Demystifying Adolphe Appia: Understanding the Influences on Modern Stage Design

Abstract

The 19th Century stage had many influences, not the least of which was Richard Wagner. Adolphe Appia sought to correct Wagner's staging mistakes; but Appia's understanding of stage technology was weak. He was not on the same level as those who worked, designed and produced in the theatre as a profession. Those individuals had to solve the problems and limitations of the 19th Century stage with the emerging technologies of lighting and stage construction. Appia is best known for his essays and accompanying stage renderings which sought only to revolutionize the Wagnerian stage. He only executed a few of his designs and only one was in a legitimate theatre. Theatre had become a middle class activity in the 19th Century, but it's aesthetic style drew from painters and artists. The artists who collaborated with theatre had more to do with changing the 19th Century stage than one individual. Edvard Munch set the emotional tone in his paintings for the early part of the 20th Century. He was friends with August Strindberg and was admired by Ibsen. Max Reinhardt used Munch's set design for his production of Ibsen's Ghosts at the Kammerspiele Theatre in 1906. What was the relationship between art and theatre in the early 20th Century and to what effect?