intercultural Performance Reader published by Routledge in 1996. Currently he is Professor
of Theatre in the Drama and Theatre Studies Department at the University of Kent.

Plato (c. 427–347 ) was a Greek philosopher and a student of Socrates, who founded the
Academy, the first acknowledged institution of higher education. He is recognised as one
of the greatest influences on the development of western thought.
Sita Popat is a lecturer in dance at the University of Leeds. Her research interests centre on
the relationship between dance choreography and new technologies. Her book on online
choreography is published by Routledge, titled Invisible Connections: dance, choreography and
internet communities (2006). She is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Performance
Arts and Digital Media.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a British philosopher, mathematician, logician, historian and social reformer. He was one of the most widely read philosophers of the twentieth
century and in 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Richard Schechner is an American director, writer and academic. He has been immensely
influential in terms of broadening the definitions of theatre and performance and in the
establishment of performance studies. Schechner was a founder member of the experimental theatre company The Performance Group (1967–80), which later became The
Wooster Group. In the 1970s and 1980s Schechner travelled extensively in Asia, where
he worked with the anthropologist Victor Turner and developed an interest in ritual and
religious performance. His prolific output of work continues as artistic director of East
Coast Artists (1991–), through his own writings and as editor of Routledge’s World’s
of Performance series. He is currently Professor of Performance Studies at New York
University.
Oskar Schlemmer (1888–1943) was a German painter, sculptor and theatre designer
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CONTRIBUTORS

associated with the Bauhaus school where he ran the sculpture department and the stage
workshops. His Triadic Ballet (Triadisches Ballett) which premiered in Stuttgart in 1922
became internationally renowned. Strongly influenced by cubism, he explored the problematic of the human figure in space. He left a large body of work and published his
theories on art as well as his letters and diary entries from 1910 to 1943.
Lee Simonson (1888–1967) was an American stage designer and a leading figure in

what became known as the New American Stagecraft movement. He worked with the
Washington Square Players and in the twenties for the Theatre Guild. He was a leading
exponent of the move away from naturalistic stage settings towards abstraction, and his
seminal work The Stage is Set, written in 1932, influenced a generation of designers. Other
works include, Part of a Lifetime: drawings and designs, 1919–1940 (1943) and The Art of
Scenic Design: a pictorial analysis of stage setting and its relation to theatrical productions (1950).
Rae Smith is a British theatre designer whose work has been seen all over the world. Based
in the United Kingdom, she has worked at the Royal Court, the Lyric Hammersmith, the
Royal Shakespeare Company and with Theatre de Complicité as well as on Broadway. Her
designs for opera include productions in Brussels and Strasbourg, and with the Welsh
National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera and the English National Opera Studio.
Her design for Warhorse at London’s National Theatre won the Evening Standard Best
Design Award 2007.
Josef Svoboda (1920–2002) was a Czech artist and visionary scenic designer, often called
the father of modern theatre design, although he preferred to use the term scenography.
He trained initially as an architect and later studied scenography in Prague. From 1948,
for over 30 years, he was the leading designer at the Czech National Theatre and during
that period he designed productions all over the world. Co-founder of the Laterna Magika
Theatre, he became its Artistic Director in 1993. He was internationally renowned for his
innovative use of light and his multimedia installations involving live actors and the use of
film projections. Svoboda achieved many awards in his lifetime, including honorary doctorates from universities in the United States and France and from the Royal College of
Art in London.
Nicholas Till is professor and director of the Centre for Research in Opera and Music
Theatre at the University of Sussex. Prior to this he taught visual art and theatre at
Wimbledon College of Art, where he was also course leader of the M.A. in Scenography.
His professional activities have included extensive work as a theatre and opera director,
and he is co-artistic director of the experimental music theatre company Post-Operative
Productions. He has published articles on music, visual arts, theatre and performance in a
number of journals, and his book Mozart and the Enlightenment: truth, virtue and beauty in
Mozart’s operas was published in 1992.

Andrew Todd is an architect who works from Paris where his practice is engaged with
research, consultancy and design for arts and performance spaces. Todd compiled and
co-authored The Open Circle (2003) with the scenographer Jean-Guy Lecat. Lecat was
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CONTRIBUTORS

Peter Brook’s technical director between 1976 and 2000 with responsibility for touring
Brook’s productions throughout the world.
Lois Tyson is Professor of English at Grand Valley State University, Michigan. Her other
books include Learning for a Diverse World: using critical theory to read and write about literature
(2001) and Psychological Politics of the American Dream: the commodification of subjectivity in
twentieth century American literature (1994).
John Willats (?–2006) was a sculptor and writer. Born in London, he studied at Queens’
College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Art. He lectured extensively on children’s
drawing and fine art. He is the author of Art and Representation: new principles in the analysis
of pictures (1997).
Elizabeth Wilson is Emeritus Professor in Cultural Studies at London Metropolitan
University. She taught full time at London Metropolitan University for many years and
has also taught at Stanford University, California, Goldsmiths, the Architectural Association, King’s College London and the London College of Fashion, where she is currently
Visiting Professor.
Robert Wilson is a leading American avant-garde theatre director and visual artist whose
work crosses the boundaries between fine art, theatre, performance opera and dance.
His interdisciplinary productions foreground the visual in performance and his extensive
output of works include collaborations with Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Heiner Müller
and Tom Waits.

xxi

FOREWORD
Pamela Howard OBE

A decade ago, the word and the practice of scenography were relatively unknown except in
parts of Eastern Europe. Some thought it was a spelling mistake, others a grandiose word for
set design and many thought it was just a symptom of designers getting above themselves,
with the inevitable consequences of established boundaries and territories being invaded.
However, what has happened is perhaps less dramatic, but much more important and long
lasting. Scenography – the totality of visual creation in the stage space – has become a subject
in its own right. The word is no longer provocative, and has become part of our language, if
not always understood. It features in dictionaries, on Google, and even in job advertisements.
Simply, Scenography has arrived, and plenty of people are enthused and want to study,
research and practice, taking part in the never-ending evolution of theatre forms.
As soon as a field of study becomes recognised it brings with it new and rigorous
challenges. The student quickly realises that entering the scenographic world means creating
work that is far greater than just putting something on the stage. It demands contextualisation, a clear personal aesthetic and an ability to see objectively the implications of the
scenographic iconography. The practitioner realises at first hand that spectators can and do
read visually and how this helps to create the critical debate that makes theatre the thrilling
and immediate discipline it can be. Researchers become a living part of theatre practice,
feeding a collection of ideas and reflections into the arena to stimulate and provoke further
critical engagement. Teachers and academics have to be informed, be aware of current practice
and future developments, and be able to bring all these new shoots into a coherent framework for the many eager and demanding students who want to explore the scenographic
world. Thus a sourcebook aimed at all branches of scenography becomes an essential need,
especially if it links theory and practice, and brings together in one book clues and pointers
for further personal investigation and research.
In a creative discipline there is rarely a shortage of ideas. However, few ideas in themselves are truly interesting. What is really interesting is how ideas can be reinterpreted and
reinvented to be relevant to our times. To imagine what can be done, we have to know what
has been done, and to do that a coherently organised sourcebook is an essential resource. In
scenography this has been much needed for a long time. Of course everyone has their own

individual path and area of interest, but theatre is always about opening minds to unfamiliar
ideas and giving different perspectives to seemingly familiar worlds. This is the starting
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F O R E WO R D

point for the kind of critical debate and discussion that underpin creative and provocative
work and that move the subject forward. In this book the student can meet historical and
contemporary figures, evaluate their contributions, and be informed enough to continue on
a pathway of personal research that may well end up in a surprisingly different place, as real
adventures often do. Of course, scenography is a collaborative art and this Reader should
also serve as an inspiration and valuable sourcebook for drama students and theatre studies
students and give pause for thought to all those who still think there is a division between
the literary and the visual in theatre and performance.
The summary of all this thinking is embodied in the new manifesto for the former Prague
Quadrennial of Stage Design, now renamed the Prague Quadrennial for Performance
Design and Space 2011. In this new guise, the Quadrennial will be “working with performance to research scenography as a wider cultural phenomenon, appearing in many aspects of
art and life”. This focal point of world scenography is responding to the increasingly complex realities of contemporary theatre making. Over 52 nations will be exhibiting works that
reflect what has been happening in their countries during the past four years. The expansion
of the field, reflected in the name change and the manifesto of the Prague Quadrennial,
shows beyond doubt the timely necessity for this erudite and logical sourcebook.

xxiv


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people to thank for their support, encouragement and assistance in the
compilation of this reader. First and foremost our heartfelt thanks go to Nick Gardner, Head

of Music, Performance and Theatre at Northbrook College in West Sussex who has been
instrumental in the development of this book since its inception. Nick has contributed ideas,
advice and practical support throughout the long process of its maturation towards the final
manuscript. We wish to thank Dr Helen Cornish for listening to our early ideas and
expanding our horizons in terms of the potential scope of the reader. At Routledge we wish
to thank Talia Rodgers for her unflagging enthusiasm for the project and her faith in us as
fledgling editors, and Ben Piggott for his helpful editorial guidance.
The University of the Arts London has supported this project through the Research Department of CCW (Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon). We would particularly like to thank
Anita Taylor and Eileen Hogan for helping to facilitate this. Northbrook College have also
been generous in their support and special thanks go to Simon Ives and Jacqueline Catteneo.
In addition we are most grateful to Alastair Torley and the library staff at Northbrook
College as well as Helen Davis and the library staff at Wimbledon College of Art, all of
whom responded with patience and good humour to our many requests for information,
sometimes at very short notice.
Our principal advisors on this Reader were Greer Crawley, designer and a director of the
Society of British Theatre Designers, Liam Doona, designer and Head of the Department of
Art and Design at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, County Dublin,
Ireland and Joanne Tompkins, Professor of Drama, School of English, Media Studies and Art
History, The University of Queensland, Australia. We thank them all for generously giving
their time to read early drafts, for their honest criticism, and for their invaluable advice. The
range and quality of the Reader has been much enhanced by their input.
Discussions with our colleagues across the fields of theatre, performance and scenography
have of course been a major influence on the form and content of this book. Too numerous
to mention individually this includes members of The International Federation of Theatre
Research (IFTR) Scenography Working Group and The Association of Courses in Theatre
Design (ACTD). However, special thanks are due to David Burrows, Dr Bridget Escolme,
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A C K N OW L E D G E M E N T S

Peter Farley, Professor Vivian Gardner, Pamela Howard, Michael Pavelka, doctoral student
Esther Armstrong and Antje Sachwitz in Berlin who helped us to get permission to reproduce the Karl Von Appen images. We must also mention the museum staff and archivists
from all over the world who helped us source many of the images that appear in this volume.
And last but not least a big thank you to the students of theatre and performance at
Wimbledon and Northbrook whose stimulating discussions and challenging minds inspired
us, made us think harder and confirmed the need for a collection of this nature.
***
As editors we wish to thank the authors and publishers for their time and assistance in
bringing this collection together and we gratefully acknowledge permission to publish the
articles and extracts that follow.

Permissions
B. Russell (1912). The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, pp. 1–6. Reprinted by
permission of Oxford University Press.
Plato (1955). “Book 7: the simile of the cave” trans. H. D. P. Lee, in The Republic. London:
Penguin, pp. 278–83. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
J. Willats (1990). “The draughtsman’s contract: how an artist creates an image” in H. Barlow,
C. Blakemore and M. Weston-Smith, eds, Images and Understanding. Cambridge University
Press, pp. 235–43, 249–54. Reproduced with permission.
Jonathan Crary Techniques of the Observer: on vision and modernity in the nineteenth century,
pp. 38–43, 47–50, © 1990 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by permission of the MIT
Press.
E. H. Gombrich (1963). “Meditations on a hobby horse or The roots of artistic form” in
Meditations on a Hobby Horse. London: Phaidon, pp. 1, 4, 5, 7–8.
From Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, published by Jonathan Cape. Reproduced by
permission of The Random House Group Ltd for the UK, and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
for the US and rest of world.
Herbert Blau, The Audience, pp. 84–9. © 1990 The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

From Susan Bennett, Theatre Audiences: a theory of production and reception (© 1997,
Routledge) pp. 168–76. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Books UK.
M. Foucault and J. Miskowiec (1986). “Of other spaces,” Diacritics 16(1) Spring, pp. 22–7.
H. Lefebvre (1991). The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 37–42, 46.
D. Bablet and M.-L. Bablet (1982). Adolphe Appia 1862–1928: actor – space – light. London:
John Calder, pp. 57–9. Reproduced by permission of Oneworld Classics.
xxvi