Theatre and performance design: a reader in scenography

Abstract

JANE COLLINS ANI ANIIEW NISIET |EIS|, THEAT?? AHB PEREBBMAHCE BESIEH: A REABEB IH SCEHBEBAPHY (LONDON ANI NEW roil: IOITIEIGE, 20101Josef Svoboda, 'the father of modern scenography' (390), insists - in Jarka Burian, The Scenography of Josef Svoboda (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971) - that 'true scenography is what happens when the curtain opens and can't be judged in any other way'. Nevertheless, in this fabulous reader Jane Collins and Andrew Nisbet have collected a fascinating range of existing and newly commissioned contributions that explore and expand our understanding of scenography in theatre and performance. The title, as the editors mention in their Introduction (1), has been carefully chosen to encompass the terms 'theatre', 'performance', 'design' and 'scenography' - practices which 'are sometimes considered discretely but more often paired when they are written or spoken about'. Moreover, 'the blurring of boundaries between these fields is one of the distinguishing features of current practice' (1). A reader of this kind has long been missing and therefore warrants celebration.It is now widely recognised that the term 'design' in relation to theatre and performance carries with it the baggage - commonly misrecognised as 'Aristotelian' - that the visual and spatial aspects of theatre are less important than words and actions. Arnold Aronson refers, elsewhere, to scenography as 'an all encompassing visual-spatial construct as well as the process of change and transformation that is an inherent part of the physical vocabulary of the stage'. For Svoboda, the term 'scenography' refers to the 'interplay of space, time movement and light on stage' - in Pamela Howard, What Is Scenography? (London: Routledge, 2002) - and Implies 'a handling of total production space, which means not only the space of the stage, but also the auditorium in terms of the demands of a given production' (in Burian). It concerns itself with architectural forms, objects and bodies in space, but also with making the invisible visible, with what exists between architecture, objects and bodies. In an extract in the reader, Svoboda quotes Paul Klee on this point: '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' (391). Scenography is dramaturgically active, and might indeed be thought of as the equivalent of visual and spatial dramaturgy; see, for example, the editors' discussion of 'the scenographic' (140-2). Hence the practice and theory of scenography are discursive, and this reader is 'an invitation to enter into this discourse, to participate in this journey of enquiry' (1).The readings are divided into five parts, each of which contributes to the discourse of scenography. The sections move from broad issues of philosophy and perception, towards more specific issues of scenographic practice, and then broaden out again to the way that spectators make meaning from scenography within these various contexts. The sections recognise that this discourse involves, at least, the sub-discourses of ways of seeing, with all the cognitive, philosophical and cultural questions this involves; broad issues of space and place; the shaping of space and the visual - and aural and olfactory - field in performance by scenographers, and other theatre artists; bodies in space; and the contribution of spectators to meaning-making. Each section is introduced generally, each reading is further contextualised, and there are suggestions for further reading at the end of each essay. The editors admit that most readings throughout the book 'come from a western/Eurocentric position' (2).In Part 1, 'Looking: The Experience of Seeing', readings cover'ways of seeing across a range of different historic and cultural contexts' (5). Extracts from Bertrand Russell and Plato address the philosophical issue of distinguishing between appearance and 'reality', while John Willats, Jonathan Crary and Ernst Gombrich address the problematic relationship between representation and the object represented. …