Handbook of Set Design E-Book

Colin Winslow

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Seitenzahl: 368

Beschreibung

"The Handbook of Set Design" is a comprehensive guide to designing scenery of all kinds for a wide variety of stages, large and small. From concept to final dress rehearsal and performance, it takes you through the practical process of turning initial ideas and sketches into final sets that enhance the audience's understanding of the play as well as providing a memorable experience in their own right. Many photographs of stage sets designed by the author are included, together with explanatory illustrations, stage plans, technical drawings, models and colour renderings for a wide range of productions. Topics covered include: various types of stage, stage directions and naturalism; style, colour, texture and form, realism and naturalism; both traditional and state-of-the-art digital techniques involved in stage design; tools and methods for hand drafting, painting and model making; moving and changing scenery; and scenic tricks and special effects.

Leseprobe

First published in 2006 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2023

© Colin Winslow 2006

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4355 6

Dedication

For Robin

Illustration Credits

Astonleigh Studio, Odiham.

Dover Books Inc.

J. Alleyne Photography, Edmonton, Canada.

Ellis Bros., Edmonton, Canada.

Fat Chance Productions, for HTV (The Making of Mother Goose, directed by Alison Sterling).

Barry Hamilton, Mold, North Wales.

The Sandra Faye Guberman Library, Department of Drama, University of Alberta, Canada.

Rod Staines, Chipping Norton.

The Theatre Museum, London.

All other photographs, drawings and illustrations are by the author or in his collection.

All sets and costumes were designed by the author unless otherwise stated.

Frontispiece: Setting for The Ends of the Earth by Morris Panych at the Timms Centre for the Arts in Edmonton, Canada. Lighting by Lee Livingstone. Costumes by David Lovett. Photo: Ellis Bros.

Back cover: Nuova Opera’s production of Don Giovanni, directed by Carol Castel, with costumes by Betty Kolodziej and lighting by Lee Livingstone. Photo: J. Alleyne Photography.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 The Designer’s Task

2 A Brief History of Set Design

3 The Theatre Building

4 The Design Process

5 Tools and Techniques

6 Style and Creativity

7 Computer Techniques

8 Moving Scenery

9 Scenic Tricks and Special Effects

10 A Production of Treasure Island

Glossary of Technical Theatre Terms and Jargon

Bibliography

Index

INTRODUCTION

Generally speaking, people go to the theatre to see the performers. Hardly anyone will admit to going to a show to enjoy the scenery. This is why theatre posters produced specifically to attract an audience to a production will print the names of the actors in a large typeface, sometimes even bigger than the title of the show, whereas the set designer is lucky to be mentioned at all. However, it is consoling for a designer to note that, even if a play has been written by the greatest playwright who ever lived and performed by the most talented actors, audiences will always tend to remember what they see rather than what they hear. For example, anyone who saw Miss Saigon can describe the moment when the helicopter descended to the stage, even if he or she cannot remember a single line of the dialogue. In spite of this, they would probably not be able to tell you that the show was designed by John Napier.

The set designer should be encouraged by this, for those of us who work in theatre aim to create a rather bizarre world in which the physical laws of normal, everyday life become redundant and are often overthrown completely. We skip about from place to place and from time to time, for instance, and our characters rarely behave in the way we might expect in real life. For the length of the show at least we do our best to persuade our audiences to believe in the particular world we have created. However, it is hard for audiences to believe fully in Hamlet, Hedda Gabler or Gary Essendine if we remind them that a team of designers, builders, scene painters and prop makers has laboured for a long time to create the deception. We attempt to conceal the theatre’s technical mysteries, so we should not complain when it appears to an audience as if it all happens by some special kind of theatrical magic that it does not fully understand.

A picture book set for Beauty and the Beast at The Theatre, Chipping Norton. Directed by Johnny Worthy. Lighting by Dan Franklin. Photo: Rod Staines

There are times however, when, for artistic reasons, we deliberately point out to our audiences that what they are experiencing is really all mere illusion and pretence: We show them the techniques we use; we reveal the sources of our stage lighting; allow them to see the stage hands moving scenery or actors donning costumes and assuming different roles. A great exponent of this technique was, of course, Bertolt Brecht with the Berliner Ensemble, who aimed to ‘alienate’ his audiences by discarding most of the established stage conventions of his day. Surprisingly, the theatre magic still worked, grabbing us by the throat and often moving us to tears. The abiding memories are still visual: Mother Courage dragging her wagon around the stage, the boxing ring in Das Kleine Mahagonny or a glimpse of Helene Veigel standing in the breadline in Die Tage der Commune.

We cannot avoid accepting some theatrical conventions: Attempts at innovation often mean merely substituting one convention for another. Sometimes, like Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, we invent new theatrical conventions in an attempt to construct a convincing representation of real life on stage, and sometimes, like the kabuki theatre of Japan, we use theatrical devices to create a completely non-realistic, stylized world. Whatever we do, however, we cannot create Life itself, only a semblance of it. If we do it well, the audience will readily accept whatever kind of reality we offer, and consequently, the artists who have striven to create that world become an irrelevancy. The designer should accept this with some degree of humility for it is an indication of success.

A note about technical terms

All professions have their own jargon that sometimes seems deliberately calculated to befuddle outsiders, and the theatre is no exception. Some of these expressions have been heard backstage in theatres for many decades, sometimes for centuries, and they have been supplemented by more recent terminology as this has become necessary. It is useful to become familiar with these terms, so no attempt has been made to avoid them here and a glossary has been included at the end of the book.

1 THE DESIGNER’S TASK

It can sometimes be a little difficult to decide exactly what we mean by ‘theatre’. It is a word that encompasses such a wide assortment of different forms, from Greek tragedy to strip shows: it includes opera, ballet, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Shakespeare, Strindberg, pantomime, Agatha Christie, musicians and magicians, ventriloquists and funambulists. It can be merely entertaining, or it can provide the most cerebral of human experiences. It can easily move us to laughter or to tears, and on some occasions has literally started riots.

The set designer’s work is complete only when combined with other artists, including lighting designers, costume designers and performers. Costume by Roger Schultz. Lighting by Kerem Çetinel. Photo: Ellis Bros

Richard II at the Redgrave Theatre, Farnham. Directed by Graham Watkins. Lighting by Mark Doubleday. Photo: Astonleigh Studio, Odiham

‘Theatre’ is not merely a building containing a stage: theatre can happen in a barn, a city park, a church or a school gymnasium, in fact, it is hard to think of a location where it could not take place. One of the most exciting pieces of theatre the author has experienced personally was a production of R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End, a play set in the trenches of the First World War, and in this instance performed in a suburban living-room lined with sandbags and earth, and with pyrotechnic ‘bombs’ exploding at the bottom of the garden. The naturalistic acting style permitted by this extreme intimacy created a special kind of electricity impossible to capture on a more conventional stage.

It may help us to define the subject by considering what elements are essential to the creation of theatre. If necessary, we could manage without a script, scenery, costumes, lighting or even a specific place to perform in. The only two absolutely essential elements are performer and audience. Theatre could consist of just one performer playing to an audience of only one. A mother telling a bedtime story to her child creates a basic form of theatre, consisting solely of that essential communication between performer and audience. It is a two-way communication: the performer can change the emotions, outlook, mood and even the opinions of the audience, and, in return, the audience’s response affects the performance. The changes may often be small, but they have sometimes been big enough to cause revolutions. Theatre is a dangerous medium. This, of course, is the fundamental difference between theatre and cinema: the cinema audience can never change the performance, and the communication process is one-way only.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the vast stage at Wolf Trap near Washington, DC as part of the American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976. Directed by Tom Fleming. Lighting by Robert Ornbo.

Dick Whittington sets out to walk to London on the tiny stage of The Theatre at Chipping Norton. Directed by Teddy Green. Lighting by David Norton.

Peter Brook begins his formative book The Empty Space with, ‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space while someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.’ It appears, therefore, that the element of set design is not by any means essential to the creation of good theatre. Yet this is a book entirely devoted to just that unnecessary element. So what exactly can the set designer contribute? The designer can indicate the geographical location of a scene. The American stage designer Robert Edmond Jones, writing in 1941, said, ‘The purpose of a stage setting … is simply … to remind the audience of where the actors are supposed to be.’ This may be fundamentally true; however, scenery performing this function is a comparatively recent innovation in the lengthy history of the stage. Shakespeare, for example, did not find it necessary to employ a set designer to show that a scene took place in A wood near Athens’. He employed dialogue for this purpose, although since his plays were generally performed on an open-air ‘thrust’ stage, this could have been for purely practical considerations, for, at the same time, theatrical performances at court were using extremely elaborate, painted scenery and stage machinery inspired by Italian masters.

The designer can also indicate period through his designs. Nowadays we frequently adjust or completely change the period in which classic plays are set in an attempt to make them more ‘relevant’ to a modern audience, and the set designer can certainly assist in this respect. However, this is more frequently seen as the task of the costume designer, and the set designer may deliberately remove any specific sense of period from his work. Mood and style are always important considerations for the set designer. A play taking place in a peasant cottage, for example, will probably require a completely different type of cottage setting if it is at the cutting edge of contemporary drama than, say, a thriller, a children’s fantasy or an intense, psychological think-piece.

If theatre consists of interactive communication between performer and audience, then perhaps the designer’s main task is simply to assist in this process, so that the interaction may be as effective as possible. However, the use of the word ‘simply’ here might be misleading, for often the process is anything but simple. We sometimes need extremely elaborate settings and extravagant scenic devices to cope with the task, but, at other times, we need hardly anything at all. A good production can sometimes make its strongest impact on a virtually empty stage so that the maximum concentration can be focused upon the performances and the ideas expressed in it. There have been notable examples of very successful productions using only minimal settings. Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is perhaps the best known, but even the triumphantly successful West End production of the musical Chicago used a set which merely provided a stepped, bleachertype unit for the band, with a bare playing area in front of it.

Ideally, whatever style of setting is adopted, it should become so closely integrated with the production as a whole that it is difficult to visualize it being performed in any other set.

2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF SET DESIGN

Some form of theatre has been part of life at every period of human existence, probably even before man learned to communicate through the medium of speech. Over the centuries it has played a wide variety of roles, it has been ceremonial, religious, entertaining, didactic, philosophical, psychological, political, pornographic and many other things beside. Significantly, for an art form that many now consider primarily literary by nature, the visual element has always played a role of major importance, for a play is not complete until it has been performed and the written words brought to life by visual imagery, however basic these images may sometimes be.

This engraving of Strolling Actresses in a Barn by William Hogarth (1738) includes a variety of scenic pieces, props and stage effects, including a classical portico with garlands, tree wings, wave machines, a flying dragon and chariot, and footlight candles set in lumps of clay.

PRE-HISTORY

Theatre existed long before it became related to drama. In primitive societies the acquisition of a food supply is crucial to survival, and the palaeolithic cave paintings at places such as Lascaux in south-western France, dating from as long ago as 15,000BC, show mainly animals that were hunted for food. Occasionally the paintings include the hunters too. The pictures appear to have had some kind of magical significance, possibly created to bring good fortune in the life and death activity of the hunt.

Part of a palaeolithic cave painting at Lascaux in the Vézère Valley, near Montignac, south-western France. Photo: The Sandra Faye Guberman Library

But the creation of a painting is a relatively sophisticated artistic activity. Theatre can happen more spontaneously, without the need for paint or drawing materials. It seems likely, therefore, that some form of magical or ceremonial dramatic activity preceded even these ancient paintings. It also seems entirely probable that the thrilling adventure of a hunt would be re-enacted around the cooking-fire at night, incorporating the excitement of drama, the mystique of ceremony and as a way to instruct the youngsters. The discarded animal skin, saved for clothing, could provide a costume for the actor performing the role of the prey and enhancing the visual aspect of the performance. The tribesman who first adjusted a piece of fur around a performer’s neck was the first costume designer. However, it would be a long time before the first set designer appeared.

GREECE

The theatre of the spoken word originated in ancient Greece, probably during the sixth century BC, but the plays of dramatists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, from which the entire western dramatic tradition has developed, date from the fifth and the fourth century BC, the great Golden Age of Athenian drama.

The dramatic performances of this period were rooted in religion and specifically the worship of Dionysus, the god of fertility, wine and ecstasy. Indeed, the stages had an altar (or thymele) to Dionysus at the centre of the acting area. The festivities included processions, sacred rites and dramatic presentations, both serious and farcical. These rites bore little semblance to the religious ceremonies of today and inevitably resulted in a literal orgy of intoxicated sexual abandon in which everyone participated in honour of the god.

Theatre at Epidaurus in Greece, designed by Polyclitus the Younger in 350BC. Photo: The Sandra Faye Guberman Library

The theatres were huge, usually built into a natural amphitheatre that could contain the entire population of the locality, for everyone was expected to attend. The ruined remains of many Greek amphitheatres still exist and may be visited to this day. However, nothing at all remains of the theatres of the Golden Age for those were built of wood and have decayed completely. By the time the stone amphitheatres were built the period of this remarkable flowering in art of all kinds was already in decline.

The stages were constructed around a circular dancing area called the orkestra, about 24m (about 78ft) in diameter. Audience seating surrounded the greater part of the orkestra and was called the theatron or ‘seeing place’. (Interestingly, the very name of the building that still houses our drama today refers to ‘seeing’ rather than ‘listening’.) Later theatres had an elevated stage at the rear of the performance area, backed by a structure known as the skene that provided an off-stage area but also offered a versatile scenic background to the drama that could suggest a temple, city gates or the entrance to a palace. It is supposed that periaktoi (see Chapter 8) were used at the traditional three entrances in the skene.

Later stages probably contained some machinery for special effects. We are familiar with the term deus ex machina, referring to a mechanical device to lower a god to the stage, and this certainly appears to have been employed in the theatres of ancient Greece. No one really knows exactly what form this machinery took, it may possibly have been some kind of crane situated on or behind the skene, although this conjures up an unfortunate image of a hapless actor dangling from a wooden hoist rather than a magical descent from the clouds.

The ekkyklema seems to have been an ancient form of what we now refer to as a truck. It was a method of revealing a group of actors or of bringing them on to the stage by means of a travelling or pivoting platform. Again, there is little evidence of exactly what it looked like or how it worked; it might simply refer to the opening of doors in the façade of the skene.

Rather oddly, to our modern sensibilities, the drama of ancient Greece was competitive. In fact, the first recorded production of a play with dramatic dialogue was at a dramatic contest in Athens in 534BC. It was won by Thespis, a poet, playwright and actor who, although none of his works have survived, is remembered in the term ‘thespian’, referring to an actor. A surprising number of present-day theatrical traditions date back to the theatres of this time: issuing tickets for reserved seats and the habit of clapping performers to show approval, for example. The dramatic convention of the time that forbade violent actions to be shown on the stage, forcing them to be suggested as taking place out of sight behind the skene, gives us the word ‘obscene’ for anything considered unfit to be seen.

ROME

The Romans admired everything Greek; they adopted Greek fashions in clothing, architecture, art and, naturally, in drama. However, as with all the other aspects of Greek culture adopted by the Romans, the drama was ‘improved’ and adapted to Roman taste. The Romans removed the religious element from dramatic productions and the altar vanished from the orkestra, which became semicircular rather than completely round. The Greek skene was elaborately developed in the same grandiose architectural style seen in the Roman civic buildings. These freestanding structures were inevitably smaller in plan than the huge Greek amphitheatres but provided much greater opportunities for scenic effects. The theatres were still open to the sky, but the more solidly constructed architectural background to the stage, now called the frons scenae, meant that gods could descend with more grace than from the open spaces above the Greek skene, and some painted scenery was probably incorporated, appropriate to the specific performance. As the frons scenae was built only about 3m (10ft) from the front edge of the platform, the raised acting area was restricted to a long, narrow strip. It is hardly surprising therefore that almost all Roman plays took place in a street setting of some kind.

The Odeum of Herodes Atticus erected in the second century AD. Photo: The Sandra Faye Guberman Library

The human proportions of actors’ bodies must have appeared somewhat inadequate by contrast to these impressive edifices and some efforts were made to correct this by the use of costume devices calculated to make the actors appear bigger: a greatly built up shoe called the cothurnus was worn, and a huge, grotesque mask enlarged the performer’s head. However, the most refined dramatic performances took place not in the theatres but in the more intimate surroundings of private villas, where long, dramatic narratives became sophisticated after-dinner entertainment. The plays were inevitably Latin translations from the Greek. Indeed, not a single truly Roman play has survived. By contrast, the really popular theatre of ancient Rome took place in the spacious amphitheatres built for sports and spectacle. They were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, built to massive proportions and with as much elaboration and ingenuity as possible. The largest could seat as many as 50,000 spectators on marble seats, protected from the heat of the sun by the velarium, a huge awning, ingeniously rigged to be drawn over the spectators. The spectacles that took place in these arenas were state-organized and state-subsidized. There was an official policy of ‘bread and circuses’ aimed at currying favour for the civic authorities and the emperor-god in particular.

This was the theatre of spectacle, and many of the amphitheatres held elaborate built-in devices for special effects: trapdoors were used, often incorporating machinery to enable performers, animals and large scenic elements to be raised through the floor. Sometimes it was possible to flood the whole arena to stage a realistic sea battle with real ships. The theatre had now become more of a spectator sport than a religious ceremony. With the First Punic War in 264BC life and death gladiatorial combats were introduced, and the popularity of the bloody spectacle of men and women being hacked to death meant that this kind of brutality became incorporated into the dramatic interludes that traditionally interspersed the gladiatorial combats. Thousands of exotic and ferocious wild animals were imported to contribute to the slaughter by killing and being killed. Mythological scenes incorporating animals were grotesquely re-enacted, with, for instance, a woman strapped to the back of a bull representing Europa and a condemned criminal as Orpheus being literally torn to pieces by bears amid decorative artificial woods.

These bloody thrills were contrasted with interludes by mimus, a popular bawdy and lascivious clown, often displaying nudity, gross sexuality and real executions. With the advent of Christianity, this type of performance was considered unacceptable and the performers were excommunicated by the Church in the fifth century.

MEDIEVAL EUROPE

In Britain and Europe also drama had its roots in religious ceremonial. This is hardly surprising, for at that time all public art was seen to have the sole purpose of instructing a generally illiterate population in the ways of Christianity and to warn of the horrors of Damnation. The stories of the Bible were told in painting, sculpture, music, poetry and stained glass. The Mass itself is, quite literally, a form of dramatic presentation: a physical re-enactment of the Last Supper, with performers elaborately vested in heavily symbolic costumes. Further re-enactments took place at special festivals: the Passion of Christ at Easter and the Nativity story at Christmas. Originally intended to be solely didactic, these simple performances took place about the altar, but, as with any dramatic presentation, as actors developed their roles with each annual repetition, the performances became extended and more elaborate, and an element of crude knockabout farce began to intrude. Over the years, the Church realized that these theatrical interludes were developing into something quite different from what was originally intended, and, in the thirteenth century, the clergy were forbidden to take part and dramatic performances were removed from the Sanctuary and permitted only outside the church. However, the performances still took place in the shadow of the church, where the great West Door could form an ecclesiastical background to the action and permit a climactic coup de théâtre when the doors could be swung open to reveal a candlelit altar at the far end of the church, suggesting the celestial reward in store for those who followed the Church’s teachings and led a good life. Many English cities developed their own lengthy cycles of Mystery Plays that attempted to encompass the entire Biblical story, some of which survive and are still performed. The term ‘Mystery’ is not used in its modern sense here but derives from the Old English misteri meaning a craft or trade, referring to the guilds that mounted the plays, the members performing a section appropriate to their trade. Thus the carpenters might perform the building of Noah’s ark and the fishmongers perform the miraculous draft of fishes. It is easy to imagine an element of competition now entering into the performances, encouraging ever more elaborate scenic effects.

The final scene of the Passion Play at Valenciennes in northern France from an illuminated manuscript of 1547, showing Hell Mouth at stage left. Photo: The Sandra Faye Guberman Library

Severed from the restrictions of the Church, methods of staging were developed to meet popular demands. More people could see the presentations if the performing area were raised, and the obvious way to do this in a primarily agricultural society was simply to wheel out a flattopped farm wagon to serve as a stage. The size was limited, of course, but several wagons could be grouped together or used for a logical sequence of scenes, each wagon presenting a different location. The wagons were known as ‘pageants’ and could be used in a variety of ways – they could be grouped in a circle, with the audience standing in the middle, arranged in a line or semicircle, or even moved from location to location, presenting different scenes from the drama at each stop. The pageants were often elaborately decorated, probably carrying some kind of painted background, and sometimes with a structure permitting angels to be lowered from above, or devils to appear from a yawning ‘Hell Mouth’. However, for the first time scenic elements were now introduced to suggest specific locations rather than just for special dramatic effects.

A further result of separation from the Church’s restrictions was the now unhampered development of the cruder and more popular elements of the production, and, since evil has always been more attractive than good, the role of the Devil must have been greatly coveted for its opportunities for broad comic invention, involving bawdy business with his pitchfork and the tossing about of fireworks. The Devil also had the most spectacular pageant wagon, containing Hell itself, and logically appearing at the climactic finale of the presentation.

The Mystery Plays, more popular than ever when divorced from their liturgical context and now sited on movable pageant wagons, were easily transportable, not only from one part of a town to another, but also from city to city. The touring players had arisen. However, these early professional actors must have soon discovered the besetting problem of all street performers even to this day: it is far too easy for an audience to walk away when the hat is sent round to collect contributions. A solution was provided by the wayside inns: these existed to provide overnight accommodation for travellers, together with food, drink and safe stabling for horses. They were usually built around a central courtyard with wide, lockable doors opening to the road. The stables surrounded the yard and accommodation was in rooms above the stables, usually linked by a covered gallery or galleries running all round the yard. This, of course, was an ideal situation for performance: a wagon stage could be erected at one side of the yard, the rooms behind providing an off-stage area and the audience was literally captive; unable to disperse easily when a collection was taken. The players now had a workable theatre where good profits could be made. For the first time, commercialism reared its gilded head.

London, still a Mecca for theatre people, already provided a wide variety of popular entertainments for its inhabitants. The City of London enforced strict regulations to maintain law and order within its walls, but beyond these, south of the river, where the City’s laws did not apply, dock workers and disembarking sailors after a lengthy time at sea found that everything they desired was provided for ready cash. Here there were inns, brothels (called ‘stews’), gambling, cockfighting and bear baiting. The bear pits were circular, the diameter established by the length of the bear’s chain when tethered to a pole at the centre. The seats were stacked in galleries one above the other so that spectators were protected from the beasts but still close enough to enjoy the spectacle.

Travelling players must have immediately recognized the excellent facilities and commercial opportunities provided by these arenas. The stage could be erected to one side, just as in the inn yards, the galleries at the back of the stage could be used for dressing rooms and a backstage area, and the audience could be charged for admission. It is hardly surprising that the first permanent commercial theatre building was constructed along the same lines. It was called ‘The Theatre’, and built by the actor James Burbage in Shoreditch just outside the City limits in 1576. Very little scenery was used, although there may have been a curtain hung across the galleries at the back of the stage to provide a useful inner-stage area. The programme was considerably more varied than that offered by any theatre today: audiences could enjoy sporting activities such as fencing and athletics, bear baiting and cock fighting, or, on one afternoon, the first production of Hamlet.

The very successful theatre in Shoreditch ran into serious trouble when its lease expired in 1597: a new lease was denied by the landlord and so, on a dark winter’s night in 1598, as much as possible of The Theatre was dismantled, the timbers transported across the Thames to the south bank and used to build a new theatre just across the street from a playhouse called The Rose. It was to be the largest playhouse built in England to that date and was named The Globe.

THE PLAYHOUSES

The greatest flourishing of English drama took place in London at this period and its audiences were not the aristocracy nor intellectuals, but ordinary Londoners who crossed the river by London Bridge or by ferry to enjoy an afternoon off work. The Globe could cram in an audience of nearly 4,000 and it has been estimated that about one-eighth of the population of London visited the theatre at least once a week.

View of London from the south bank of the Thames in 1616 showing the Bear Garden and the Globe Theatre. Photo: The Sandra Faye Guberman Library

The public theatres of Shakespeare’s day used virtually no representational scenery. In any case, no real scenic illusion was possible on these openair, ‘thrust’ stages lit solely by daylight (performances usually began at 2.00pm). If it was necessary to suggest a change of location or a scene taking place in a storm or at night, then the dialogue would make this clear. Hardly any pictures exist showing the structure of stages at this most important period in the development of English drama for this was merely popular entertainment for working people. However, much can be deduced from written sources such as theatre inventories, letters and internal evidence in the plays. The architecture of the playhouse provided a useful range of facilities such as a backstage area, an inner stage and one or two galleries above the stage that could be utilized for Juliet’s balcony, the walls of a castle or used as a musicians’ gallery. The pillars supporting a roof over the acting area could become the pillars of a royal palace or trees in the Forest of Arden. The audience’s imagination supplied the rest, apart from the special effects. Several devices were available to lower gods from the painted ceiling or to enable devils to rise through a trapdoor from of a sub-stage Hell. Props included not only furniture but also some artificial rocks and trees, and trick props for a variety of effects such as a beheading or a disappearing banquet. Much attention was paid to music and sound effects, with musicians in the gallery above the stage, and cannons fired from the roof for battle noises or thunder. The last effect proved disastrous on 29 June 1613, when a spark from a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the thatched roof and burned the theatre to the ground. It was speedily rebuilt, larger, much improved, more elaborately decorated and with a tiled roof.

It would be satisfactory to be able to show a direct linear development from the Elizabethan playhouses, with their vestigial scenic elements, to the theatres of today, where scenery is accepted as an important part of the theatrical experience. However, this is not possible because eventually, in 1642, the long, historical love–hate relationship between the theatre and the Church resulted in the closure of all public playhouses by the Puritans, and the line was abruptly curtailed.

MASQUES AND THE COURT THEATRES

At the same time as the public playhouses on the south bank of the Thames were providing popular entertainment for the masses, the courts and palaces of Europe housed private entertainments of a much more scenically spectacular kind. The trappings of the great hall or long gallery, with windows, panelling, family portraits and domestic ornaments, must have provided an uncomfortably obtrusive background for dramatic performance. However, aristocratic households could engage an artist to supply paintings to conceal the usual features and offer a pictorial background more suited to the dramatic performance on hand. The painter would use familiar techniques, stretching canvas on wooden frames just as he had done with any other picture. The size would be limited by the dimensions of the doorways, necessitating the use of several paintings set side by side to cover a wide area. It must have taken only a small step to realize that the painted backgrounds could be easily changed by sliding the painted panels to either side by hand, to reveal other painted panels set behind them. The problem of providing off-stage areas from which performers might enter the scene could be solved by setting additional painted panels at the sides of the acting area, masking the ends of the painted background and extending the stage picture forwards, so creating the convention of painted background and wings that we still frequently encounter in some form today.

The early court masques were comparatively simple affairs, designed specifically to honour some important guest and consisted mainly of music and formal dance. However, travellers returning from the Continent brought reports of spectacular entertainments seen at the courts of Italy and France, and in 1604 James I of England, encouraged by his queen Anne of Denmark, engaged the architect and artist Inigo Jones (1573–1652) to devise courtly entertainments to rival those of Europe. In 1605 Ben Jonson, the court poet, collaborated with Jones to produce The Masque of Blacknesse, which, replete with wave machines, sea monsters and many magical transformations, brought to England a new and spectacular type of theatrical production such as had never been seen before. Subsequent productions became ever more spectacular and costly, until the unfortunate King James faced near financial ruin.

BAROQUE

Whatever efforts were made in England, it had to be admitted that the Italians led the field in the new illusionist theatre. Here, the drama took second place to scenic effects and the spoken word was almost completely abandoned in favour of operas and ballets that could better exploit the new techniques. Luxurious theatres were built to house the performances, and the ‘horseshoe’ style of auditorium, with seats in ‘boxes’ stacked in tiers around the perimeter and decorated in a palatial gilded style, became established as the most suitable form for this type of presentation.

A scena per angolo design by Giuseppe Bibiena, bringing a startling new realism to painted perspective scenery. Photo: Dover Books

Among the many artists who produced scenery for these lavish Italian theatres, the Bibiena family was most notable for providing a whole dynasty of theatre designers and architects. The dynasty began with Giovanni Maria Galli (1625–65), whose son Fernando (1657–1743) caused a scenic revolution by introducing the scena per angolo or ‘angled scene’ to the stage. Up to this time, all perspective scenery had been dependent upon a single vanishing point to create painted scenes that appeared to recede dramatically straight into the distance, but Fernando used two vanishing points to produce much more realistic views that appeared to recede away from the spectator at an angle to the stage, and in two directions at once. Fernando’s brother Francesco (1659–1737), his sons Alessandro (1687–1769), Giuseppe (1696– 1757) and Antonio (1697–c.1774), together with Giuseppe’s son Carlo (1728–87), all worked as theatre architects and scenery designers and were together responsible for many remarkable theatrical innovations.

THE RESTORATION AND THE ADVENT OF ROMANTICISM

In England, the public theatres had been closed by the Puritanical Commonwealth, and only private theatrical performances were permitted. However, the Restoration of Charles II ushered in a new age of scenic innovation that now included stage lighting. Early indoor performances were lit by candles, in whatever chandeliers happened to be available in the rooms where the performances took place. However, before long these were supplemented by additional lighting directed specifically towards the stage, first by rows of candles and then by wicks floating in containers of oil set along the front edge of the stage, with metal shields hiding the glare from the audience. Candles on stands were also concealed behind wing flats. Scene changes took place in view of the audience, flats sliding along specially placed grooves controlled by an elaborate system of ropes, pulleys, winches and hoists that allowed all the pieces to move simultaneously. The scene changes were viewed as an important part of the entertainment and were carefully designed for maximum effect.

A desire for more realism in stage settings eventually produced a reaction against the baroque style and the fantastically elaborate, painted palaces gave way to a more realistic style of scene, often featuring landscapes with highly ingenious weather effects.

In 1771 the great actor-manager David Garrick, engaged the painter Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1810), at great expense, to revolutionize the scenic style at his theatre in Drury Lane in London. De Loutherbourg might be considered to be the first stage designer since he provided coloured renderings and scale models for scene painters, instead of painting the scenery himself, which was normal practice at the time. Under his guidance, the chandeliers were banished and all light sources were hidden. This enabled the effective use of gauzes, cut-cloths and transparencies, with impressive, changeable lighting effects created by the ingenious use of coloured silk filters and various shuttering devices for dimming or brightening the light. Audiences could now delight in plays that included effects such as moonlight, firelight, fogs, mists, lightning and volcanoes. They could also see recognizable views of actual places such as London or the Lake District.

This was the age of the scene painter. Indeed, playbills of the period contained descriptions of each scene in the play, together with the name of the painter who created it. Huge teams of painters were engaged for major productions, and classic plays by dramatists such as Shakespeare were produced with a succession of realistically painted scenes, sometimes so elaborate that the front curtain had to be used to hide the lengthy scene changes, and often special ‘carpenter’s scenes’ or painted ‘frontcloth scenes’ were used so that the action could continue while an elaborate set was built behind it in the traditional pantomime style still used today.

The painted scenery was much enhanced by the introduction of gas lighting. It was first used to light front of house areas, but in September 1817 the Lyceum theatre in London announced that gas lighting was used to light the stage ‘with complete success’. The flicker of candlelight gave way to the brighter, but soft, steady and, above all, controllable glow of gaslight. For the first time the auditorium lighting could be lowered during the performance, providing a dramatic focus upon the stage.

Sets were still mainly designed in a basic ‘backcloth, cut-cloth and wings’ style. Built pieces were often introduced for special scenes, but, no matter how ingenious, scenery was still mostly painted and two-dimensional.

NATURALISM

It was the remarkable and often underrated Madame Vestris (1797–1856) who, with her scene painter Charles Tomkins, was probably responsible for the first ‘box set’ on the English stage in 1832. She was a singer and actress who, at the age of 16, dressed in tights as the first principal boy in English pantomime, attracted the attention a French dancer named Armand Vestris. They married, but in 1830, deserted by her husband, she became the first British woman to manage a theatre when she took over the Olympic Theatre in London. The wings and backcloth style of scenery that had been in use for so long was not really suitable for the more domestic type of drama that was now being written by a new generation of playwrights. In order to suggest a more realistic room on stage she had the wing flats turned at right angles to the front of the stage to suggest side walls and a framed canvas ceiling lowered on top. Functioning doors and windows were incorporated, and Madame expended a large sum of money buying furniture, carpets, pictures and other dressings, which were usually painted on to the scenery direct. The careful attention she paid to every detail of set and costuming established her as an innovator of taste and refinement, but contributed to her bankruptcy in 1837. She later remarried and took over the management of Covent Garden in 1839. Here she championed the work of the Irish emigré American playwright Dion Boucicault (1822–90), who not only wrote plays concerning important social issues of the day, such as slavery and the plight of the poor, but also strongly influenced scenic design by introducing melodramatic spectacles that became known as ‘Sensation Scenes’. The popularity of these scenes pushed designers to the extremes of extravagance in order to stage elaborate scenes of shipwrecks, horse races, balloon journeys and the like, all depicted with as much realism and ingenuity as possible. It is small wonder that Madame Vestris once more found herself bankrupt and her husband in prison. However, they later took over the Lyceum, where even more elaborate productions were mounted, exploiting the adaptability of gas lighting to include startling transparency effects. Yet again, bankruptcy was the unfortunate but inevitable result. Later, in 1871, the Lyceum Theatre became home to the young Henry Irving, whose lavish productions made it London’s most prestigious venue for many years.

This engraving of a scene from The Maid of the Mill by John Inigo Richards in 1765 shows some notable innovations: windows and doors are practical, and there is even an actress sitting at a first floor window; the mill upstage centre has a practical bridge and working mill wheel.

The last great exponent of the Sensation Scene was the scene painter and designer Bruce Smith, who was so successful in this genre that he became known as ‘Sensation’ Smith. He devised ever more elaborate scenic effects, until in 1909 he attained the apogee of sensation with the production of The Whip at Drury Lane. This play, about a defeated attempt to nobble a racehorse, involved an onstage horse race run on a treadmill and a train complete with engine, passenger carriages and horse box that was seen to set out from a London station and later to crash spectacularly, the engine turning over in clouds of steam while the racehorse was saved by the hero uncoupling the horse box in the nick of time. However, like the train, the Sensation Scene had reached the end of the line, for by now this type of plot could be enjoyed with a good deal more genuine realism in the cinema. A different type of spectacle was required in the theatre.

THE MODERN AGE

It was not until after the Second World War that theatre programmes began to credit a ‘designer’. The scene painters were still the major artistic force in the theatre during the first half of the twentieth century, with the paint shops in the back streets around Covent Garden turning out pictorial wonders under the supervision of artists such as Hawes Craven, William Telbin, Walter Hann,