The previous chapter attempts to determine the nature of scenography and define its territory. In this chapter, emphasis is given to the means by which such definitions have been achieved. What were the influences and who created or promoted them to determine the concept and practice of scenography? It will not be too surprising to know that influences have come from people who represent a number of disparate sources which occupy some common and related ground. Between them they span a range of perspectives and include: artists, designers, directors, writers and performers. These individuals were and are pioneers in their thinking and vision of and for the theatre. Few of them have referred to their thinking in terms of scenography. It is the accumulative contributions of their work that enable such a concept as scenography to be recognised as relevant to the production of theatre today. Each of these pioneers concentrates on points of focus that are distinctive and relevant to the conceptual and practical development of scenography. As might be imagined, there is considerable overlapping of concern between their preoccupations.

Adolphe Appia (1862–1928)

Pioneers of theatre are often labelled as such because their inspiration, thinking and achievement often occur as a result of dissatisfaction with existing theatrical conditions. In the case of Adolphe Appia his frustration lay with the convention of elaborately detailed sets, created from a combination of painted flats, borders and backdrops that fringed the stage and purported to create the illusion of a real place and, in fact, did nothing of the kind.

The relationship between text and image in performance has been central to scenographic practice in the twentieth century. Although several pioneers actively resisted the play text as the leading component, others, such as Appia, Neher, Mielziner and Svoboda, explored ways in which scenography and text could be interdependent. This chapter sets out some of the ways in which this interdependence can be conceptualised. It is important to draw upon wider historical and contemporary examples to identify key conceptual frames which chart connections between play text and scenographic image in order to put some of the pioneering work into context.

Mielziner's collaborative work with playwrights Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams involved close working relationships in which practical staging solutions and evocative scenographic environments emerged from the themes and images of the play text in such a way as to allow the words to resonate and take on additional layers of meaning. However, collaboration between designer and playwright does not always lead to aesthetic fusion; it may lead to a different kind of interaction. For instance, Caspar Neher worked closely with Brecht as the play text and scenography developed simultaneously. However, Neher's scenography developed in parallel with the text and was designed to comment on it. Text and scenography were required to share the political purpose of Brecht's productions and yet develop distinct and independent means of fusing their contribution.

So far, this book has focused on the creation of scenography and key issues of its production. This has necessarily involved consideration of scenographic practitioners and the role of scenography in relation to processes of performance and their realisation in production. The following chapters consider ways in which scenography might be discussed from critical and academic viewpoints as central components to the experience of viewing or witnessing performance.

It is important to identify relevant approaches to the analysis of theatre performance in order to determine how they might assist specifically in the analysis of scenography. The dominant influence in this respect has been ‘semiotics’ and theories of the ‘sign’ as means of communication. Although there have been objections to the structuralist nature of semiotics and several post-structural and post-semiotic departures, semiotics has had a widespread influence on the way the performance event is conceptualised and analysed. Bearing this in mind, it is important to examine concepts and approaches which have had particular impact on the way scenography can be considered as an object of study. Elaine Aston and George Savona state that the ‘visual dimension of theatre is in general accorded a somewhat surprisingly low priority in critical and theoretical discussion’. Their work on ‘reading’ the stage image goes some way towards addressing this concern by providing a semiotic account of the creation and analysis of scenography. Their work will be considered in further detail at a later stage.

The origins of the term ‘scenography’ are associated with both scene painting and architectural perspective drawing. In the twentieth century the term has gradually gained currency by drawing attention to the way stage space can be used as a dynamic and ‘kinaesthetic contribution’ to the experience of performance. This suggests a difference in intention from the static and pictorial scene design of previous centuries. Architect and scenographer João Mendes Ribeiro says that scenography is concerned primarily with the ‘inhabitability of the space’; that is, the creation of spaces with which performing bodies can interact: ‘The scenographic concept, as currently understood by the majority of artists, is a far cry from the pictorial two-dimensional scenography and focuses much more on the three-dimensional (architectural) nature of the space or the scenic object and its close relationship with the performers.’ Contemporary use of the term has also been influenced by the work of theatre designers such as Josef Svoboda. His concern with the actualisation of a play rather than the decoration of the stage underlines the need to consider scenography as a component of performance: ‘True scenography is what happens when the curtain opens and can't be judged in any other way.’

The previous chapter moved from consideration of the analysis of scenography as an object to a concern with the scenographic event. This chapter concentrates on the experience and reception of scenography. This, of necessity, involves consideration of the audience as an active agent.

Analyses of performances, or the ways in which the mise-en-scène works, are governed by the person(s) conducting the analysis, who ‘have neither the apparent objectivity of empirical observation, nor the absolute universality of abstract theory; they negotiate a space between detailed yet fragmentary description and general unverifiable theory, between formless signifiers and polysemic signifieds’. The richness of the theatrical experience and its reception means that performance varies from one spectator to another. The idea of the spectator as ‘reader’ has some interesting implications in terms of the way theatre, and scenography in particular, as a form of communication is conceptualised.

As noted in relation to semiotics, theatre theorists have found useful models in the fields of linguistics and literature which can be applied to ‘reading’ the theatre event. Susan Bennett gives a very clear account of how reception theory and reader-response criticism might be used to think about the ‘emancipation’ of audiences and the diversity of roles that they can take on in the variety of forms which make up contemporary theatre and performance practice. Furthermore, ideas that arise from semiotics and post-structuralist thinking also inform ideas about the active role of audiences at ‘the nexus of production and reception’.