It is important not to consider experience of scenography separately from the total experience of performance. However, consideration of scenographic aspects of performance serves to highlight particular qualities and characteristics of the theatrical event. A scenographic perspective also emphasises the extent to which individual audience members determine the success and significance of performance. This concluding chapter considers what audiences might take from engagement with scenography and how the role of the audience is reshaped through scenographic practice and understanding.

Theatre images

Alan Read has claimed that images are the essence of theatre and that theatre images are ‘part of an economy of symbolic exchange’. The images he describes are not limited to the visual. The kinds of images that theatre produces are informed by space and time and by visual, auditory, and other sensory stimuli. They are not created entirely by the production itself, but come about as a result of the production being able to activate the spectator's imagination:

Configuration and manipulation of space in relation to the performance event is the key element in determining the nature of scenography. Why is this? In the first instance, it is because of what happens within the confines of the theatre stage. The special characteristic of the stage space is that anything that happens in it is offered for the attention, reception and consideration of the audience and is presumed to have some kind of intended effect or meaning. Take, for example, the placement of a chair on stage. This chair ‘is first and foremost onstage, and before it conveys any information about the fictional world or the real world outside the theatre it presents itself to the spectators as a theatrical chair’. The framing nature of stage space and its contained objects suggests and stimulates expectations of the action that is about to take place. Those particular qualities of a given stage space, as defined through the setting, objects within the setting, lighting, costumes and sound, also have a tangible and concrete influence upon the performed action.

The way space is determined and organised brings about different possibilities with regard to the functions of space in performance. Attempts have been made to clarify spatial function in the theatre in ways that distinguish between ‘stage space’, ‘presentational space’ and ‘fictional space’.

Throughout the history of Western theatrical presentation, technology has been used to captivate and astound audiences. Early theatre such as that of the Greeks and Romans made use of available technology in order to produce visual transformations, interventions and spectacle. Although later European medieval theatre put stress on the need for audiences to hear and listen to plays, there was also considerable emphasis on the spectacular in performance. For example, staging features such as the medieval device known as Hell Mouth, in which devils and damned souls could appear and disappear through the gaping jaws of a bear's or bull's head, made use of opening and closing doors, lifted jaws or curtains to cover the opening of the mouth. Devils appeared to be consumed by flame.

A powerful example of the way in which aspects of early technology coalesced, and still do so in performances today, is the Misteri d'Elx which began in the fifteenth century and is still performed on 15 August every year at Elche, Spain. Here, in the Basilica de Santa Maria, community actors and singers perform a representation of The Assumption of the Virgin where scenography provides a key visual focus and simple technology transforms the basilica. Three skeletal metal frames suspended on three thick hemp ropes are separately lowered and raised through a trap door in the dome of the basilica. From here to ground level is some 130 feet. One of the frames is known as the mangrana, or the ‘pomegranate’.

The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the purpose, identity and scope of scenography and the theories and concepts which provide a critical framework within which it may be discussed. The work concentrates on scenographic developments in the twentieth century and considers how these continue to evolve in the twenty-first century. Scenographic principles are explained through practical examples and their theoretical context.

Although there are many instances which illuminate different ways in which design shapes the creation of scenography, the book is not exclusively concerned with the role of the theatre designer. In order to map out the wider territory and potential of scenography the work discusses the practice and theory of pioneering scenographers together with the work of directors, writers and visual artists.

Scenography is located as an emergent academic discipline through provision of a conceptual framework for consideration as performance practice and modes of communication with audiences.

The book is intended to be of principal value to university students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, who study theatre and performance. It provides conceptual tools to analyse and discuss scenographic aspects of these disciplines.

In Part 1, Elements, Chapter 1 discusses definitions of the term scenography and its relation to other aspects of the theatrical event. It identifies key elements in scenography. Chapter 2 extends understanding of these elements by discussing the practice and principles of key scenographic innovators in the twentieth century.