Adolphe Appia
| Swiss | |
-Appia had no lovefor the use of the proscenium stage, elaborate costumes, or painted sets. Instead, he favored powerful, suggestive stagings that would create an artistic unity, a blending of actor, stage, lighting, and music. After a long study of the operas, Appia concluded that there was disunity because of certain jarring visual elements. The moving actor, the perpendicular settings, and thehorizontal floor were in conflict with one another. He theorized that the scenery should be replaced with steps, ramps, platforms, and drapes that blended with the actor's movements and thehorizontal floor. In this way the human presence and its beauty would be accented and enhanced. For Appia, space was a dynamic area that attracted both actor and spectator and brought about their interaction. Complementing his concept of space was his belief that lighting should be used to bring together the visual elements of the drama.
-Appia evolved his own theory that the rhythm inherent in a text is the key to every gesture and movement an actor uses during a performance. He concluded that the mastery of rhythm could unify the spatial and other elements of an opera into a harmonious synthesis.
-Appia's genius was finally recognized and his theories prevailed in spite of the critics. His theories of staging, use of space, and lighting have had a lasting influence on modern stagecraft.
-"For him, the art of stage production in its pure sense was nothing other than the embodiment of a text or a musical composition, made sensible by the living action of the human body and its reaction to spaces and masses set against it."
Edward Gordon Craig
-Aside from his difficulties with personality conflicts (Craig was known as an eccentric), his ideas were far ahead of his time. He believed in the director as the ultimate creator, one who must initiate all ideas and bring unity to a production. He created the idea of the actor as "ubermarionette," whose movement was not psychologically motivated or naturalistic, but rather symbolic. The actor should be like a mask for the audience to interpret. Finally, he introduced a new stagecraft--one based on the magic of imagination rather than on everyday details.
-If Craig's actual work was limited, and sometimes impractical because of technical limitations, his writing was prolific. In 1898 he launched the theater journal The Page; in 1908 The Mask (until 1929); and from 1918 to 1919 he wrote The Marionette. He also published The Art of the Theatre (1905), On the Art of the Stage, Towards a New Theatre, Scene, The Theatre Advancing, and Books and Theatres, as well as biographies of Henry Irving and his mother.
-Craig's work in the theater and his writings have influenced many of the 20th century's innovators, including Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Brecht. He continued to be a source of inspiration for many years--many of the ideas that he developed in the early part of the 20th century were not realized on the stage until the 1980s. Edward Gordon Craig died at the age of 94 in 1966.
Svoboda, Josef
-(1920–2002) Designer and architect, Czech Republic. Svoboda has worked on many world stages, such as Chekhov’s Tri sestry(Three Sisters, 1967), at the Old Vic, London, directed by Laurence Olivier, and Goethe’s Faust II (1991), at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, directed by Giorgio Strehler. By means of kinetic and light designs, he activates the stage space, which he understands as a dramatic component contributing to the action.
-He also makes use of stage vehicles (Kundera’sMajitelé klícu (The Owner of the Keys), National Theatre Prague, 1962), and suspended architectural elements (Romeo and Juliet,National Theatre Prague, 1963). With light he creates dematerialised objects (Wagner’sTristan and Isolde, Grand Opéra Geneve, 1978) and imaginary spaces. He uses mirrors to reflect and outline the stage action as well as the public many times over (Pirandello’s I giganti della montagna (The Mountain Giants), Theatre Beyond the Gate II (Za Branou II), Prague, 1994), and various projection techniques on multiple and moving spaces, television cameras allowing instant reproduction of shots on the stage itself (Nono’s Intoleranza, The Opera Group, Boston, 1965), or holography and laser beams (Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Munich, 1970). He is a true wizard of the stage, casting his spell by means of modern science and technology.
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