Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design ed. by Birgit E. Wiens

Abstract

Reviewed by: Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design ed. by Birgit E. Wiens Barbora Příhodová CONTEMPORARY SCENOGRAPHY: PRACTICES AND AESTHETICS IN GERMAN THEATRE, ARTS AND DESIGN. Edited by Birgit E. Wiens. Performance + Design. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 248. Depending on the culture one comes from, scenography remains a contested term, innovative and useful for some, for others obscure or compromised. Even as a growing number of scholars writing in English have embraced the term, there is no universal consensus on its meaning. The book Contemporary Scenography: Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design, edited by Birgit E. Wiens, is a welcome contribution to the discussion, as it brings perspectives from German-speaking countries whose strong tradition of theatre and performance design is well known. Focusing on scenography in Germany after 1989 (with some examples from Austria and Switzerland) and intended for international readership, the book draws on the conference The Art of Scenography: Epistemes and Aesthetics (2016) that Wiens, adjunct senior lecturer at LMU/University of Munich and the author of Intermediale Szenographie (2014), organized as part of her larger research project. The volume consists of twelve chapters, containing a combination of analyses and reflections by artists and academics, as well as conversations with scenographers and artists. The book is divided in three parts: "Part One: Scenography in and beyond the Theatre: Aesthetics and Epistemes," "Part Two: Circulation of Scenographic Knowledge and Cultural Transfer," and "Part Three: Rethinking Scenography," in addition to the editor's robust critical introduction and a "preliminary résumé" by the editor in conversation with the architect and scenographer Serge von Arx. Finding her own place among the multiple definitions of scenography, Wiens borrows from Michel Foucault to designate it a "dispositif," or "a praxis and a discourse within a cultural and social framework" (26). This definition allows her to consider not only the production of scenography, which traditionally receives most critical attention, but also its reception and its "institutional contexts and discursive settings" (27). Wiens then delineates dual aims for her project: to "grasp the various concepts of scenography" and to "inspire a new way of examining the multifaceted, rapidly changing fields of this cross-disciplinary art and design practice" (6). While her concept of scenography is open and complex, every chapter of the book, whether addressing scenography onstage, in museums and exhibition spaces, or in urban interventions, focuses on space as it intersects with other elements, such as light and projections. Besides a brief mention of Bert Neumann's costume work, costume, for example, is entirely absent. Usually, scenography is conceptualized as an umbrella term for all design elements in performance (sets, costumes, lights, projections, sound, objects and props, and so on), although in lived language, the term is sometimes narrowed down to sets, and therefore space, a perspective that Contemporary Scenography seems to echo. Part 1 is the richest and most expansive, providing insights into the creative processes of prominent figures of scenography, such as Aleksandar Denić, Bert Neumann, Klaus Grünberg, and Katrin Brack. What is therefore revealed is the significance and imaginative force of design in German-speaking theatre. Scenography, as presented here, functions as an equal among performance's components, with scenographers as vital partners in production who traverse the dramaturgical, directorial, and acting processes. Denić, in conversation with Wiens, characterizes his designs as "playgrounds that offer a variety of options," but also "worlds of their own" (40). He likens the moment when he presents his designs before an artistic team to "travelling to some other planet"; it is then up to the team to "survive on that planet" (40). Sophie Rois, one of Germany's leading actresses, who, like the late Bert Neumann, was a long-term member of the Berlin Volksbühne, notes that Neumann's sets, often used as a starting point of rehearsal, worked as "open structures" that were both "resistive," offering "moments of risk and surprise," and also co-performers onstage (51). Rois's is a unique testimony, given that focus is usually on the collaboration between director and designer, but rarely on the interactions between designer and performers. Next, in her intriguing analysis of...