Theatre, Performance and Technology: The Development and Transformation of Scenography by Christopher Baugh

Author:Christopher Baugh [Baugh, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Performing Arts, theater, General
ISBN: 9781137239723
Google: Ouk0CgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Macmillan International Higher Education
Published: 2013-11-22T00:03:32.669523+00:00

Figure 7.1 Technology and performance: Josef Svoboda used a web of laser beams as scenography for The Magic Flute, Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, 1970; directed by Günther Rennert (Šárka Hejnová).

In 1959, he created the scenography for a production of Hamlet at the National Theatre in Prague. Its requirement for light illustrates Svoboda’s concern for not only making production space within the architectural framework of a theatre stage, but also achieving its fullest integration within the dramatic and psychological action of the performance. He described his inspiration as being that of three kinds of light upon a stone and their interplay: the intense, bright illumination of the sun directly striking the stone; the deep, black shadow beneath the stone; and, at one side, a half-shadow and a softened light reflected from an adjacent stone. These three kinds of light, he said, were the prototypes of any plastic form that could be created by sharp, diffused and reflected light (see Figure 7.2). The scenic arrangement for Hamlet consisted of 12 rectangular screens (very similar to the Craig pattern) that were covered by a black plastic material, which had almost 50 per cent of the reflective quality of a black mirror surface. The screens were lit by spotlights hanging beneath the lighting bridge, which traversed the stage directly upstage of the proscenium arch. The actors and all other scenic details were illuminated simultaneously by both direct and reflected light. As a result of this, the range of shadow values was essentially extended, hard contrasts disappeared and, Svoboda says, forms were fuller – and in the optical sense, more real. He clarified:

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