3
Performance Design in an Experimental Theatre University of Sydney 1975 to 1985
by Derek John Villeneuve Nicholson
School of Design Studies University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia
This thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales for the degree of Master of Design August 2009 "I could be bounded in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space"
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act II Scene II William Shakespeare
2 4
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of
Rex Cramphorn
Critic, designer, director, translator. Born 10 January 1941 in Brisbane. Died 22 November 1991 in Sydney. 5
Abstract In 1975 Theatre Workshop was established as a management unit to run an experimental theatre in the University of Sydney’s The Seymour Theatre Centre. There followed a decade of innovation in which I undertook the oversight of this laboratory and supervised research and development in theatre performances. As this experimental theatre venue was a new type of performance environment production design required a fresh approach. My advancement of a new design approach to space relationships in the performance environment led to the foundation of a new discipline of study and research at The University of Sydney, Performance Studies. This study draws on my ideas formed from practices in the scenographic process and highlights the importance of research and experiments in visual perception, depth and distance analysis to space design. Further research at University of New South Wales, School of Design, progressed my ideas to consider a set of descriptive terms to identify spatial elements which define relationships in a performance environment. Methods of research and documentation of spatial dynamics from other built environment design disciplines support the study. The characteristics of these space elements are evaluated against a broad theoretical strategy to expose the underlying concepts postulated in Frame Analysis, Gestalt effects and in an ecological approach to visual perception. 6
Acknowledgments The work on which my thesis is based is by its very nature a collaborative enterprise. It also covers many years of design practice. At Theatre Workshop Marjorie Moffat, Russell Emerson, Ludmila Doneman and Kim Spinks tirelessly dedicated time and energy to many projects, only one of which is documented in this thesis. At the University of Sydney special thanks is afforded to Gay McAuley and Tim Fitzpatrick. From the University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts I have received untiring support from my supervisor, Michael Garbutt and wisdom and advice from Leong Chan has benefited this project. Special thanks I offer to my proofreader Margaret Leask.
I send deep regards to my family who gave unconditional support, and particular praise and thanks I give to Marianne.
And last but not least all students who have helped forge my ideas and who I gratefully acknowledge from University of Western Sydney, University of Sydney, University of Victoria, Wellington New Zealand, University of New South Wales, The National Institute of Dramatic Art and Theatre Design Course, London.
Students for special mention are the following; Mark Radvan, Gail Edwards, Des James, Ron Branscombe, William Takaku, Musa Masran, Tania Ingevics, Jo Hartley, Karen Lambert and Imogen Ross.
It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the inventor of voice recognition and other computer applications, on my trusted Apple Mac, whose smart technology released me to combat a persistent learning difficulty, my Dyslexic traits.
The actors, directors and designers who have given generously to my ideas and for special mention, I thank, Melody Cooper, and Eamon Darcy. 7
Contents
Abstract i
Acknowledgements ii
Contents iii
Introduction 1 Preface Sydney 1974 Multi-Venue Buildings, Theatre Forms, Experimental Theatre as Laboratory, Drama at the University of Sydney, On design, Design Method -- Towards a Performer’s Solution, Scenography - An Open Definition, Design Issues - General This Study, Proscenium Arch Theatre, Space in the Frame Summary
Part 1
Chapter 1 15 Introduction, Seymour Theatre Centre, Experimental Theatre, Downstairs Theatre Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies, Student Theatre, New Form and The Professional Artist, Spatial Dynamics.
Chapter 2 27 Development of the Black Rod Exercises, Installation 1 to 5, Scenographic Connections, Story Telling and Focus, A Chair, Installation 1 to 11 Summary
Chapter 3 47 Mapping Lines of Communication in Performances Documentation, Space-defining Elements, Audience Point of View. 8
Part 2
Chapter 4 56 University of New South Wales School of Design, Teaching and Research, Notation of Spatial Elements, Gestalt Visual Perceptual Principles, A Series of Indices, Planes and the Angle, View Point Specific, Frontal and Longitudinal Surfaces.
Chapter 5 73 Introduction, Scenographic Practice at Theatre Workshop, Spatial Determinants, Point of View Guides, Space-Establishing Elements, Space-Shaping Elements, Relational Space Dimensions, Secondary Space Elements, Implied Space, Pertaining space
Chapter 6 84 Introduction, Production Casebook, Point of View Guides, three angles, Spatial Elements Outline, Rehearsal Process, Summary.
Chapter 7 100 Considerations, A Threshold Moment, Consideration One, Consideration Two, Scenography Process Diagram, Scenographic Model, A Framed View, Re-Framing the View, Future Research.
List of Figures 115
References 117
Appendix 124 A Downstairs Theatre Layout Images B Rod Exercises Images C Downstairs Theatre Scenographic Images 9
Introduction Preface In Sydney during the 1970s and 1980s theatre performances in non-traditional theatre spaces and adaptive reuse buildings brought about new thinking in stage design practices. Alternative, fringe and experimental theatre work tends to be recorded in general Australian theatre histories as a footnote to the so- called mainstream theatre production of the well-made play performed in a naturalistic setting style in a proscenium arch theatre building1.
This study draws on my experiments and documents in theatre performances from the period 1975 to 1985. I examine and reflect on my design process and practice. I now seek to illustrate the significance to performance studies of this work by classifying the key defining spatial elements and suggesting a notation of the geography of the performance environment of an experimental theatre.
I was always engrossed by the illusion of the magic box mechanisms of the proscenium arch theatre staging; before my very eyes make-believe places were created.2 It was not until I experienced the power and simplicity of performance-based space in a National Theatre Production in London of Much Ado About Nothing, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli, that my design thinking focused on the unique importance of space in theatre productions. At the same time in 1968 there was an exhibition in London of the work of stage designer Josef Svoboda. This consisted not only of fine documentation of his design work process and productions but also the most fascinating and immaculate scale models of his ideas, research and development projects. Space seized prime position in my design process and took hold of my imagination and seeded a lifelong exploration of space in performance. This thesis is my reflection on these explorations.
1 (Rees 1973; West 1978; Holloway 1981; Love 1984; Guthrie 1996; Milne 2004). 2 In 1961, prior to my starting full-time studies of theatre at tertiary level, my experience of theatre was touring productions of the American musical and re-productions of West End and Broadway plays. 10
Sydney 1974 Multi-Venue Buildings In 1970 the University of Sydney received a bequest from the late Everest York Seymour to design and construct a building "to serve as a centre for the cultivation, education and performance of musical and dramatic arts befitting the City of Sydney” (Allen 1971). Given the considerable problems and controversy with the design of the Sydney Opera House, the University was cautious about building a multi-venue building which would not only suit the various needs of the University but would comply with the bequest.
It can then be asked whether the stage design, the lighting, the sound equipment etc. is suitable for these varying needs. One hopes they are but knowing the history of such a building type and the architectural disasters that have occurred, it might be that they are not as workable as one should expect (Thorne 1992).
To determine the type and size of the various spaces to be provided in the Centre the designer gave considerable time to investigating the auditoria spaces then available or proposed in Sydney. The design brief was based on a report which gave an overview of the requirements for theatre venues in Sydney (Allen 1971). The Sydney Opera House was opened in 1974 (Hubble 1977; Parsons and Chance 1997). It had a Opera Theatre, Concert Hall, Drama Theatre, Recording Hall (Studio Space), Cinema and an Exhibition Hall. The Seymour Theatre Centre complex, a typical theatre building of the time (Thorne 1992), was completed in 1975 with a drama theatre thrust stage, an end stage recital hall and an experimental theatre. Allen Jack+Cottier were the architects and Keith Cottier was the project designer. 11
Figure 1 Seymour Theatre Centre Ground Plan (Allen 1971). 12
I was appointed Drama Director some months before the completion of the centre so I was able to influence the final design of the experimental theatre. Traditionally this type of studio theatre was painted black and the seating was the folding type used in gymnasia. It was generally thought that ‘a black box’ was the most neutral finish for studio theatres (McNamara, Rojo et al. 1975; Ham and Ham 1987). This was a design feature that originated in the television studio where the black box idea had currency; all surface finishes to be non- reflective. I considered an undressed architectural finish with exposed technical support mechanisms, such as lighting bars and rigging, was the most appropriate finish for an experimental theatre. The seating solution was to be the gymnasium type foldaway seating units. This seating type cannot achieve a fully flexible seating system. I designed adaptable modular seating units with two base settings which reflected the footprint layout of the seating of the upstairs theatres; end and thrust staging. (See Appendix A) In 1986 the decision was made by the University to cease operations in the experimental theatre.
Theatre Forms3 The rise of the so-called ‘alternative theatre’ in Australia from 1960 to 1980 was fuelled by theatre artists who objected to the narrow forms of performance style perpetuated by traditional performances imported from English and American theatre. Three distinct philosophical directions characterised the alternative theatre movement. The first was an opposition to the policies of the government assisted state companies which were based on the British repertory system and which programmed few Australian plays (Rees 1973; West 1978; Holloway 1981; Love 1984).
3 Main Stage or Mainstream theatres were government-subsidised theatre companies, most often the State Theatre Companies, that undertook seasons of plays in repertory, chosen from the well-established canon. The Alternative Theatre was run by a new generation of theatre practitioners who concentrated on new Australian playwriting and contemporary interpretations of classic drama. Theatre practitioners whose work challenged both the style and form of performance of mainstream and alternative theatre were referred to as the Experimental and sought not only a new form and content but also a new performance practice. 13
The second aimed at rejecting not only the narrow programming of plays but also of the traditional stylistic forms in which these plays were performed. The third more radical and often regarded as the avant-garde theatre reflecting an artistic endeavour to speak with not only an Australian voice but with a unique visual language (Guthrie 1996; Meyrick 2002; Milne 2004).
Avant-garde theatre in the period between the mid-nineteen-sixties and the mid-nineteen-eighties was the forum in which innovations that progressively changed the nature of theatre in Australia were tested. International modernism, first seen in alternative theatres, took hold in Australian theatre generally. The political radicalism of the New Left, youth culture and the counter culture were the agents of modernisation, which, along with a reassertion of Australian nationalism and the expression of a local vernacular drama, overturned the conservative neo-colonial norms of theatre practice in Australia. The theatre laboratory method, and a notion of theatrical experimentation were major means of change (Guthrie 1996 p.5).
Experimental Theatre as Laboratory Australian Theatre practice (Holloway 1981; Love 1984; Milne 2004) was mainly about plays and playwriting. The style or forms of productions were a direct reflection of the nature of theatre company management and the class of theatre building, proscenium arch type, in which the productions were mounted. Fringe theatre and experimental works tended to be recorded as ‘try-outs’ for the so-called mainstream theatre. If the design of productions was mentioned in reviews and other documentation it was usually a note on 'the look' of the production rather than any critical analysis of the design or how the theatre building or stage space influenced the overall direction of the production. And for designers in experimental theatre who drew much inspiration from the visual and performance art, there was confusion on where to place experimental theatre in arts practice critical debate. Designing for experimental theatre was seen by alternate theatre as a place where young theatre artists were able 'to test ideas' before moving into the mainstream. Experimental theatre was not supported as a permanent part of the general theatre culture. (Zeplin 1992; Guthrie 1996). 14
Drama at the University of Sydney There was no drama or theatre studies school or department at the University of Sydney. The play script was the natural focus of study in language departments. The study of theatre architecture was an elective within the Faculty of Architecture. Theatre Studies as an accredited discipline was a relatively recent development in Australian universities and no university recognised Performance Studies as a discipline.
Approaches to literature theory and practice changed radically with the development of structuralism and semiotics mainly in foreign language studies. Semiotics research in Theatre Studies was exploring the relationship between play text and performance text, in particular the areas of kinesics, proxemics conventions and audience reception (Elam 1980; Helbo 1991). Here were new and challenging ideas impacting particularly on the practice of experimental theatre and design (Schechner 1977; Pavis 1982).
Sydney Theatres The shortage of venues led alternative theatre practitioners to create venues by adaptive re-use of existing buildings.4 These venues radically changed the experience for audiences. The social event of going to the theatre was impregnated with a new energy and social encounter (Holloway 1981; Guthrie 1996; Meyrick 2002; Milne 2004). The theatre space was given a new meaning. Not only did these venues introduce audiences to a new type of encounter with performances, they also forced designers and directors to rethink the spatial nature of performance when not framed by the proscenium arch.
It was clear to me that the physical shape of these venues was a creative challenge to directors, designers, choreographers and performers alike, whose
4 Sydney Theatres: Jane St. Theatre, 1966 – 1981, seating – 100, end staging, adaptive reuse church. Nimrod Theatre 1970 - 1974, then named The Loft,1974 –1975 and from 1975 called The Stables Theatre, seating –140, corner staging, adaptive reuse stables. Belvior Street Theatre, opened 1974 as Nimrod Theatre, renamed Belvior Street Theatre 1984, seating – 320, corner staging, adaptive reuse salt factory. Wharf Theatre 1984, seating – 319, moveable seating units either thrust or corner staging, adaptive reuse finger wharf. The Performance Space 1983, seating variable up to 200, adaptive reuse dance hall. 15
response was to develop new working processes (Spinks 1992; Bachali 1998; Meyrick 2002).
On design Performance Design in Australia (Anderson, Nicholson et al. 2001) is a significant specialist publication on theatre design. It covers the years 1980 to 1995 which overlaps by a couple of years the first section of my thesis. This publication clearly records the state of design in Australia not only of conventional theatre productions but highlights the collaborative nature of the design process. The broad-brush approach of this type of documentation of arts practice, including many images, does not permit in depth or close analysis of specialist movements. I contributed a short essay to this publication which is the basis of the following section.
Design Method -- Towards a Performer’s Solution Design development came as a reaction against traditional theatre forms. Performances in recycled buildings and non-traditional theatre spaces encouraged new design thinking and practice. These open-stage layout venues contributed to a generation of design innovations and new design problem solving methods. The performer was relied upon to convey the dramatic space information of a production. This required the ‘design work’ to be carried out in the rehearsal room.
This situation forged a collaborative effort between all theatre practitioners and laid the foundation for an engagement with scenographic methods. On the one hand development was constrained by lack of resources and on the other the venue’s limitations spawned a discernable new ‘method’ of staging. Productive teamwork encouraged a close working relationship during the rehearsal period between the performers, directors and designers. This was a significant change to the old method of major design solutions being completed before the start of rehearsal. When using the open stage, the challenge most often faced by the creative team was not so much how each individual scene is spatialised but how scenes create a seamlessly connected sequence of all dramatic spaces. In other 16
words, a fluid dramatic interpretation creates a performance vernacular which unifies the performance geography with spatial imagery. Designers and directors do not have the luxury of solving scene-changing requirements by simply moving scenic elements on and off stage, as is the custom on technically equipped traditional stages. The open-stage design begs a certain simplicity and direct intervention by the performers who are required to manipulate objects, furniture, props and costumes, to create the dramatic places. Each production must invent the tools for the performers to use to evocatively indicate time, period and spatial relationships and boundaries.
Scenography - An Open Definition What is scenography? Scenography is the seamless synthesis of space, text, research, art, actors, directors and spectators that contributes to an original creation (Howard 2002 p.130). Scenographers work from the premise of a space (or spaces) that is constructed, updated, transformed, and filled. Scenography is the practice of making theatre, including sets, costumes, and texts, from a theoretical and practical point of view’.
Design Issues - General This study draws on experimental theatre practices 1970 to 1980 (Guthrie 1996), to reflect on design process and ideas of scenography of the geography of performance environments and its importance to the development of Performance Studies (Schechner 1977). Attempts at mapping the design process tend to be illustrated as logical systematic action plans. While each design discipline has its own particular character, in the majority of cases design process documentation is created to illustrate a methodological approach to design practice and to explain it for reflection in teaching, research or study. In practice a design action method or process can appear to be and often is a 'chaotic system'. At the time of design action the process may not be transparent. According to Schon (1987 p.355), reflection-in-action provides an avenue for students to have a personal conversation with a situation, a presenting problem or action that enables them to recognise or explore puzzling events. Reflection-on-action through thought, conversation or 17
documentation allows for the experience or the reflection-in-action to be explored or interpreted.
Design as a discrete discipline separated from the ancient practices of architecture or engineering and to some extent fine arts, has a short history in post-modern thinking. Stage Design is rarely distinguished within the canon of a design history. It is seen as a design activity without 'value adding' in the economic sense and only of slight value for cultural well-being or socio-artistic meaning. It is marginalised and rarely appears in any broad-based history of design, not even as a discrete sub-section within a design movement. A clear exception to this was the theatre and stage design at the Bauhaus.5
Several areas of historical and theoretical inquiry are now beginning to recognize the importance of understanding the circumstances surrounding the production of knowledges of design, seen as readable appearances, objects, processes, and practices. Within design studies, for instance, there is a modest but growing concern with its …methods (Fry 1988 p.13).
Scenography is a process-based design discipline new to Australian theatre. The discernable process may parallel processes of design in other design disciplines. The site of the design activity is removed from the design studio into the rehearsal studio as the centre of creative decision-making (Howard 2002).
Design practices as derived from architecture, engineering and the fine arts craft movement have, only in the past 20 years, been considered as discrete disciplines for study at university level. Stage design, then a marginal activity and of minor historical concern, is relegated to a craft-based skill, positioned within or beside the so-called decorative arts.
5 "In that vigorous, experimental, forward looking milieu, not one of the visual arts was neglected: among those that commanded special attention was the art of theatre. From experiments there emerged a new aesthetic of stage design " Gropius, W., O. Schlemmer, et al. (1961). Bauhaus. The theater of the Bauhaus. ([By] Oskar Schlemmer [and others].) Edited and with an introduction by Walter Gropius. Translated by Arthur S. Wensinger, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. This design movement included at its core a theatre lab which undertook research into performance. In hindsight this inclusion in a primarily visual arts and architectural movement remains a reasonable decision, as this work predates the development of mass communication techniques which completely rearranged and reinterpreted how we represent most creative forms of expression. 18
Fry (1988 p.13) continues; Like most disciplines when they are either new or developing, there are various ideas about its identity and what the field of study is or could be or should be.
As stage design is seldom considered as an important design discipline in its own right, then it is not surprising to find that design in theatrical history is rarely considered as a discrete entity (Anderson, Nicholson et al. 2001; Milne 2004). When it is noted, it is generally discussed as an issue of style, and the stage space is considered as a reflection of a certain style or fashion period6.
This study is in two parts; Chapters One to Three cover the first decade of reflection-in-action, documenting programs of activities in the Downstairs Theatre at the Seymour Theatre Centre 1975 to 1985. Chapters Four to Six cover a second decade reflection-on-action, documenting my teaching practice and research at the University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts, 1992 to 2002. It was during this time that I codified the design processes that had evolved during my work as a designer at the University of Sydney Theatre Workshop.
This study is my attempt to expose the underlying theory of scenographic practice on which the experimental and avant-garde theatre projects were based in the Downstairs Theatre Seymour Theatre Centre. It is derived from my own research experience in theatre-making projects, processes and methods, in both theatre and educational settings, as a scenographer, observer and reflective interventionist. The work also highlights a tension that exists in theatre practice in Australia between the traditional, stable and conventional and the radical, unstable and transforming. It is in the avant-garde or experimental performance where the dialectics between the new ephemeral, and the old, persistent, can be found.
This study is dependent on my structured approach to the subject using findings and knowledge contained within design disciplines where space is a central
6 Author Penny Sparke, who has written broadly on design, notes how stage design can influence broader design issues and design industries, Sparke, P. (1986). An introduction to design and culture in the twentieth century. London, Allen & Unwin. 19
concern; then to identify and map space relationships as 'geographic' phenomena. The study is essentially a comparative study of ways of representing systems of spatial relationships in which significant entities are defined in terms of their relative locations in a multi-dimensional network of relationships. These ideas are tested in my field studies, in controlled installations and applied to case studies and design practice methods. I use existing research on the function of perception of space in the real world environment to support my argument. A set of descriptive terms has been selected to classify the key spatial elements defining theatre space and stage space.
Proscenium Arch Theatre7 The theatre building as an architectural object remained a single purpose building up to the middle of the 20th century. Over a considerable historical time frame it can be considered a stable architectural type. To map changes in performance environments a familiar spatial reference is required. I propose to use the spatial dynamics of the proscenium arch theatre type as this reference. This theatre type has well-established, easily identifiable characteristics and conventions, so it offers a common frame through which to identify audiences’ and performers’ experiences of the performance environment.
Space in the Frame During any act of communication information is transmitted from and between a sender and a receiver. During a performance this is between performers and the audience. Both play an interpretive role in this information exchange. Space relationships are embedded in the environment of a performance. These relationships are defined by a combination of elements in the built environment. Volumetric space between elements such as surroundings, sounds, objects, and lighting, expose the relationships thus formed. Things in space are viewed as space-defining and shaping elements. In other words the grounding and framing of all events, both physical and/or conceptual, are contextualised by space relationships contained by the event.
7 Proscenium arch theatre as control model see Appendix C. 20
Summary The aim of this study is to examine the function of the relationships of spaces in a performance environment; to identify how space is represented and framed in the performance; to describe how the program of a purpose-built experimental theatre influenced the process of design and methodology which underpinned the rehearsal process; to interpret the documentation that resulted from the field studies in visual perception, depth and distance analysis; to engage a broad theoretical approach from ideas exposed by Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974) the visual forming capability of our senses, Gestalt effect (Canter 1974 p.31; Barry 1997 p.40) and the interactive possibilities of a particular object or environment to the interpretation of meaning, through “affordances”(Gibson 1979).
Essentially I take this opportunity to explore spatial design practices based on methods of research and documentation of spatial dynamics from other design disciplines which work in the built environment; in particular architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and urban design. 21
References:
Bachali, C. (1998). Jane St Theatre , C Bachalic, Katoomba, NSW Australia. Barry, A. M. S. (1997). Visual Intelligence, State University of New York Press. Elam, K. (1980). The semiotics of theatre and drama. London ; New York, Methuen. Fry, T. (1988). Design History Australia. Sydney, Hale & Iremonger and The Power Institute of Fine Arts. Gibson, J. J. (1974). The perception of the visual world. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis : an essay on the organization of experience. New York, Harper & Row. Goodman, P. H. (1974). Gestalt Therapy, Penguin Books. Gropius, W., O. Schlemmer, et al. (1961). [Die Bu\0308hne im Bauhaus.] The theater of the Bauhaus. ([By] Oskar Schlemmer [and others].) Edited and with an introduction by Walter Gropius. Translated by Arthur S. Wensinger, Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Guthrie, J. A. (1996). When the way out was in: Avant-garde theatre in Australia 1965 -1985. Wollongong, University of Wollongong. Ham, R. and R. T. P. Ham (1987). Theatres : planning guidance for design and adaptation. London, Architectural Press. Helbo, A. (1991). Approaching theatre. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Holloway, P. (1981). Contemporary Australian drama : perspectives since 1955. Sydney, Currency Press. Howard, P. (2002). What is scenography? London, Routledge. Hubble, A. (1977). More than an Opera House. Sydney, Sydney Opera House. Love, H. (1984). The Australian stage : a documentary history. Kensington, N.S.W., New South Wales University Press in association with Australian Theatre Studies Centre, School of Drama, University of New South Wales. McNamara, B., J. Rojo, et al. (1975). Theatres, spaces, environments : eighteen projects. New York, Drama Book Specialists. Meyrick, J. (2002). See How It Runs. Sydney, Currency Press. Milne, G. (2004). Theatre Australia (un)limited : Australian theatre since the 1950s. Amsterdam ; New York, Rodopi. Parsons, P. and V. Chance (1997). Concise companion to theatre in Australia. Sydney, Currency Press. Pavis, P. (1982). Languages of The Stage. New York, Performing Arts Journal Publications. Rees, L. (1973). The making of Australian drama : a historical and critical survey from the 1830s to the 1970s. Sydney, Angus and Robertson. Schechner, R. (1977). Essays on performance theory, 1970-1976. New York, Drama Book Specialists. Sparke, P. (1986). An introduction to design and culture in the twentieth century. London, Allen & Unwin. Spinks, K. (1992). Australian theatre design. Paddington, N.S.W., Australian Production Designers Association NSW. References (cont.) 22
Thorne, R. (1992). Performing Arts Centres: The phenomenon, and what has influenced their being. Sydney, Australian Production Designers’ Association, NSW. West, J. (1978). Theatre in Australia. Stanmore, N.S.W, Cassell Australia. Zeplin, P. (1992). The Brush-Off Syndrome: Stage Design, History and Visual Art in Adelaide. Adelaide, un-published. Allen, J. C. (1971). Seymour Centre Report Number 1. Sydney, Allen, Jack Cottier Architects. 23
Chapter 1
Introduction A decade of strategic research and development in theatre performance started with the establishment of Drama Services Unit in 1974 and the completion of the building of the Seymour Theatre Centre in 1975. At that time most drama and theatre study in Australian universities took place in literature departments and was play script centred. Even when drama departments placed emphasis on play production, the performance was regarded as an end in itself not as an object of analysis. My aim was to advance new strategies for design practice, research and teaching to develop ways of ‘reading’ how a performance site creates meaning. Performance based projects were developed to allow second and third year undergraduates to observe the entire process involved in how, during a rehearsal period, the playwright's text is transformed into a performance. The aim of this study is to examine the design process which supported this transformation. The raison d'être of this work was collaboration between students, scholars and professional theatre artists.
Seymour Theatre Centre The University of Sydney built the Seymour Theatre Centre and undertook to honour the requirements of the bequest ‘to appoint a Director of Drama to undertake the co-ordination and development of the University's activities’. I was appointed Drama Director in 1974.
Seymour Theatre Centre was a member of a new building type, the Performing Arts Centre, a 20th Century invention, government or large institution owned and operated (Thorne 1992). It has three venues: a thrust stage drama theatre, the York, a recital hall end stage set up with an orchestra pit, the Everest, and an experimental theatre. 24
Figure 2 York Theatre, seating capacity 788. (Image Hugh Rutherford 2008).
Figure 3 Everest Theatre, seating capacity between 419 and 605. (Image Hugh Rutherford 2008). 25
Experimental Theatre The University, to fulfil a key requirement of the bequest ‘cultivation, education and performance of … dramatic arts’, required an experimental space to be incorporated into the design (Cottier 1972; Spinks 1992).
The experimental does not fit easily with a predetermined architectural form. The theatre building - a public space - is a controlled site governed by a complex set of standards and safety regulations which do not bend readily to variations of performer / viewer relationship. The very notion of regulation is to predictably control outcomes. This alone is at odds with an experimental or avant-garde performance idea which is about exploring and testing the audience / performer relationship.
The establishment of such places had a significant impact on experimental and avant-garde performance. The design issues related to the architecture of such buildings is complex but by their very nature predetermined the activities contained therein (Thorne 1992).
A service unit, Theatre Workshop (originally called Drama Services which was established by the author when he was appointed as the first Drama Director of the Seymour Centre in 1974), within the Vice Chancellor’s department, was established to undertake university projects in the experimental theatre. It was to develop and maintain a working connection with professional theatre and theatre artists through the exploration of new forms of performance, new performance translations of classic texts and a commitment to innovation and research in the theatre arts.
Downstairs Theatre The Experimental Theatre (later named the Downstairs Theatre), was a small studio 16m x 12m wide with a 7m clear ceiling height. It had an upper level gallery running around all sides. Seating layout could be arranged to change the audience/performer relationship. There was an audience capacity of up to 200 dependant upon the seating organisation. The wall finish was of concrete blocks. This design enabled flexibility for the creation of performance environments in a variety of theatrical styles. 26
Legend: A11 15.41m / A12 12.31m / B Backstage / E7 Access to Back Stage / E8 Loading Door / L6 Light Grid / N1 Gallery 1.17m N2 Gallery Width 1.83m / Z Control Room. (Allen 1971)
Figure 4 Downstairs Theatre Ground Plan. 27
Legend: K4 5.32m / K5 6.81m / L6 Light Grid / N1 Gallery 1.17m N2 Gallery Width 1.83m / O Tab Tracks. (Allen 1971)
Figure 5 Downstairs Theatre Cross Section.
Figure 6 Downstairs Theatre, Setting for Spring Awakening. Seymour Student Theatre 1975.
(All photographic images were taken by the author except where noted.) 28
Legend: B Backstage / K4 5.32m / K5 6.81m / L6 Light Grid N1 Gallery 1.17m / O Tab Tracks / Z Control Room (Allen 1971)
Figure 7 Downstairs Theatre Longitudinal Section. 29
All performance projects8 undertaken by Theatre Workshop in the Downstairs Theatre were guided through the same planning and design process. There was no differentiation between whether the production was undertaken by professional artists or students. (See Appendix A Adaptability of The Downstairs Theatre) I acted as design consultant to all productions, working closely with the user on the space planning, which created the performance environment. This included discussions on performance design use of the space, the audience / performer relationship, and seating layout. All design parameters were considered and tested in a 1:25 scale model9.
Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies In 1978 Theatre Workshop and the Department of French Studies established the first project in Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies (TAPS). Over the next decade projects were completed with the Departments of Italian, German, Indonesian, Architecture and Music. In 1989 The Centre for Performance Studies was established as a separate academic department.10
Student Theatre Theatre Workshop also assisted in the production of student-initiated performances. This proved to be useful to advance ideas and methods in TAPS
8 Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, translation Tom Osborn 1976, Apius and Virginia, John Webster 1977, Doña Rosita the Spinster by Federico García Lorca 1977, Satyricon by Petronius translation Paul Foster 1978, L’Illusion Comique by Pierre Corneille, translation by John Cairncross with adjustments in rehearsals by Rex Cramphorn 1978, The Maids (French: Les Bonnes) by Jean Genet 1979, The Wench by Giambattista Della Porta translation Mike Jones 1980, The Ran Dan Club or Life in Sydney, anonymous 1980, Britannicus by Jean Racine, Translation by Rex Cramphorn, 1980, La Veniexiana, anonymous and Every Burglar has a Silver Lining, translation Tim Fitzpatrick 1981, Antigone by Sophocles and The Bacchae by Euripides 1983, A Fault-Line by Luigi Pirandello, Translation by Tim Fitzpatrick 1986, Miss Julie by August Strinberg, Translation Michael Meyer 1986.
9 This scale model was built from plywood based on the architect’s drawing. It was designed so that any of the walls could be removed so that seating layout and performance design could be viewed from any angle. It no longer exists and no photographs were taken of the model. 10 It was the first such department in Australia and it adopted the methods developed at Theatre Workshop. This collaborative approach between professional theatre arts practitioners and theatre arts scholars to analyse the creative process of theatre arts practice was the foundation for Performance Studies to explore new ways to document performance for study and research. The study of space relationships in theatre performance and the design of theatre buildings was a central theme to this new work. McAuley, G. (1999). Space in performance : making meaning in the theatre. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. 30
as I was able - with academic staff - to try out new approaches to design. In addition it was of considerable advantage to the students as professional theatre practitioners were engaged to work with them on performance techniques. Two examples of student theatre were the Seymour Student Theatre11 which was established in 1975 at the University of Sydney and the Cartwheel Theatre12 which was established in 1976 by students at the University of New South Wales. Both these student theatre groups undertook productions which explored performance innovations. Ideas and techniques from these productions fed into the Theatre Analysis and Performance Study research programme.
New Form and The Professional Artist An 'artist-in-residence' programme enabled Theatre Workshop to provide professional theatre arts practitioners with a means of pursuing new ideas or methods away from the constraints which can be encountered whilst working in the so-called mainstream theatre. Establishing the seriousness of our intent to cultivate knowledge, expertise and research in theatre arts within the University was important. Equally important was to advance the ideas of this new program among professional theatre artists of standing so they could develop an understanding of Theatre Workshop's practice13. It was a challenge to these artists to open their work practices to rigorous examination. Cross-fertilisation of techniques and ideas at this level proved to be a critical factor in the acceptance of this work both within the university and the professional theatre.
11 Seymour Student Theatre was established in 1975. The aim of this Student Theatre was to form a combined tertiary student group of the best available actors and technicians in a professional theatre atmosphere and discipline during the summer university break. Students were given the opportunity and time to explore their creative resources/talents guided by professional theatre artists and expand their standards of performance not generally achieved during term. 12 Cartwheel Theatre was established at the University of N.S.W. The group's work was not limited merely to that campus, but was extended into the community at large, particularly in the inner city area. Cartwheel, as an alternative theatre company, sought to take its performances to audiences who have little or no contact with theatre. It used co-operative work methods and developed an ensemble concept, involving participation by all members in every aspect of production, from design to direction. In 1981 it was established as a professional Community Theatre, Death Defying Theatre. 13 Not all theatre artists are comfortable working under close observation in the rehearsal room. We found that the following were some of those artists able to collaborate in our open work process; Peta Williams, Melody Cooper, Jacqui Brown, Helen Herbertson, John Gaden, Brandon Burke, Richard Lawston, Kim Spinks, Dacha Bahia, Mick Mullins, John Howard, Kate Fitzpatrick, Robert Menzies and Eamon Darcy. 31
Spatial Dynamics I realised a new strategy was needed to achieve a productive dialogue between the theatre scholar and theatre practitioner about the design of the visual elements in the performance environment. It was essential to integrate design practice and research into TAPS projects. The experimental theatre venue was a unique type of performance environment and this required the design of productions to be approached with an outlook different from the traditional stage design approach.
A new attitude to researching the visual environment was also required. In 1975 the Department of Architecture began a series of lectures, Theatre History and Design (Thorne 1975) as part of the B.Sc.(Arch) course14. I took this opportunity to offer students of this course an elective in Spatial Dynamics through the Art Workshop,15 a service unit within the Department of Architecture which offered practical workshops in various visual art and design practices to all students. These workshops, described in the next chapter, were structured to emulate the creative process, in a capsule form, which we undertook when planning, rehearsing, mounting and the documentation a performance project in the experimental theatre. The process which I followed was this; • preparation and workshop/class (the rehearsal) • the student demonstration to class (the performance as (a) retained in the minds of participants and (b) in the minds of the spectators) • practical experience and creative expression (students as performers and viewers) • recording of this activity and theories tested (post event research); • analysis and critique of the process, performance and documentation (assessments and critical reviewing).
14 This series of lectures was written and delivered by Professor Ross Thorne, an expert in theatre architecture in Australia. He was closely involved in the development of Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies into the Department of Performance Studies. 15 The Art Workshop is a service unit offering visual arts practice. It is attached to the Faculty of Architecture, and houses five visual arts studios and a gallery space. It provides students in architecture and the wider University with the opportunity to work in various arts media under the direction of professional artists and designers. Courses aim to develop the students' creative potential as a means of complementing their work in design. The opportunity to explore ‘space ideas’ was presented to me by the Director of the Art Workshop, Peter Kennedy. He suggested that I offer a 'theatre based design workshop' as an option to undergraduate students in Architecture and Fine Arts, through the Art Workshop Elective programmes. 32
The workshops were mini versions of the performance projects with each step being closely assessed by academics, students and myself.
And besides it was exhilarating. It entailed a positive commitment to a learning process; and everyone involved in the process gained insight at the very least into group dynamics, performance rudiments and the process and work involved in the development of an idea- and a space - into an aesthetic object.” Susan Melrose case study report, May 1979, see footnote below.16
16 I have reproduced most of this unpublished report because it clearly expresses the connection to the theatre performance work and was the start of our dedication to having an observer and documenter on every project, who was outside the project looking in.
Case Study report by Susan Melrose, a postgraduate student with the Department of French Studies
Finding it Doing it Showing it Assessing it An extraordinary performance-event took place in the Clubroom of the Seymour Centre: eight students involved in an interdepartmental option (Architecture, Fine Arts, Theatre Workshop) served as resource material in the assessment-project of another student. Before thirty or so spectators and as a result of ten hours of preparation, the project reached the stage conventionally reserved in other departments, for the presentation of essay or seminar paper. The topic? Exploring the spatial dimensions of a room; presentation of discoveries in the form of aesthetic object/statement. The performance was videotaped; and together with earlier tapes of the developing project all combined with the process, the performance (retained in the minds of participants) and the performance (in the minds of the spectators) assumed a tangible unity. The whole project has attained a status that extends beyond the relatively ephemeral level of one-off performance, to become an analysable "academic" entity. The pedagogic potential and the general implications of the project are extensive and complex when the process is viewed within the context of student options: (a) Interdisciplinary enterprise and resources: the expertise of the Theatre Workshop embodied by Derek Nicholson who initiated the group's projects - is being effectively tapped and utilised in an "academic" teaching context. (b) Diverse and frequently unexplored talents of participants are channelled into practical experience and creative expression of certain theories (Bauhaus genre) as yet unanalysed by the group. (c) The recording of this - and the other project(s), so that participants can begin to analyse and theorise about their endeavour, means that the material emerging attains for this group and for those that follow a status similar to textual material analysed and critiqued in any of the human sciences/ humanities departments. At the moment, the whole project is experimental; the successful narrowing of the gap between creative experimentation and "academic" analysis - (an artificial but long- standing dichotomy) - will depend on the amount of follow-up analysis undertaken, now that the euphoria of the performance/exposure of research results is passing. What is required now is the question time that follows the presentation of the "seminar paper", leading towards a written assessment of the process. There is no reason - if the performance unit can be repeated, and/or, in terms of future performance/project display for the exercise to be limited to those department groups so far involved: many of the Humanities departments present options in dramatic-text analysis, sociological analysis of performance semiological analysis of written and verbal statement "uttered" in, and commenting on, a particular space; the utterance lasted for 33 minutes and was perceived as a unified whole internally segmented in space by the dynamic nature of six individual/discrete human spaces, temporally 33
The Experimental Theatre established a place of performance research, a theatre laboratory. Each new project was therefore able to re-engage with the fundamentals of different audience / performer relationship design. First order design problems were to consider the elements containing the performance environment; venue, seating areas and performer spaces. Second order design elements were those which functioned with great flexibility within the scenographic style of a production, sets, scenery, décor, etc. All users of the Downstairs Theatre, scholars, artists or students, were engaged in the exploration of spatial relationships between performers and audiences for each production. The common element and the characteristic artistic quality common to all work was the interpretation of space. A new approach to the creation of meaning in the theatrical performance was being developed.
segmented into a sequence of quasi-discrete units, bound by certain redundant elements into two macro-sequences. Further analysis of the recorded "text" will reveal segments which, according to certain pre-encoded principles, make clear and strong statements about domination, manipulation, regimentation, death by hanging, interrogation, disorientation, machines gone mad, etc. etc. and in each of these instances, the production of that statement can be analysed. So too can the implications of our "intuitive" reaction that such and such a segment "worked", while another worked less well, was obscure or even meaningless within the context of those other, clear statements. In other words, the project has resulted in a kind of material analysable by the same principles employed in text analysis all over the University.
Later Susan Melrose completed: Melrose, S. (1994). A Semiotics of the Dramatic Text. London, The Macmillian Press Ltd. 34
References: Allen, J. C. (1971). Seymour Centre Report Number 1. Sydney, Allen, Jack Cottier Architects. Cottier, A. J. (1972). Seymour Centre Proposal Report. Sydney. McAuley, G., Ed. (1987). From Page to Stage: L'Illusion Comique. Sydney, Theatre Studies Unit, University of Sydney. McAuley, G. (1999). Space in performance : making meaning in the theatre. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. Melrose, S. (1994). A Semiotics of the Dramatic Text. London, The Macmillian Press Ltd. Spinks, K. (1992). Australian Theatre Design. Paddington, N.S.W., Australian Production Designers Association NSW. Thorne, R. (1975). Theatre History and Design. Sydney, Department of Architecture, University of Sydney. Thorne, R. (1992). Performing Arts Centres: The phenomenon, and what has influenced their being. Sydney, Australian Production Designers’ Association, NSW. 35
Chapter 2
Development of the Black Rod Exercises In support of, and parallel to, the Theatre Analysis Performance Studies New Form and Experimental Performance programmes in the Downstairs Theatre, I started a series of workshops17 for students and professional designers. I offered a 'theatre practice design based workshop' to students from Architecture and Fine Arts and The National Institute of Dramatic Art.
I came to these exploratory workshops from my design training in London 196718 which was firmly based on the design philosophies being practised by the Royal Court Theatre in London (Findlater 1981) and founded on earlier work that began in the London Theatre Studio. This in turn was based on the teaching of Michel Saint Denis (Saint-Denis and Saint-Denis 1982). The designer was included in the theatre-making team from the beginning of a project and all spaces in staging became design considerations. This was a
17 The first of these workshops were offered to Fine Arts and Architecture students by Art Workshop and Theatre Workshop in 1979. Taken from student hand out DESIGN OPTION Term 1 - SPATIAL DYNAMICS IN DESIGN FOR A PERFORMANCE ART/THEATRE SPACE Mastery of Space All our attitudes are extended and all our thoughts take place in what modern thinkers call "space - time". Although there is a level at which we cannot be dissociated, the concepts of space and of time are sufficiently separate in everyday sensory experience for us to be able to speak of "space" and "time". The mastery of space is essential for man. In general, it is achieved without too much trouble, but occasionally difficulties arise. This happens for example when we emerge from an underground exit into an unfamiliar part of the city or when we have to interpret, say, the information on a road sign telling us how a motorway interchange works or the plan showing us how to get to one particular strand in an exhibition on several floors. At such times we may detect a certain inflexibility in our facilities of perception and interpretation, as though they had not received enough training to be able to solve the problems set.
An Exploration of the Dynamics of Space The workshop/tutorials will explore the spatial relationships within the confines of a performance area, ie. room to people, objects to objects, people to people, objects to people, people to furniture, and effects of colour and light on these relationships. Medium to be used: scale models, photography, collages, sketches and video, also field work in particular working spaces. Students will be expected to complete a project 'essay'. The form of this 'essay' can be chosen from the most appropriate medium available, i.e. photocollages, video, models, exhibition display etc. 18 The Motley Theatre Design Course was formerly known as the Sadler's Wells Design Course and the Theatre Design Course of the English National Opera. In 1966 Margaret 'Percy' Harris, at that time resident designer of the company, launched the Design Course based on the approach to design of the Old Vic School where they had both worked under the direction of Michel St. Denis, Glen Byam Shaw and George Devine. The Course has been recognised internationally for the quality of its graduates. The teaching is based on a philosophy of respect for the performer and a belief in the integrity of design to the performance. 36
new approach to stage design19 in British theatre during the 1960’s. I applied similar principles to projects in the Downstairs Theatre. All space utilisation outcomes had to be directly linked to the production design solution. This applied not only to the form of the space for stage design but it was essential to consider the audience relationship and viewpoints as prime spatial concerns.
The traditional prototype models and the model box method are useful tools for the practice and teaching of designers about space in stage design. But here in a university context with a theatre to try out ideas, it seemed to me that if we were to truly experiment with this new performance environment then we should first explore basic elements of visual concepts and principles. I considered it was essential therefore to develop a series of workshops in a systematic and structured approach, to explore relationships in space. This would provide a source of support and documentation for the advancement of three-dimensional design and visual communication embedded in the performance environment we were researching.
Workshop participants were set a series of exercises similar to the type of acting exercises that were used in an improvisation class in a drama school (Spolin 1985). The essential difference was that the exercises focused on space relationships rather than characterisations or actor motivation. These exercises developed from simple ‘lines in an environment’ to become detailed installations incorporating vertical and horizontal surfaces, simple geometric shapes, surfaces and objects.
The installations were based on constructions made up of simple elements as visual form generators. These form generators were several black rods and lengths of black rope. Each exercise set as a visual problem, explored the physical attributes of form in a three-dimensional space with focus on the perception of depth, distance and volume. Exercises in composition, visualisation organisation and figure/ground configurations were set-up. The
19 The "New Stagecraft" replaced the painted, three-dimensional sets and realistic costumes of the nineteenth century stage with fluid, representational scenery and evocative costumes. Together, the elements of the design formed a unified interpretation of the play. 37
exercises became more complex with the introduction of people and objects. To conclude the workshop, participants were encouraged to design installations to demonstrate their understanding of the visual and physical attributes of form. Attributes of form were also explored, such as dimension, shape and proportion. Photographic documentation of all exercises was taken.
The installations were constructed in The Club Room (4m L X 10m W X 2.4m H) in the Seymour Centre. The surface finishes in the room were natural wood floor, concrete brick walls, white plaster board ceiling with surface mounted fluorescent lighting. I used this room because I considered it to have a ‘neutral’ architectural influence. While I do not consider there is such an environment as a ‘neutral space’, the surfaces of this room are commonly used materials and very familiar to the users so the surface did not exert a dominant presence. The Downstairs Theatre was constructed of the same materials.
Figure 8 The Club Room Seymour Centre.
(For more photographic examples of these workshops see Appendix B.)
The images below illustrate a progression of installations through a series of workshop exercises starting with simple lines in the environment. Figure 8, Rods, Figure 9 Adding Planes, Figure 10 and 12, Objects, and through to 38
complex installation environments with three-dimensional Structures to end Workshops with a student designed environment with Lighting Figure 13.
Figure 9 Lines in the environment. Rods afford seeing planes; Line Relationships express spatial patterning.
Figure 10 Adding planes draws attention to surface finishes and defining edges. Left side plane occludes corner implies space beyond. 39
Figure 11 Objects - Chairs, Lines and Plane. Things afford space-forming relationships.
Figures 12 People Planes and Rods. The 'figure/ground' phenomenon plays a role in depth and vertical directions. 40
Figure 13 Objects Our perception, organises into meaningful wholes relationships developed between separated elements.
Figure 14 Light Spatial patterning relationships indicate and define the dramatic place. 41
These workshops demonstrated that focusing on spatial relationships was a good start to understanding the visual and spatial dynamics in stage design. It also became clear that the underlying theoretical position of these workshops was derived from the Gestalt set of principles.20 Gestalt principles effectively show that we organise our perceptions into meaningful wholes from the relationships developed between separated elements. The Black Rod workshops not only confirmed these ideas but also the practical ability to recreate such phenomena was actively demonstrated. And the properties of simplicity, closure, symmetry and good continuation hold true under examination. Certainly it is clear that the 'figure/ground' phenomenon does play an important role in assisting us to structure the world that we see and this remains equally applicable to stage design in the realm of the dramatic world.
Hence a puzzle picture (or one in which meaning is implied rather than explicit) may paradoxically be more alluring than one in which the message is obvious. (Bloomer 1976 p.11)
Here there are implications for space ‘problem solving’ in terms of performance design. An implied space, a space with some ambiguity, waiting to be filled with performance information, an action, encourages a viewer’s mind and imagination ‘to work at seeing’. A viewer fully engaged in a performance will see the fictional places evolve and change with sequences of dramatic actions by the performers to the performance space. Whereas designing an imitation of a real space, realistic design / naturalistic theatre, will only engage a viewer to see that space as it is. This limits the engagement of the visual ‘problem solving’ imagination ‘to work at seeing’ beyond the real.
20 Gestalt School of Psychology was founded in 1912 to investigate the way we perceive form. The word gestalt simply means pattern in German. The work of the Gestalt psychologists is still valued today because they provided a clear description of many basic perceptual phenomena. The central idea of Gestalt theory is that we tend to interpret a visual field or (visual) problem through patterning of the information. The focal point of Gestalt theory is the idea of "grouping". The main factors that determine grouping are: proximity - how elements tend to be grouped together depending on their closeness; similarity - how items that are similar in some way tend to be grouped together; closure - how items are grouped together if they tend to complete a pattern; simplicity - how items are organised into figures according to symmetry, regularity, and smoothness. Canter, D. (1974). A Short course in architectural psychology. Syd., Department of Architecture, University of Sydney for the Architectural Psychology Research Unit, Barry, A. M. S. (1997). Visual Intelligence, State University of New York Press. 42
Figure 15 The Empty Space. Skirting boards and dark corners define the horizontal and vertical aspects of the field of vision.
Figure 16 Black Rod Installation 1 This installation creates a hallway or corridor effect at the edges of the centre layout. The centre layout is open and implies entry into. From the corners of the central layout to the corners of the room - Implied lines. Point of view focus is drawn into the space/s – U shape & corridor effect. Rod layout mirrors skirting boards. A tendency to see objects in terms of figures on a ground, a 43
Figure 17 Square Black Rod Installation 2, By completing the square the visual focus is brought to the centre. The composition is at rest compared with the previous image. Generally there are two reactions to this configuration; The Square floats - thereby implying a platform and/or the Square sinks -thereby implying a hole. Compared with the previous image the front corridor becomes less important. Principles of symmetry, regularity and continuity apply. 44
Figure 18 Black Rod Installation 3 The phenomena of seeing spaces between the rods, as planes, can only be explained in psychological terms. Perception is not based upon isolated responses to particular stimuli, but rather as a reaction to the total stimulus field.
Figure 19 Black Rod Installation 4, Where the installation cannot readily be seen as having focus, there is a tendency to perceptually break it up into smaller groups on the principles of proximity or similarity. 45
Figure 20 Black Rod Installation 5, The phenomenon of seeing spaces between the rods, as planes pertaining to the rods, can only be explained in psychological terms. Perception is not based upon isolated responses to particular stimuli, but rather as a reaction to the total stimulus field. 46
Grouping is one way the mind perceptually organizes a figure/ground relationship from separate elements. Pre-programmed learnt responses are called perceptual prejudices. We tend to see only those things that reinforce this and this is consistent with the law of simplicity. Isolating a single element helps the viewer allocate attention thereby allowing a more effective ‘engagement’. Visual perception problem solving assists in reinforcing viewer ‘engagement’ in a performance. By giving special regard to visual information experienced by a viewer, by focusing on space-defining elements, I am acknowledging that visual perception is the direct route for audiences to understand space relationships active in performance environments.
Scenographic Connections: Story Telling and Focus As these workshops developed I invented new sets of exercises that would have direct bearing on scenographic interpretation in the performance environment. A design problem was set. The design solution required the use of the elements, rods, planes and chairs. One student group acted as viewers and the other as a design team. The brief for these exercises was in spatial problem solving. A common type of spatial problem encountered by a scenographer, spatial focus and narrative layouts, was such a problem to be solved during a rehearsal process.
A Chair Following my normal warm up exercises of the lines in the environment, a standard institutional chair is introduced into the installation. This common object immediately changes the focus to the space that was been defined by the black rods. Figure 22. Then the chair is upturned. Figure 23. Now the installation has an added dimension that was lacking in the previous installation, time. Most of the other installations were at rest or showed a fixed pictorial image. In Figure 23 there must have been an action: a before. What we see in the present; now, draws out a conclusion, we assume that there will be an after. We think this, as the chair is unable to be used as designed. It is in an inappropriate position. There will be another action to bring the installation back to a rest 47
position. There is a narrative: an implied story line, where there is an action, there is likely to be a reaction.
Figure 21 Black Rod Installation 6
Figure 22 Black Rod Installation 7 48
Figure 23 Black Rod Installation 8
The second group of photographic documentation demonstrates not only a storyline with objects but also the added dynamic of bodies in space, people.
In Figure 24 the installation is set up with a clear spatial focus. This is achieved by the location setting of the planes and the chairs. The exercise brief is to place a body in the space, in a focus location, ‘position of command’ Figure 25. Placing a body immediately and naturally changes the focus. The next action is to place another body in a ‘position of command’ to share focus or to shift focus. 49
Figure 24 Black Rod Installation 9
Figure 25 Black Rod Installation 10 50
Figure 26 Black Rod Installation 11
It is worth noting the visual change that takes place in the photographic image of the installation when a black rod is placed at the front of the installation between the viewer and the installation.
During the design process a scenographic imagination has to manufacture space relationships in built environments, to objects, to surfaces and various other media to focus audience point of view. Each space-defining element contributes to the system of relationships which combine to address a viewer’s visual perception ‘to see’ the dramatic place. Spatial design within a performance event intentionally re-orders its environment by developing elements, spatial indicators, as cueing and clueing signals.
Ultimately this study must also focus and confine itself to the meanings communicated by the use of space in a performance. As performance is a multi modal form of communication, isolating one element from the complex relationships available for study remains problematic. The use of these field 51
studies was to enable us to simplify the spatial information and thereby expose the underlying structure.
Summary The Black Rod workshops’ field studies were run during the same time frame as the performance work in the Downstairs Theatre, to explore the use of space determining elements in a built environment from first principles. This confirmed that the principles of the geometric box stage design elements of influence, perspective viewing active in a proscenium stage, were of little use in the performance environment of an open stage experimental venue. Fresh design thinking was needed. (See Appendix C)
Any new thoughts on design must be positioned in the broader critical debates developing on how to analyse the whole complex system in performance. Contemporary study methods and techniques were converging to establish a new discipline of performance studies (Schechner 1973; Schechner 1977). To contextualise my design work and to fruitfully participate in the development of new design practices I needed to engage with how documentation of performance could assist in my research. 52
References:
Barry, A. M. S. (1997). Visual Intelligence, State University of New York Press. Bloomer, C. M. (1976). Principles of Visual Perception. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Canter, D. (1974). A Short course in architectural psychology. Syd. Department of Architecture, University of Sydney for the Architectural Psychology Research Unit. Findlater, R. (1981). At the Royal Court. London, Grove Press. Kaufman, L. (1979). Perception Oxford. Oxford University Press. Saint-Denis, M. and S. Saint-Denis (1982). Training for the theatre : premises & promises. New York, Theatre Arts Books ; London : Heinemann. Schechner, R. (1973). Environmental Theater, New York, Hawthorn Books [1973]. Schechner, R. (1977). Essays on performance theory, 1970-1976. New York, Drama Book Specialists. Spolin, V. (1985). Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook. Northwestern University Press. 53
Chapter 3
Mapping Lines of Communication in Performances Documentation Text based analytical systems are not always suitable to interrogate underlying structures in a performance site. Ideas advanced in documentation of social events may be beneficial to research in performance studies. Particularly useful would be documentation that could render post-performance information on spatial dynamics and spatial relationships. Semiotic approaches to performance analysis often draws on Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974) to develop a method for mapping the vocabulary of the theatre and the structure of communications inherent in performance. As a scenographic design method draws inspiration for all design disciplines, it is productive to consider terminology and accept descriptions and documentation of spatial events and phenomena from related design disciplines.
During the decade, 1975 to 1985, there were advances in visual documentation of performance; in photography high-speed film and in video low-light recording technologies both would benefit performance studies. In November 1983 Theatre Workshop co-hosted a symposium on Performance Documentation, with the Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture. A number of researchers from diverse university departments and disciplines notably anthropology, linguistics, computer science, sociology, music, literature and theatre, were brought together to exchange ideas (McAuley 1986).
At Theatre Workshop I understood the importance of documentation but we had little experience in it and there was no established methodology on which to draw. Papers were presented considering forms of visual documentation which could be utilised to support research projects (McAuley 1986). What we were looking for was a form of notation or a mapping, so that we could identify salient spatial features in the performance site. This site was constructed of many different sign systems generating a complex whole in a performance. The key spatial relationships under examination needed to be isolated within the map of the whole communication system of the performance environment but equally 54
seen as discrete elements inextricably connected to the system. While the academic researchers were engaged in broad issues of coding and decoding the total performance system, I was able to examine my role as a designer and concentrate on investigation of the design process.
It was timely for my work that Keir Elam attempted such a mapping of the whole theatrical performance system by proposing a set of theatrical and dramatic codes. His map of Theatrical Communication is based on multiple headings which are divided under codes and subcodes, such as theatrical subcodes, cultural codes, dramatic subcodes (Elam 1980 p.56). His map is for use by ‘an ideal spectator as an exercise in decoding the performance text and in understanding its dramatic characteristics’. He assumes “that theatrical and dramatic rules are founded on more general cultural codes” (Elam 1980 p.62). This was the first study of its kind in English which traces the history of semiotic approaches to performance. He presented a model for a theatrical communication system and laid out promising areas of semiotic research for theatre studies to support the establishment of this new discipline of performance studies. “There is good reason for arguing that the theatrical text is defined and perceived above all in spatial terms” (Elam p.56).
He clearly understood the limitations of applying prescriptive codes and noted that "research into these codified, overcoded and undercoded norms is at a preliminary stage, so that the indications are designed simply to mark out, as it were, the more inviting zones of an uncertain and unstable territory" (Elam p.50). His codes are embedded in an analytical system which remains essentially a post performance diagnostic tool. In his ‘map of the system’ he clearly identifies the sources of theatrical information. He identifies ‘the shared cooperative codes of influences’ by set designers, lighting designers, costume designers and other participants; their capacities as ‘decision-makers initiative takers’ are the source of many ideas.
With Elam as a guide I was able to turn my attention to considering ways of codifying the elements of the design process. In tracing the history of semiotic approaches to performance analysis, Elam often draws on Frame Analysis to 55
support his arguments in developing a method for analysis of his theatrical mapping system. Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974), draws heavily on the vocabulary of the theatre and the structure of communications inherent in performance events.
Frames are conceptual or cognitive structures to the extent that they are applied by participants and observers to make sense of a given 'strip' of behaviour, but derive from the conventional principles through which behaviour itself is organized (Elam 1980 p.86).
In the classic rehearsal room exercise, by changing the relative distance between two actors who are playing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, actor proximity can be interrogated. How does the scene ‘play’ (communicate differently) when the actors are in close or at a distance from each other or with one actor raised above the other? While undertaking such rehearsal room explorations the different spatial relationships can test various interpretations of this scene. Significant variations in the meaning of what is seen and heard can be revealed by variations in the spatial relationships of the actors. Clearly the meaning can also be changed considerably by the spoken word delivery style. Certainly a verbal delivery style change may also automatically change with variations in the spatial relationship of the actors. Actors alone on a performance space carrying on this highly emotional conversation create a cascade of information bits per second for a viewer to interpret. A small percentage of this information exchange is verbal. The majority that remains is concerned with gesture, body placement and space relationships.
Analysis of performance systems and codes might well turn first, therefore, to the organization of architectural, scenic and interpersonal space – those factors which … anthropologists and others have elaborated a science especially devoted to spatial codes mainly proxemics (Elam 1980 p.87).
Proxemics (and kinesics) can document spatial structures and are usefully applied to analysis of personal relationships in social settings, but in the fictional setting are less useful tools. The dramatic or fictional realm does not conform to the geometric spaces of the real world. 56
Because of the multitude of channels of communication, the dynamics of spatial information needs to be brought under a less complex system for analysis. Visual perception is the direct route to understanding the space dynamics in performance environment and, by giving special regard to visual information, I focused on space-defining elements in the field of view of an audience.
Space-defining Elements Performance environments have prime containment sites; a location from which an audience can view performances and a staging location or a site upon or within which performances are en-acted. Defining elements are created within such prime containment sites which may be permanent (a theatre building) or semi-permanent (moveable seating fixed stage) or fully adaptable (both stage and seating movable).
Audience Point of View It is important to establish the observational location from which space-defining elements are analysed, a point of view. In all cases the analysis of observations is taken as from an audience 'field of view'. Each audience member has a distinct location and therefore there is a field of view variation. These variations do not change in any discernible way (for this study) as the venue has a relative small site volume. Audience members view space elements simultaneously. Essentially the audience is a 'single observer' to the space elements, so from the point of view of my analysis there is a single observational position.
As a scenographic design method draws inspiration from all design disciplines, it is productive to consider terminology and accept descriptions and documentation of spatial events and phenomena from related design disciplines. Text based analytical systems are not suitable to interrogate underlying structures of a performance site with such complex dynamic spatial relational elements, but Frame Analysis is well suited to the task. This underlying structure can be identified as a ‘designed framework’. In Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974) advances ideas about the ways in which to determine answers identifying underlying structures of relationships. The value of Frame Analysis to this project lies in its capacity to categorise real and make-believe 57
events. Primary frameworks can be located and identified. Secondary and subsequent frameworks are easily perceived within the established prime framework.
In both social and architectural sciences (Sanoff 1991), systems of observational documentation and notation have been developed to identify active indicators or cues that trigger spatial perception. However, these remain problematic for performance studies because of the dynamic and inter-active nature of performance founded in a real time event. Real world experiences can be read as stable compared to theatrical events.
Systematic methods of recording the dynamic organization of space in buildings and in cities is the principal reason for the development of notation systems (Thiel 1981 Sanoff p.109).
Because perception of our visual world is a dynamic process, spaces, surface events and their meanings are not experienced simultaneously, but are experiential ‘time sequenced’. This is also true in the performance environment.
The problem of finding a general description of visual forms has been widely recognized for some time (Kaufman 1979 p.5).
Thiel stresses that his work, by its nature, is focused on basic concepts and theories. In his attempt to develop classifications of perceptual phenomenon, he uses a simple description of visual stimuli as " 'blobs', 'patches', 'bars', 'tiny spots', 'edges', 'forms', and to cover everything else, 'images' " and concludes that such terminology is inappropriate for scientific investigations but is fitting to be used in a social setting. These classifications are of benefit to study my design process.
Sanoff and Thiel opened up to me new thinking about space. My next step was to codify my design process, which I was intuitively applying to scenography and venue design practices. From my design practice and research I had introduced students and academic colleagues to principles of space design and concepts of spatial cueing related to the perception of depth and distance in the 58
performance environments. I thought my ideas would benefit from investigations into the understandings of space and the interpretation of space being applied in other design disciplines.
In progressing my ideas there are two assumptions which are behind my approach to search out how other designers have attempted to codify spatial dynamics.
Firstly, I assumed that a visual notation may have a broad relevance to all design disciplines and codification of my scenographic process would be useful in design teaching in particular. From this viewpoint the environment in which I was manipulating objects (Black Rods), may be taken to cover as wide a perspective of spatial and visual aspects of other built spaces as possible, not just a performance space.
The second assumption is that human behaviour in and to a built environment is open to study. The main reason for this is that the same assumptions, which make studies in architecture possible, give rise to the potentialities for study of people in other built environments. For, if human behaviour were so erratic or unpredictable that it was impossible to find underlying principles to the study of space, or to discover trends within it then it would never be possible to engage with the process of production of any spatial environment.
I adapted the Black Rod workshop exercises to suit a different situation, a design teaching program at the College of Fine Arts21. To establish my ideas on the dynamics of space for these students, I based the foundation exercises on the Black Rod installations of ‘lines in the environment’. Then I changed the installation layout from relating to a performance environment to more stable built environments such as galleries, ‘pictures on walls’, and interior design space, ‘placement of objects’.
21 In 1991 as a part time lecturer I developed the Spatial Dynamics workshops to suit the Gallery and Exhibition Design Development Course for Master students. 59
References: Elam, K. (1980). The semiotics of theatre and drama. London; New York, Methuen. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis : an essay on the organization of experience. New York, Harper & Row. Kaufman, L. (1979). Perception Oxford. Oxford University Press. McAuley, G., Ed. (1986). The Documentation and Notation of Theatrical Performance. Sydney, Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture. Sanoff, H. (1991). Visual research methods in design. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Thiel, P. (1981). Visual awareness and design : an introductory program in conceptual awareness, perceptual sensitivity, and basic design skills. Seattle, University of Washington Press. 60
Chapter 4
School of Design University of New South Wales Introducing undergraduate students to concepts of spatial cueing related to the perception of depth and distance in performance design, I thought, may help them to understand the influences of space in social settings; interior built environments (personal spaces) and art galleries (public spaces). These are the prime space elements defining theatre space and stage spaces which I needed to identify and classify for student designers.
Teaching and Research In first term 1996, following a decade of freelance design specialising in Theatre Consultancy to architects and lighting design for exhibitions and restaurants, I returned to the University of New South Wales as a full time lecturer at the School of Design, in the faculty of the College of Fine Arts. My teaching and research was based in Programs in Environments and Spatial Design. I taught foundation design in basic visual concepts and principles to first year undergraduates. For second and third year students, I supervised The Studio program, a design studio concept, project based subject. I introduced students to ways of identifying and organising basic visual elements into general physical structures to show attributes of form, and to develop their understandings of the various theories and phenomena that influence the form generation process in the design of built environments.
I was supervisor of Environments, in the School of Design, which is an umbrella term used by the school for any spatial design practices. Teaching and Studio Projects included many built environment space exercises within disciplines ranging from architecture to landscape design and also included an elective in stage design which I wrote for General Education22.
All students undertook space-planning exercises. I introduced students, in the Gallery Design and Exhibition Development Masters Course of Curatorial
22 Design in Performance, Course Outline 61
Studies, to basic principles of space design and concepts of spatial cueing related to the perception of depth and distance when viewing objects. Teaching in these courses and supervising design projects I was occupied with ways of researching the spatial dynamics of public23 and private spaces. My objective was to develop a model on which to base my teaching about visual elements in an environment. I re-engaged with the research work on space that I had developed during the decade when I ran the Black Rod workshop exercises.
There is a major difference between spatial design practice in scenography which is a collaborative form of design during a rehearsal period, and design practice used for built environment design which is most commonly used by designers working in isolation, in a studio, with a client or from the client’s brief. Verbal descriptions and diagramming interpretations, with distinguishing environmental settings and scale models, are commonly used as reference material by architects, landscape architects, interior designers and other design professionals, as ‘maps’ on spatial matters, for design meetings with colleagues and clients.
Scenographic design takes place in the rehearsal room.
However well prepared the work of the director and the scenographer is in theory while playing and developing ideas in the maquette, working with live humans in an actual space takes the preparatory work into another realm. It is here, in the actuality, that the performers' logic and reason unites the text with the space and the work begins to take a real shape (Howard 2002 p.15).
Notation of Spatial Elements Research into the effects of physical settings upon attitudes and behaviour of students which was being undertaken by architectural science, urban and
23 Theatricalisation and design theming of public occasions, community ceremonies and sporting events is an established design trend. Design in staging large-scale events, including theatre performance, will be the major focus of this subject. Students will be introduced to the design processes on which event stagings are based. Through close examination of the characteristics by which such occasions are represented and communicated to audiences, students will systematically investigate the crafts and contemporary theories of staging such events. 62
landscape planners (Sanoff 1991), was valuable source material to develop ideas for my notation of spatial elements in a design process. It seemed to me possible that the design process which I was intuitively applying in the performance environment, if it could be codified, would be useful in helping students to understand the influences of space and interpreting representations contained within galleries and interior design spaces.
Three illustrations caught my attention which are reproduced below (Sanoff 1991). In these illustrations Thiel demonstrated his ideas of the experience of space with results from experiments in visual perception of relationships between surfaces, screens and objects. He suggested these could be codified into three basic positions - over, under and side - as seen in his illustrations, with a classification system which could recognise such spatial experiences as space- establishing elements. He concluded that an overhead surface was the most enclosing and that the underneath least enclosing while sides had intermediate value. But his most important idea, for my studies, was his recognition that space perception could be identified and classified with scales, proportions and shapes in an environment – Space Establishing Elements (SEE).
Students were given a drawing (Figure 27 over), of the complete enclosure condition and were asked to number the parts of the structure from most enclosing to least enclosing. 63
Figure 27 Space-forming notation for orthogonal surfaces. Thiel’s form defining surfaces, screens, and objects categorised in three basic positions; over, side, and under. (Visual Research Methods in Design,p.110) 64
Figure 28 Function of Surfaces. Thiel concluded the enclosing effect is a function of the position of surfaces and their relative importance. (Visual Research Methods in Design, p.111) 65
The second set of illustrations used by Thiel.
Figure 29 Enclosing Surfaces (Visual Research Methods in Design,p.112)
Students were also presented with a set of 24 black and white line drawings each depicting the same architectural interior space drawn in one-point perspective furnished with the same table, six chairs and a standing female figure. Each drawing showed a different combination of intact, complete, 66
ranging from least explicit with furniture and figure only, to most explicit with five enclosing surfaces. The students were asked to order the drawings between the established polls of ‘openness and closedness’. Thiel used these diagrams to conduct studies to establish the relative importance of his space establishing elements in the perception of the ‘enclosing effect’ of surfaces in a built environment and to order the established polls of ‘openness and closedness’.
I was immediately drawn to this research project - applying space-establishing elements in an environment - because of the similarity of his diagrams to the photographic recordings I had taken when working with students in the Black Rod exercises.
There was a significant difference between Thiel’s experiments on spatial establishing elements and my work with spatial dynamics. I was working in a three-dimensional space and testing ideas with similar outcomes. His research results confirmed for me that the field study research I had undertaken to support the theatre production scenography in the Downstairs Theatre’s open space, was applicable to other spatial design disciplines (built environments), which depended on the application of space-establishing elements. In performance design the prime design parameters are always defining elements.
Gestalt Visual Perceptual Principles The relevance of both Thiel’s and my field research studies arose from ideas contained in these sets of results. Student response, to two different types of visual cueing, demonstrated a similarity of perceptual reaction to spatial dynamic exercises, even though one set was to objects in space in a built environment (real) and the other to illustrations (representational) of planes in space. Gestalt visual perceptual principles can be found to be active in both exercises but the Black Rod exercises were in real time/space and therefore gave the participants and myself flexibility to play with space. We were able to adjust elements into predetermined spatial patterning and to observe spatial dynamics in action.
The principal value of Gestalt ideas to the understanding of perceptual space, 67
be it in three-dimensional installations or two-dimensional representations, is to always make it appear simple, clear and as comprehensible as possible.
‘Hamlet: Do you see that cloud, that's almost in shape like a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and 't is like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks, it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or, like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale’.
Hamlet, Act III, Scene II. William Shakespeare
Gestalt psychologists regarded a tendency to see objects in terms of figures on a ground as a prerequisite necessary before the principles of ‘seeing space’ come into operation. It is clear that figure/ground phenomenon plays an important role in helping us to structure the world we see. Furthermore, from the general viewpoint of perception, and by way of simplification and stabilisation of stimuli, similar roles can be attributed to the principles of symmetry, regularity and continuity.
These principles can be most easily described by specifying the properties we seek to superimpose upon any configuration or installations with which we are presented. Installations which do not have these properties will be perceived as lacking order; may be seen as being in a chaotic state or at least remembered as spatially ‘not working’.
Where the configuration cannot readily be seen as having focus, there is a tendency to perceptually break it up into smaller groups on the principles of proximity or similarity. So that, for instance, in Figure 18 this installation is not viewed as a totally random array of rods, but rather seen in groups of rods and the similar stimuli objects (chairs) are perceived as a group.
Certainly the phenomenon of seeing spaces between the rods, as pertaining to the rods themselves, can only be explained in psychological terms, and attempts to give physiological explanations have proved incapable of being upheld (Hoffman 1998). 68
As a designer I realise the weakness of drawing generalisations from experiments based on such a limited range of stimuli. Both these studies rely heavily upon the processes of representational information we have learnt to read from line drawings. The Gestalt studies do illustrate that perception is not based upon isolated responses to particular stimuli, but is a reaction to the total stimulus field. The essence of Gestalt effects is often summarised, less is more, or the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
The photographic images (Figures 16 to 26), were taken of Black Rod installations, by way of post-event discussion and tutorials. These images can only approximate what was seen and experienced by the viewers. Like performances, reproduction of the experiential in a secondary medium is not possible.
Sanoff (1991) surveyed the means to consider social science research techniques for determining the effects of space in various built environments. He suggested methods of environmental measurement, imageability24, environmental mapping and visual notation as dynamic processes of seeing the space elements in a built environment. He established that visual meanings are not experienced simultaneously, but are ‘experiential time sequenced’ - as is a theatre performance experience. He found a principal reason, for the development of notational systems for recording the dynamic organisation of space in built environments, is to assist a better understanding of a design process. This idea drew me back to the need to codify the design process underlying the work in the Downstairs Theatre. This would reveal the design problem-solving methods to these design solutions, for students, and may be useful to designers in other fields.
A Series of Indices My ideas on the codification of space were influenced by the work of Tadahiko Higuchi (Higuchi 1989). He developed a series of indices concerned with
24 Imageable and imageability: It is understood how verbal material has a measure of image- arousing qualities; the imageability of language. It is less well-understood how visual materials have image-arousing qualities; the imageability of scenography. 69
imageability to motivate discussions on the spatial elements in the composition of landscapes. What struck me was its applicability to how theatre design is laid out, on a site, and presented to an audience.
Planes and the Angle Higuchi suggested that a landscape could be considered as a variety of intersecting surfaces (planes). The total visual effect of the individual plane depends largely on the relationships between the individual planes and the angle line of vision. This is the angle of incidence and it is of prime importance as it controls ‘the ease with which any given surface can be seen’. He suggests the defining point of view location will expose an underlying visual structure through the application of a set of angles.
Angle of Incidence, the angle at which the line of vision strikes each surface, evaluates the comparative visibility of the surfaces; it determines to a large degree what can be seen of each surface. The angle of depression clarifies a viewer's sense of position above a ‘scene’ and the angle of elevation indicates the nature and limits of the upward view of visible space. Higuchi refers to the work of Gibson (1979), in his research on depth perception. Gibson came to the conclusion that our visual environment is composed ultimately of two kinds of planes which he called frontal and longitudinal surfaces.
Figure 30 Frontal and Longitudinal Surfaces (The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscape, p.25) 70
These diagrams and explanatory notes, of how we see the layout of a landscape by angles of points of view can be usefully applied to the performance space.
Our vertical range and field of vision is encompassed by a notional 60 degrees span and within this is the angle of incidence which is relative to a frontal surface.
Figure 31 Field of Vision (The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscape, p.25)
As the point of incidence approaches the extremities of the field of vision, Y and Y', the angle decreases.
Figure 32 Angle of Incidence (The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscape, p.27) 71
A plane becomes larger and easier to see as the angle of incidence increases, the progression being from I to III as the angle grows larger. The angle of incidence for the frontal plane is always larger than for longitudinal surfaces; thus the frontal surface is easier to see.
To increase the visibility of a horizontal plane below the eye, (such as the surface of a flat terrain in a landscape), the point of view can be raised so as to increase the angle of incidence Figure 33 (Higuchi 1989 Figure 3.6). This necessarily has the effect of increasing the distance encompassed by the field of vision in Figure 33 (Higuchi 1989 Figure 3.7).
Figure 33 Visibility of Horizontal Surface These locations always establish the visibility of the horizontal surface. In the theatre audience point of view there is an upper and a lower location. (The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscape, p.27) 72
Translating these basic principles of angles of elevation, depression and incidence to the situation in a performance environment of the experimental theatre, gave me the basic tools to consider the location of the viewer to the performance space. Because of the nature of the open space theatre, a fundamental design decision was always the viewing angle relationship of audience to performer. In a theatre with fixed seating layout these angles are predetermined by the relationships between the design of the auditorium and the stage.
View Point Specific The design work in this field of the natural environment is considered as ‘view point specific’. A performance environment is also ‘view point specific’, like a natural environment, because ‘landscape scene analysis’ can be seen to correspond in the ‘framing’ respects of stage picture analysis. Many formal garden designs use stage design techniques, a succession of ‘scenic units’, emulating a view based on a one-point perspective viewing down an avenue, framed by hedges or trees.
Uehara Keiji (Higuchi 1989), analysed ideas in Japanese landscapes by application of four elements of view point; range of vision, direction, principal feature, and distance. Adopting a somewhat different approach (Litton 1968), proposed six analytical factors: distance, observer position, form, spatial definition, light, and sequence. Uehara's five basic elements and Litton's contribution of the concept of sequence — the transformation that takes place when the point of view shifts or the scene transforms — with Litton's idea of a projecting form against a receding spatial definition, are most usefully applied to the performance environment. (A projecting form being an object/s in close or middle distance, seen against a receding background [backdrop] – the figure/ground theory in action). Litton also draws attention to the nineteenth- century architectural and urban planning principle that the aesthetic impression is related to distance, the so-called near/far feature. This feature, ‘receding spatial definition’, is a critical spatial function of the backdrop in the traditional proscenium arch theatre geometric box design method. Establishing the horizon 73
line to contextualise the figure/ground relationship is a fundamental principle, the one-point perspective, of the proscenium arch theatre stage design.
Design criteria based on distance and angle of elevation have become standard in the field of urban and landscape design (Higuchi 1989). Even though these criteria were postulated for the purpose of analysing landscapes, they are usefully applied to the study of point of view in any visual field. I accept that the performance environment is a ‘closedness’ frame, small scale, while the landscape is an opened out, ‘openness’ framed, large scale. Point of view principles are active in both distance, long view, and near, short view situations. The figure/ground relationship has a reduced impact in a landscape because meanings derived from distance and scale are relative to each situation.
Frontal and Longitudinal Surfaces Ideas from Gibson (1974), on space regularly occur as fundamental references for researchers in visual perception studies25. I found his ideas useful reference points to contextualise my ideas from the results of the Black Rod exercises and for my reading of space in performance. He came to the conclusion that depth perception in a visual environment is composed ultimately of two kinds of planes, frontal and longitudinal surfaces. These surfaces and his fundamental elements define space determinants active in our visual worldview. • The visual world is an array of physical surfaces. • The perception of depth, distance, or the so-called ‘third dimension', is reducible to the problem of the perception of longitudinal surfaces. • Although the ground is the main longitudinal surface, man-made environments (walls and ceilings), constitute two other types. • The perception of a longitudinal slanted surface is called a gradient, and gradients are dependent on outlines or contours.
The Gibsonian analysis of perception would suggest that space is perceived consistently as a universal set of textured affordances applicable to the real world and therefore in my analysis I can equally apply them to the world of
25 (Goffman 1974; Bloomer 1976; Dondis 1986; Barry 1997; Ware 2000) 74
theatre performances being a real time event. The idea of affordances can be shown to be active in a depiction of a dramatic world, and to be a descriptive term usefully applied to a make-believe world.
He suggests that substances, places, events, and artifacts have affordances, not only objects and things. “Roughly, the affordances of things are what they furnish, for good or ill, that is, what they afford the observer”(Gibson 1971). Affordances are not simply the physical properties of things.
During the rehearsal and design process, performers and scenographers create dramatic spaces by manipulation of the spaces between other performers, objects and the surrounding built environment. This process establishes the design determinants of the performance environment and the key spatial elements defining theatre space and stage space are established. To classify the key spatial elements and to propose a set of descriptive terms is considered in the next chapter. 75
References: Barry, A. M. S. (1997). Visual Intelligence, State University of New York Press. Bloomer, C. M. (1976). Principles of Visual Perception. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Dondis, D. A. (1986). A Primer of Visual Literacy, MIT Press. Gibson, J. J. (1971). A Preliminary Description and Classification of Affordances, Cornell University. Gibson, J. J. (1974). The perception of the visual world. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston, Houghton Mifflin. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis : an essay on the organization of experience. New York, Harper & Row. Higuchi, T. (1989). The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press. Hoffman, D. D. (1998). Visual Intelligence. New York, W.W. Norton & Company. Howard, P. (2002). What is scenography? London, Routledge. Litton, B. (1968). Forest Landscape Description and Inventories, USDA Forest Service Research Paper PSW-49. Sanoff, H. (1991). Visual research methods in design. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Ware, C. (2000). Information visualization : perception for design. San Francisco, Morgan Kaufman. 76
Chapter 5
Introduction The devices employed theatrically to define space in a performance may be manifestly real. In a dramatic space performers are open to use space relationships, to trigger re-placement of the real, into new dramatic contexts. Action by a performer creates a make-believe realm by affording a viewer to ‘seeing as’. By way of example I draw on a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.26 This production had no props or other objects (such as swords in the fight scenes). In the graveyard scene the gravedigger drew, with chalk, a rectangle shape on the stage floor. This simple device (chalk drawing as symbol) and the actor’s relationship to it, afforded our seeing a hole, a grave. Understanding such devices releases post-modern performance to create theatrical make-believe within its definable visual forms to convey meaning. Experiments in theatre are freed to fabricate theatrical make-believe as a perceived reality and not as an imitation of the real world which traditional naturalistic stage design does. The performer in this situation remains the most dynamic space-determining element of a performance because of the dynamic nature of the relationships controlled by the performer with all other space- determining elements.
Scenographic Practice at Theatre Workshop This study is one that I have been considering over several years and hints of these ideas occurred in fragmentary evidence in the several conference papers 27 and my reports28 to the University of experiments of work carried out with students over the years. Assessing the design processes that I put each project through, I can now see that there was an underlying structure and maybe a method. This I am now able
26 HAMLET, Director Mark Kilmurry, Studio Company & Riverside Theatres, 2006. 27 Australian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies Conference Papers: Conference Canberra 2003, Decoding Spatial Systems of Theatrical Events, Conference Wellington NZ 2006, Multi Dimensional Space Transformation ADSA Conference Sydney 2007, The Fabrication of Illusion after the collapse of the Geometric Box. 28 Report; To The University of Sydney, Committee of Enquiry into the Role, Direction and future of Theatre workshop, 1983. 77
to define as a spatial determinants model; a method to determine, for each production, a ‘spatial brief’ for the performance environment. This is not a design blueprint but a design process that led to scenographic solutions appropriate to each production.
The performer creates a dramatic space by manipulation of the spaces between themselves, objects and the surrounding built environment. Depth and distance, with vertical and horizontal surfaces, are the ‘affordances’ in the hands of theatre artists, who create the relational space dimensions. A prime role of our rehearsal process was an exploration of relational space dimensions. This process established the spatial determinants of the performance environment.
Reflecting on my practice and drawing inspiration and conclusions from many Theatre Analysis and Performance Study projects and supported by Field Study (Black Rod) workshops, I can now draw attention to a series of design parameter references. It is from these references I propose to identify a method for this scenographic design practice.
In traditional stage design practice the design process is started by a designer, in the studio, following on from an ideas session with the director. These sessions continue through the design phase of this type of production process. Source material may be a playscript, music or other ideas. Most commonly ‘a theme’ is identified (Payne 1981), which establishes guidelines for the design parameters for the whole production. A 1:25 scale model is completed and presented to the performers on the first day of rehearsal. During the rehearsal period some minor adjustments may occur to the spatial layout. The performance environment is predetermined. The audience viewing location is predetermined by the venue design. The stage designer and director predetermine the performance space design. The performers, during rehearsals, work out the relational space dimensions within these set limits.
Spatial Determinants This part of my study combines my ideas of spatial elements derived from the Black Rod exercises and the design decisions influencing the adaptability of the 78
Downstairs Theatre, with ways of describing and notating space observations from Sanoff, Thiel, Gibson, and Higuchi.
Within the mise en scene are space shaping-elements which form / reform relationships during a performance by performer actions which generate and communicate spatial information to an audience. Here the key elements can be identified under broad headings, space-establishing elements and space- forming and re/forming elements.
Space-establishing elements such as physical size, scale, and shape, define boundaries that could be barriers in which the performance environment is contained. These elements contextualise a performance environment through their relationships to the outside world and the relationships set up between the viewer and performer inside this environment. Elements have an impact on how the performance is read within its cultural positioning. In a simple case it may be an architectural form reflecting institutional ownership and conventions. Equally the elements could be set up deliberately to deploy space to set aside such conventions. These elements permit a performance to drive its own codes and conventions that will define the performance environment spaces.
Space-forming and re/forming elements inhabit the defined performance space. These elements actively shape the spaces between all movable objects and performers. The elements can be categorised or classified as object groups with similar properties. These properties can be seen in terms of mood, style or narrative within the conventions of the performance. Understanding these properties will provide clues to interpreting meaning of the spaces defined by these elements. Location of these elements plays a major role in identification, by the viewer, with the particular dramatic world being represented.
These elements, with the point of view guides, expose the relational space dimension. This dimension appears, at first glance, to duplicate a science specifically devoted to spatial codes; proxemics. But as universally defined and applied, proxemics does not include that critical space dimension between 79
space-establishing elements and space-shaping elements so important to performance notation. Proxemics define three different types of space; Fixed- feature space things that are immobile, such as walls and boundary barriers; Semi-fixed-feature space, such as movable objects; Informal space: individual space around the body which determines the personal distance between people. Proxemics is a useful coding system to be applied post performance as it is based on ‘observations of man’s use of space in a social setting’ and therefore has relevance to classifying spaces as utilised by the dramatic characters in the fictional space.
I consider it essential to establish the design parameters active in the design process as pivotal to understanding the underlying practice of a scenographic discipline.
Point of View Guides What is the audience/performer point of view relationship to be? This is always a fundamental question to be resolved for productions in an experimental theatre. The point of view is guided by the angles of depression, incidence and elevation and then distance and proximity relationships. These guides define the point of view relative to the performance environment. This then dictates the design layout, allocation and type of seating needed. This not only establishes one spatial limit within the performance environment but also is a prime space- establishing element and a key frame.
This demonstrates a fundamental difference between this design process and a conventional stage design process where this point of view relationship is predetermined. Viewer location can be accorded a point of view guide whether applied to stage design in a 19th century theatre building or to the performance environment of an open space venue. Simply put, in the performance environment of a 19th century theatre, point of view guides were fixed, whereas in the experimental theatre environment, point of view guides are a dynamic design element to be prescribed meaning for each production. 80
SPACE-ESTABLISHING ELEMENTS The field of view within the Performance Environment is dominated by four prime space elements. These reveal the foundations for the design parameters. LONGITUDINAL: horizontal, the ground surface/s; the prime horizontal being the performance space ‘platform’. FRONTAL: vertical surface or surfaces, edges and contours; the prime vertical being behind a performer/object; a ‘backdrop/s’. POSITION: Location relationships in the field of view; for example relative to frontal and longitudinal; depth or distance, height and slant, this has to do with the changes that take place in the appearance of a performer/object, as the distance between the viewer and the object/s and between objects varies. LIGHT (1): a source of illumination that enables seeing. Lighting can define space, and lighting can function as a surface if the surrounding air contains a medium.
SPACE-SHAPING ELEMENTS Space-shaping and re-shaping elements are considered to be the performer (the body in space) and activated things /objects by the performer. Space-shaping / re-shaping elements are ‘guided doing’ (Goffman 1974 p.122) design parameters. These elements are able to function with great flexibility within the scenographic style of a production. SURROUNDS: a designed site, horizontal and/or vertical surface/s which is the dramatic place. OBJECTS: are thing/s that exist in tangible form and can be controlled by the performers. LIGHT (2): projected shape or image; can function as an element if the surrounding air contains a medium. Space-establishing elements and space-shaping elements have surface attributes. SURFACE ATTRIBUTES THE FACE (SURFACE QUANTITIES) As determined by the outlines or contours or edges; for example, round, oblong, square; Size and Shape: relative to the field of view; for example, large, small; Direction: relative to the field of view, for example, vertical, diagonal. 81
THE FACE VALUE (SURFACE QUALITIES) Texture: as a surface pattern, for example, striped, dotted, smooth. Colour: as a property of the surface; for example, red, light blue, dark green, Finish: for example, glossy, matte, lustrous, and iridescent. Light: can function as a surface, projected image; and if the surrounding air contains a medium. LIGHT (3): the appearance of elements change in accordance with lighting; the manner in which the light strikes. This factor has to do with the transformations that take place as the location of the source of light moves from pan (side to side) and tilt (from up and down), and colour-rending properties of source, focus, beam angle, texture, and colour (filter).
RELATIONAL SPACE DIMENSIONS Relational space dimensions are triggered by interactions between all space- shaping elements. These dimensions are the spaces set up by relationships between the space-shaping elements during the rehearsal/design process. It is a dynamic dimension between performer/s and all other objects and surfaces including object-to-object and surface-to-surface. The performer directly manipulates space-shaping elements. Such intimate relational spaces with objects permit the performer to manipulate and transform the object’s meaning. (The crude wooden box can be a throne, a treasure chest or a rubbish bin). Space-shaping elements can be movable or detachable. These elements can be afforded a new behavioural characteristic by the performer.
Secondary Space Elements IMPLIED SPACES are virtual spaces created and adjusted by scenographic intervention. Implied spaces may have come about through a design action or through and between the inter-play of actions of the performers who bring into being the mise en scene of the production. Such as ‘noises off’ defining a specific other space not in view. PERTAINING SPACES are spaces not directly used by the performance such as offstage, space above (volume marker), and unused space on the performance platform, and spaces between performers and audience that are never inhabited by dramatic actions. 82
These spaces can have a framing influence. Space-establishing elements can create occluded spaces – spaces off or behind. Space left unlit, as ‘unseen space’, can function as a volume marker. In such cases it does ‘influence’ the performance environment as a space-establishing element.
Summary This study draws on existing research on the function of perception of space in the real world environment (Sanoff 1991). A set of descriptive terms has been selected to classify the key spatial elements defining performance environments - theatre space and stage spaces. I accept that the complexity of this subject matter needs to be bounded by accessible terminology even though accepting simplification may undervalue my explanation through generalisations. Each key element as described has a defining structure which can be relied upon to encompass stated limits of the study.
An exploration of areas of knowledge dealing with ways of seeing space and the interpretation of space inherent in other design disciplines (Higuchi 1989) was productively brought to bear on scenographic and venue design practices. This led to my better understanding of the extent that space was used to fabricate make-believe in performance. Simply put, in the scenographic enterprise the performance environment has sites for an audience of viewers (may be an auditorium) and sites for the performance space (may be a stage). These could be the same space. The space-shaping / re-shaping elements create the active relational space dimension. These are supported by pertaining spaces which can be space- forming but are rarely space-shaping elements. The space-establishing elements are most often stable elements and rarely function to make relational space dimensions. Space-shaping and re/shaping elements create and frame the prime relational space dimensions. Relational space dimensions are always dynamic elements. Pertaining spaces are support spaces that may be space- establishing elements but are rarely space-shaping elements. 83
Defining space in the performance environment has a guiding structure or hierarchy in my Scenographic Model which:
establishes
SPACE ELEMENTS,
which are defined by
RELATIONAL SPACE DIMENSIONS,
devised gradually throughout a
REHEARSAL PROCESS (GUIDED DOING),
into
ACTIONS/OBJECTS and SOUNDS,
which result in a transforming experience during a
A THEATRE PERFORMANCE
Figure 34 A Scenographic Model. 84
Figure 35 Space Elements and Design Parameters Diagram. 85
References: Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. New York, Harper & Row. Higuchi, T. (1989). The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press. Payne, D. R. (1981). The Scenographic Imagination. Carbondale, Ill. London, Southern Illinois University Press; Feffer & Simons. Sanoff, H. (1991). Visual research methods in design. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. 86
Chapter 6
Introduction All projects initiated by Theatre Workshop with academic departments were documented in various forms.29 Gay McAuley, who led the work on documentation, noted that documentation and notation of theatrical performance were at best problematical undertakings and that one has to accept from the outset that theatrical performance is essentially unrecordable. The theatrical event is three-dimensional and multi-focused; it exists in a given space for a given duration and it involves a complex and subtle interaction between performers and spectators. The discrepancies between this and all existing recording media - the written word, audio recording, still photography, film and video - are such that any attempts at recording must be incomplete and must necessarily introduce significant distortion of the performance reality (McAuley, 1986). With a full understanding of these limits, photographic documentation and rehearsal casebooks were kept by academic supervisors and students. Some of this work resulted in academic publications (Fitzatrick, 1989; Fitzpatrick, 1989; McAuley, 1987). It is one such casebook30 that I have used as source material to demonstrate the function of spatial elements, as codified in the previous chapter, to facilitate the design process.
29 The whole process was recorded on sound tape, the final performance was video-recorded and an elaborate photographic record was also made at a special photographic session (each move within the scenic space was photographed) and the director took another series of photographs which convey a more inside view of the work. There is, in addition, a detailed prompt book for each version and notes kept by the student observers documenting their experience of the rehearsal process. Fitzatrick, T. (ed) (1989) Altro Polo. University of Sydney, Sydney. 30 Theatre Workshop commissioned casebooks of the productions (Theatrical Illusion project was the prototype). Audio recording of the full rehearsal process, together with video recording of the actors' work in the scenic space as the blocking gradually comes together, are now standard procedures. The extracts from Kim Spinks' casebook on the Theatrical Illusion are evidence of the usefulness of the casebook style of written account, not only to supplement memory of production details, but also for the insight it provides into such things as the apparently haphazard way in which the various signs of the performance come together during the rehearsal to make up what is ultimately perceived to be a coherent statement. A second case book was kept by Susan Melrose, a graduate student, “I wanted to show that the 'naive' spectator could arrive at conclusions via performance alone”. McAuley, G. (ed) (1987) From Page to Stage: L'Illusion Comique. Theatre Studies Unit University of Sydney, Sydney. 87
Experimental theatre of this period highlights a change in the understandings of the properties of space and theories of the perception of space as a dynamic element in the mise en scene of theatrical performances (Guthrie, 1996). This change of thinking was in contrast to stage design practice in general use, based on geometric box design formula linked to the proscenium arch theatre building. Stage design solutions were presented to performers at the start of rehearsals for a production. Substantial space relational decisions were taken outside the rehearsal process. Performers and directors worked within a prescribed environment.
From this new thinking on design, modification of the performance geography by the application of performers’ skills will permit a ‘naturally inhabited space’ to evolve. When spatial solutions are pre-determined, performers can appear at odds with their surroundings and a ‘naturally inhabited space’ is not achieved. This disjunction of space becomes exposed in performance and remains a distraction. This mitigates against the viewer being totally absorbed, ‘engaged’, by the performance experience. Scenographers work from the premise of a space that is constructed, updated, transformed and filled, through and within the rehearsal processes - a fluid interaction with all practitioners involved in the theatre-making process. It is fundamental to a performance that the most ‘dynamic element (object)’ in the relational space equation is the performer: ‘the art or act of representing a body on a perspective plane.’ Therefore flexibility and open exploration of relational space is only available to theatre-makers inside the rehearsal room. Design solutions to ‘spatial problems’ rest with ‘body actions’ during rehearsals - through a ‘guided doing’.
The Production Theatre Workshop mounted a production of Corneille’s Illusion Comique in 1978. The production was the central feature of an experimental theatre studies course run by the Department of French Studies at the University. Gay McAuley, from the French Department, and myself devised the course. We 88
collaborated closely with the director Rex Cramphorn31. We worked out a course format in which the students’ study revolved around the central experience of observing the work processes of professional theatre practitioners.
The project generated a good deal of scholarly activity and critical reflection around the play itself and Rex Cramphorn’s production32. Some of the results of this work were published in From Page to Stage (McAuley, 1987).
Production Casebook33 As a way of explaining my space elements model and ideas on how design parameters were integrated into the design process, I have taken these post- event descriptions from the casebook compiled by Kim Spinks, the dramaturge on this production. (The role of the dramaturge, I think can be, analogous to that of the scenographer).
31 He was one of the most innovative directors Australia has produced, but his relationships with established theatre companies were restless and short-lived. An obituary November 23 1991 published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age said that the Australian theatre had lost one of its most challenging and sensitive talents. 'Those who worked with him ... count him as a formative influence,' it said. 'His range of remembered productions was wide. But if he had one quality that stood out it was his capacity to take a play and turn it into an object of contemplation, to penetrate its mystery so that it stayed in the mind long after the image faded.' 32 Production Cast and Crew Director - Rex Cramphorn; Production Manager - Ludmila Knorles; Stage Manager - Christine Sammers; Set Design & Construction -Russell Emerson; Scene Painting - Diana Pianfili & Melody Cooper; Costume Designer - Melody Cooper; Musical Directors - Peta Williams & Chris Wynton; Lighting Designer - Derek Nicholson; The cast: Alcandre - Bruce Keller; Pridamant - Paul Brown; Dorante - Ross Hill; Matamore - Richard Healy; Clindor - Gregg Levy; Adraste - John Sheerin, Géronte - John Baylis; Isabelle - Vanessa Downing; Lyse - Gillian Allan; Gaoler - Neil Beaumont; Servant - Ray Gallard.
33 Notes from the Casebook 1 by Kim Spinks The following notes are extracts from a diary casebook which I kept during the 1978 production of Theatrical Illusion. Theatre Workshop understood the importance of documentation but had little theatre studies experience and no established methodology to draw upon. During the production I was more theatre practitioner than theatre analyst. The Casebook is therefore the 'naive' record of a participant rather than the studied account of a skilled observer. At the time I compiled the Casebook I made no attempt to analyse our work process but I did feel the need to write at greater length on some areas. With hindsight it is clear that these areas represented seminal decisions, ones that crystallised the ideas and work method. The organisation of this commentary is, I now realise, roughly chronological and in order of perceived importance. 89
Point of View Guides Point of view guides for this production evolved during the early stages of the rehearsal period and were categorised as the following. From Casebook34 notes: Audience to be contained in a shared space with the performers. The performers need to be able to move into the venue space35, the non-fictional space, then pass through the audience into the performance environment to the performance space. Characters then establish the fictional space. The layering apparent in the play-text was to be emulated in the spatial performance text. (Spaces within spaces – Russian doll concept36) When the first fictional space of the play-text was removed (scene change) at the same time the second spatial performance space was to be revealed. The screens (flats) depicting outdoor scene envelops the audience. The audience should feel that they were included in the fictional space. Play within a play required that the viewing position of the audience was similar as that for the characters.
34 Casebook notes are reproduced verbatim, but are formatted by the author to illustrate the design decision-making process. 35 A further use of the casebook descriptions can show how the venue influences audience expectations. “We might best charcterise the space as 'experimental': a basic cube with deconstructable tiered seating is available to be manipulated as (the production) determines; one might add that the space in its dimensions and by its convertible nature and exposed workings is effortlessly 'egalitarian'. The specific signs here relate primarily to dimensions: height of ceiling from stage and seating; quantity of seating; distance achievable between acting space and spectator; distances achievable between actors within the stage space and their relationship with decor. To 'egalitarian' may thus be added potential intimacy. We are probably all familiar with such a space – the name of the venue to be occupied set up an interesting spatiotemporal framework to perception: classical drama vs contemporary/experimental muse en scene. So it is visual signs which initially dominate: how do we get to our seats; what can we see on sitting down? In this case we climb bare steps at the rear of the tier of seating, and so enter the seating space some half dozen rows of individual seats descending to the lighted acting space - looking down onto the visual scape of the theatrical or fictional 'world' constructed”. 36 ‘It was decided that the traditional seventeenth century decor multiple or the wing and shutter system would be incongruous with the Downstairs space. The earliest decisions on the set sprang from a discussion of what we called the play's levels. Five levels were defined: 1) The modern audience watching L'Illusion Comique; 2) Alcandre and Pridamant, the audience within the play watching; 3) the vision of Clindor's life Acts I-IV; 4) Act V, the play within the play and 5) the actors as revealed in the final scene. It was felt that the set should express this complexity of levels, this theatrical illusion and that it should therefore consist of moving panels which would open to reveal the next 'level'. (It is ironic that many people in the audience thought that the set was moved by stage machinery when in fact it was all moved by hand. Perhaps this was the ultimate theatrical illusion. ”McAuley, G. (ed) (1987) From Page to Stage: L'Illusion Comique. Theatre Studies Unit University of Sydney, Sydney. 90
An aesthetic distance was required, as there needed to be a theatrical trick in the creation of the fantasy scene. This scene needed to appear and disappear for this to be effective there needed to be a real distance from the viewing position and sight angle parallel to scrim – flat angle lighting. From these requirements the guides for the positioning of the audience became apparent; aesthetic distance from the fantasy scene was needed (so the scrim ‘reveal effect’ could work37); both the characters of the play and the audience required viewing this scene from outside the established fictional space; at the conclusion of the last scene the venue is revealed as the social shared space. The actors are seen to return to their social space in the dressing rooms through the revealed fire exit door, by Spinks quoted in (McAuley, 1987).
During the design process for open space venues, the first question was always: what was the audience / performer point of view relationship?
This point of view is guided by three angles; DEPRESSION = D Angle of depression clarifies a viewer’s sense of position above or below a ‘scene’ – looking down onto or up at it. INCIDENCE = I Angle of Incidence, the angle at which the line of vision strikes each surface, the comparative visibility of the surfaces. What can be seen of each surface? Or in fact every surface, in the field of view. ELEVATION = E Angle of elevation indicates the nature and limits of the upward view of visible space – space above (volume). These guides defined the viewpoint in the Performance Environment. This dictates the performance environment layout. ALLOCATION OF SEATING = S
These guiding angles establish one of the Space Establishing Elements, the seating location.
37 Gauze or scrim: an open weave fabric that becomes transparent or solid under different lighting conditions. 91
Lighting Grid E Balcony I S Seating D Units
Figure 36 Cross Section Downstairs Theatre Schematic outline cross section of elevation of Downstairs Theatre showing angles of point of view.
Figure: 37 Showing viewer and performer relationship Cross-Section of Theatre Scale 1:100
These production requirements clearly directed the point of view guides towards having a dominant horizontal surface with a low vantage point and angle of 92
incidence. The audience would look across a horizontal surface (stage floor), with the performers able to control near and far locations (in relation to audience) and into the performance space, achieving distance required by dramatic text. The horizontal surface was to be defined and surrounded by vertical surfaces (flats) which may be moved to expose (1) the next fictional place and (2) ‘the black box’ fantasy scene, at the back of the performance space and (3) the space-establishing limits of the venue (back wall).
L
F2 F2 B F2 F2
F1 F1 T T
Figure 38 Notated photographic Image of Setting – Gallery Point of View.
F1 & F2 = two series of high flats arranged in a semicircle. F1 = depicting a rocky landscape, parted and slid under the gallery to encircle the audience. T = Travel line of parted flats. F2 = Townscape was a series of French provincial style houses, painted in a sketchy style. The middle flat on each side was set back to allow entrances and exits. B = A black scrim effect; when the scrim ‘disappeared’ became the entrance to the cave. L = Lighting Grid. 93
V2 B F4 F3
V2 F2 F2
V1 V1 T
F1 F1
T
FLOOR PLAN
Legend: F3 = Landscape F4 = Scrim when opened V1 = Walls of theatre V2 = Edge of balcony of theatre
Figure 39 Floor Plan Setting 94
Figure 40 Seating Layout, audience point of view.
Casebook entry: The seating was arranged in tiered banks on rostra with an entrance from the back and front and a passageway down the middle. On the floor in front of the first row of seats and directly in front of this aisle was a wooden bench.
The audience, on entering the space, saw two series of high flats (gallery height) arranged in a semicircle. They formed a wall depicting a rocky landscape, vaguely oriental in feeling, in browns and greys surmounted by a pale blue sky. Between the two sets of landscape flats, was a black scrim, a hole, (the entrance to the cave)”.
The floor was marked with a taped cross and there was music playing. Actors entered from the back, down the passageway, through the audience to the playing area. (They also led the audience out into the foyer for interval.) The wizard appeared from behind the scrim that slid back into place. When the scrim disappeared, the two rocky walls (see at the edge of image) parted and slid under the gallery to encircle the audience. 95
Figure 41 Lighting to disappear Scrim.
Revealed was a townscape painted on two sets of flats separated by a country landscape in the middle distance. The townscape was a series of rather French provincial style houses, many storied and gabled, painted in a sketchy style reminiscent of Inigo Jones; again blue, brown, grey and green predominated. The middle flat on each side was set back to allow entrances and exits.
For Act V the central landscape portion slid back and the scrim was replaced between the townscapes. The area behind the scrim was lit and revealed a series of garden flats hung just in front of the back wall. They were very dark and showed an English landscape with flowers and bushes in the foreground and rolling hills and trees behind. Very little of this garden was clearly visible to the audience. The floor in this black box was taped in a cross. 96
Figure 42 The Central Landscape in place.
In the final scene the scrim slid away to reveal the black box, and at the curtain call the garden flats slid apart to reveal a small orchestra. All the cast and musicians were now revealed and left together by the backstage left exit. The lighting was simple. There were some special effects for the jail scene and the scrim scenes (the first appearance of the masked actors behind the scrim, the appearance of Alcandre, and Act V) by Spinks quoted in (McAuley, 1987).
(NB. The lighting in these images is set for the needs of photographic film and was not the production lighting design). 97
Figure 43 Final Scene, in the final scene the scrim slid away to reveal the garden flats. At the curtain call the garden flats slid apart to reveal a small orchestra.
In the following, as a way of explaining my ideas on the design parameters, and spatial model, I have reproduced verbatim descriptions from the casebook. I have labeled each new description against my space element notations. The descriptions underlined were the ‘end product’ of the design process. See diagram, Figure 43 below. (First the casebook entry and then my notations) 98
Figure 44 Spatial Elements Outline 99
Over-view of settings Descriptions with thumbnail images: see below Figure 45
The audience saw two series of high flats arranged in a semicircle. /Space Shaping Element/
They formed a wall depicting a rocky landscape, /Surface Attributes The Face (Surface Quality)/
Between the two sets of landscape flats was a black scrim,/Space Shaping Element/ a hole, the entrance to the cave /Space Shaping Element/
In Acts 2, The scrim disappeared the two rocky walls parted to encircle the audience. Revealed was a townscape /Surface Attributes The Face Value (Surface Quantities)/painted on two sets of flats /Space Establishing Element/ separated by a single flat country landscape /Surface Attributes The Face Value (Surface Quantities)
For Act V, the central landscape portion slid back and the scrim was replaced between the townscapes. /Space Shaping Element/, The area behind the scrim was Lit /Space Shaping Element/ revealed a garden /Surface Attributes The Face Value (Surface Quantities/ The flats /Space Shaping Element/ showed an English landscape/{Surface Attributes The Face Value (Surface Quantities)/ hung just in front of the back wall of venue. /Space Establishing Element/
In the final scene the scrim slid away to reveal the black box, Space Shaping Element/ and at the curtain call the garden flats slid apart /Space Shaping Element/ to reveal a small orchestra. The lighting was simple. /Space Establishing Element/ There were some special effects /Space Shaping Element/ for the jail scene and the scrim scenes. /Space Shaping Element/ 100
Figure 45 Thumbnail Images of settings (McAuley, 1987) 101
This diagram shows ‘headings for deliberations’ in a design critique and appraisal process. I am using one element, the bench, as an example. It is unlikely that such discussions would be recorded apart from establishing a solution. Rehearsal Process Rehearsal Process Notes From play script need: a seating requirement A piece of furniture Characteristics Authority and importance Function
Design Process Design Process Size-number to be seated An object for sitting on, such as a chair or bench or box
Space Determinant Space Determinants A fixed space location Relationship to audience point of view from audience space Relationship to performer point of view and location/angle Prime Space element shaping or establishing?
Design Solution Design Solution Space establishing Surface attributes 2 seater Wood face value exterior wood finish
Performance 102
Summary The aim of this chapter is to offer an introduction to my concepts of mapping of spatial determinants38 into a design process which itself is contained within the rehearsal process. A design process in an experimental theatre situation is a ‘guided doing’ activity that emerges from the activity of the scenographic action during a rehearsal process. This sample outline of the issues associated with the application of my scenographic model is applied to the documentation from one production. It is to clarify my model rather than to offer any definite conclusions on a design method that is dealt with in the next chapter. In my attempts at describing and documenting a design process, what I reveal is that design practices often display unforeseen features that defy descriptions, but that may lead to surprising design solutions.
38 Severe limitations exist in trying to explain three-dimensional experiential events in this two- dimensional page medium. Creative enterprises in the visual arts, literature, film and architecture create tangible ‘products’ that are able to become ‘objects’ of study and research. But each performance event is unique, ephemeral and dependent upon a symbiotic relationship between performer and viewer. My illustrations can only be aids to the reader to understand an expression of my ideas on this rehearsal and design process. Design decisions and spatial solutions are taken throughout the whole rehearsal period up until the first performance, and therefore it should be understood that these illustrations and my commentary are set out in a logical progression only by way of an explanation. The design process never follows such a logical progression. 103
References:
Fitzpatrick, T. (ed) (1989) Altro Polo. University of Sydney, Sydney. Guthrie, J.A. (1996) When the way out was in: Avant-garde theatre in Australia 1965 -1985. University of Wollongong, Wollongong. McAuley, G. (ed) (1986) The Documentation and Notation of Theatrical Performance. Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, Sydney. McAuley, G. (ed) (1987) i. Theatre Studies Unit University of Sydney, Sydney. 104
Chapter 7
Considerations The identification of all component elements, and understanding of their interdependence in this complex space system, is fundamental to being able to isolate and document relational space dimension. Thus a spatial nomenclature can be identified and located within an engrossable event which is open to a guided doing process during its creation. To understand space-establishing elements and space-shaping elements, their significance and meaning, is to operationalise ideas behind Gibson’s affordances. Things in space afford space-forming and re/forming relationships and expressions of spatial patterning. Spatial patterning relationships indicate and define the fictional dramatic place.
A Threshold Moment Like Alice-through-the-looking-glass, we know when we pass through a threshold into an extra-ordinary perceptual experience and are absorbed into a make-believe realm, but recall of that pass-through moment is elusive. I invite the reader to experience a perceptual threshold moment by way of this simple visual illusion.
Figure 46 Schroder Stairs (Hoffman 1998 p.90). 105
Here one two-dimensional line drawing simultaneously represents two simple patterns; one: a set of steps or a reverse set of steps, and two: a stack of cubes resting on the horizontal plane or suspended from the horizontal plane. We know that this is a two-dimensional image. We know we see this illustration as a three-dimensional image. We know that the image is not really three- dimensional as it is drawn on a flat surface. It is a trick of the imagination, visual make-believe. We can ‘play’ visually with this trick. The two-dimensional image is real. The image reversal takes place in our mind. The spatial change is real enough to our imagination – this is an illusion at work. We know through experimentation that it is possible to see only one at a time, of these perceived phenomena. This phenomenon, known as visual reversal, illustrates a simple threshold experience which occurs when we are engrossed (engage with the image) and our visual concentration is directed to "see as" (Pylyshyn 2007 p.92).
We have been educated to read drawings based on one point perspective and we automatically perceive the space between the lines as planes. Our capacity to shift into make-believe seeing in theatre performance and other cultural events seems to occur in a similar way - without our conscious control – when we are engrossed in an event. A series of events, “a strip” (Goffman 1974 p.238) in the real world, configured in specific spatial relationships, activates our visual mental systems, our visual intelligence, to perceive a fictional place, to enter the make-believe realm.
Consideration One Make-believe, contained and enclosed in our mind, is a virtual space but it is inextricably linked to actual spaces that trigger the generation of this imaginative thinking. Imaginative thinking is also susceptible to words, sound effects, music, movement and other devices which frame a make-believe event. It is not necessary to hold the make-believe state as a constant state of mind during an engrossable event. In fact it may be necessary for our thinking, as a part of the process, to drift between the actual and the make-believe – the here and now, and the dreaming - and I consider this to be a natural attribute of the phenomenon of being in a make-believe state. It is a threshold experience. It 106
may well be that passing in and out of the threshold is a necessary characteristic of make-believe fabrication.
From such a consideration a fundamental question follows. The question becomes: is make-believe fabrication radically different between the two; a performance behind a proscenium arch or in an open space venue? Or even more radically an experimental theatre piece in a total environmental design?
Other forms of make-believe communication methods usurp that which the traditional theatre did hold so dear; visual illusion making, time sequencing, naturalistic behaviour and realism. This will transform all forms of theatrical representation. Here in this study of these theatre performance experiments, the practitioner and scholar are productively focused on those aspects of performance that are truly unique - space-time and immediacy of experiences in scenographic space. We now have the capacity to experiment, with a greater choice of make-believe making communication apparatus, well beyond the traditional theatre building, in an experimental theatre environment. Performers with scenographic imagination manufacture space relationships in built environments, to objects, to surfaces and various other media viewed by an audience in real time. It is these relationships that combine to address a viewer’s visual inclination to see the fictional place.
Consideration Two The geometric dimensions of the physical performance space have little bearing on the fabrication of the fictional world – viewer engagement and engrossablity in theatrical make-believe is a mind space.
Confirmation of the importance of space to our perception of the natural world was brought into focus for me when I went to work in New Zealand (1965 –1967). I was not only struck by the verticality of this landscape and how strikingly different it was in nature to the Australian horizontal landscape scene, but how the visual arts represented this difference. During this period I was able to compare two productions of Hedda Gabler. One was at the Downstage Theatre, Wellington, and the other was in the World Theatre Season Festival in 107
London (1968). The Downstage production was in a large room converted into a venue with a tiny performance space set in one corner, with just enough space for four actors. A short time later I saw a production in London in a conventional 19th century proscenium arch theatre, the Aldwych Theatre. The large stage was covered by a red carpet, which continued up the back wall of the stage. Furniture defined the performance spaces. Both productions succeeded in creating the claustrophobic dramatic world and fictional realm required by the dramatic text for the characters to inhabit.
We know the articulation of space is a phenomenon of particular importance to the theatre as a cultural system, since an absolute spatial configuration is so basic to the performance communication system. It is a defining condition of theatre; a spatial configuration is suggested by the word theatre itself; a place where one observes. This study has identified a design process and codified the use of space in the performance environment in a particular experimental theatre. The identification and codification of a relational space dimension, because of its unstable nature, is a key research problem of this study. My research has suggested that a new way to consider space in a design process is needed because the space relationships active during a performance have changed and this change has been forged in the rehearsal process. This change may lead to a rethinking of space design in the conventional theatre situation.
Scenographic Model Diagram, Figure 47. This diagram lays out in graphic form the actions taken during a rehearsal process and their relationship to a design process. The headings signify broad areas of exploration undertaken by performers, directors, choreographers and scenographers during the progress of these interrelated processes. 108
Figure 47 Scenographic Model 109
A Framed View An external device is persistently framing our perception of the visual world. Most of the time we ignore its presence and progressively adapt to its influences. For over 100 years the principal framing device, which has controlled and dominated the so-called 'stage picture', is the proscenium arch. The proscenium arch supposedly punches a hole in the real space of life to reveal the dramatic world. If our engagement with the stage picture is complete, then a new mind state is established and we pass into a make-believe realm.39
Behind the framing arch is a geometric box (a stage space). The structure of the geometric box and its effective use by stage designers is disarmingly simple. Since the Renaissance it has offered a stable, secure and finite universe to represent and explore theatrical worlds. It was indispensable in the formulation of Italian Renaissance one-point perspective that limits stage design to planar formats. Within this projected geometric perspective, virtual and real dimensions are governed by the rectilinear definition of the field of view.(Athanasopoulos 1983; Wallschlaeger 1992; Summers 2003).
Re-Framing the View Environmental Performance Spaces Once the performance is enacted in the same space as the audience, the geometric box analysis, removed from the safety of the visual cube with its easily defined cues and clues, was rendered inoperative. (See Appendix C) A new way of analysing the performance environment was required and it is inextricably linked to how we perceive space in the actual world. It was therefore natural for me to explore theories of visual intelligence and the way other design disciplines have approached the study of space.
In attempting to identify common elements in the scenographic outcomes of productions in these spaces,40 I do not wish to appear to underestimate or
39 Theatre performance is only one of many engrossable events or activities that trigger imaginative worlds encountered in a make-believe state. Many art forms and cultural activities at one end of the spectrum trigger imaginative states and as an example at the other end of the spectrum fantasy worlds are sought by psychotherapists in therapy treatments such as in Sandplay Practices. Walton, K. L. and J. H. Muirhead (1990). Mimesis as make-believe: on the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Bradway K., S. K., Spare G., Stewart C., Stewart L., Thompson C. (1981). Sandplay Studies, C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. 40 The Stables Theatre, The Wharf Theatre, The Belvior Upstairs and The Performance Space. 110
simplify the complex design process through which the creative team passes in solving the staging problems of a production. It would seem to me that after pre- rehearsal collaboration the designer generally defines the acting space/s. Then these spaces are manipulated and developed, during the rehearsal process, into the dramatic spaces that in turn enable the fictional places. In this way the final designs of the dramatic spaces required by the performance are created in the rehearsal room in a flexible manner befitting the needs of each performance space.
Space, when analysed as a ‘part of a performance text’, implies it could have an underlying structure or a grammar similar to conventional (written) texts, and thereby be usefully subjected to linguistic models. But relational space dimension is a dynamic element manipulated by theatre artists during the creative process in the rehearsal room. It evolves during this collective process and is completed and formalised during a performance.
The ownership of the space passes from the director and scenographer, movement director and lighting designer, to those actors who night after night will actually inhabit and use it, and make it their living space. Space is elastic, emotional and mobile, constantly changed by the performers themselves (Howard 2002 p.15).
Then it becomes a discernible element able to be subjected to proxemics and kinesics and other ‘sign’ based analysis. But such linguistic models are not suitable to interrogate the scenographic process that creates the performance geography.
Space is neither a mere ‘frame’, after the fashion of the frame of a painting, nor a form or container of a virtually neutral kind, simply to receive whatever is poured into it. Space is social morphology: it is to lived experience what form itself is to the living organism, and just as intimately bound up with function and structure (Lefebvre, 1991 p.94).
Relational space dimension is the living organism of performance space and 111
intimately bound up with the function and structure of its creation. To expose the structure of the underlying spatial determinant framework in my Scenographic Model Diagram (Figure 46) above, and to scrutinise these relationships, a simple question needs to be applied. “What is it that's going on here?” Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974), advances a theory about the ways in which to determine answers to such questions. The value of Frame Analysis to this project lies in its capacity to categorise real and make-believe events concurrently. Prime and secondary frameworks (spatial) can be located and identified within a spatial nomenclature. This I have done with space- establishing elements and space-shaping elements as illustrated above. Secondary frameworks are easily perceived within an established prime framework. Thus I have shown this in identifying pertaining spaces, implied space and relational space dimension. Patent manipulation of both real world and make-believe realms are identified by the actions of performers - 'guided doing' (Goffman p.23). The performers also guide the audience through real space into ‘the venue’ and into fictional spaces through the dramatic text.
Goffman (1974 p.153) established that we tend to perceive ‘patterns in events’ in terms of prime frameworks suggesting that there is a discernible "key". Framing in social interaction real-world events invokes such sets of conventions. Likewise obvious prime framing conventions operate in invented realms, such as theatre performances that have space-defining elements as prime frames. Thus space in a performance can be recognised as having a propensity to keying, with keying being “the transcription into something else”. He bases many of his ideas on the theatrical frame which he describes in eight transitional practices under his ‘stage interaction system’ which he clearly exposes as different from its real-life model: (1) spatial boundaries; (2) open up the model to be viewed; (3) spoken word; (4) one at a time act of focus; (5) progressive turn taking; (6) interaction between performers; (7) information rich whole picture is viewed; (8) real-time activity. He also considers that a major keying in the social world is make-believe and that theatre performance is only one of many events in which make-believe functions. We tend to perceive the event in terms of prime frameworks, but the subtleties of the fictional world can be opened up if the hierarchical framing elements are exposed. Once these 112
framing elements are recognised, then the spatial relationships between them can be seen as keying events.
Goffman further notes that an 'engrossable event' is always open to Frame Analysis. Performance, when most effective, is such an engrossable event. Before this event is established it passes though a guided doing process – is sited in a time / space continuum - in its creation. He deals with the 'theatrical frame' and systematically describes transitional practices differentiating it from its real-life model. Goffman relies on the theatrical frame to explain his ideas, “mockups of dramatic human actions going on up there” on the stage, and suggests a very useful idea where “re-keying” experiments take place for the purposes of study and documentation of framing events (Goffman p.215). Thus my Black Rod exercises can be seen as being a simple re-keying of events, re- enacting or rehearsing the phenomena I have identified as Gestalt events.
The performance environment, a real place, contains geography of both dramatic spaces and fictional places modeled on real-life experiences. The geography of the dramatic world is reconstituted as a cluster of surfaces. These surfaces are comprehended as receptacles of visual information with attributes. These visual attributes are the face and the face value. To uncover meanings in these visual attributes and to afford our understanding of representational spaces I was engaged by Gibson’s 1950, ideas of Ecological Optics. His idea is essentially a recognition of characteristics of ‘things’, which enables an interrogation of an environment to define the essence of the visual experience. To understand space-establishing elements and space-shaping elements, their significance and meaning, to be seen in context, is to methodologically apply affordances (Gibson 1966 p.133). These ideas are founded in the Gestalt theory of "ground" and "figure/ground" (Bloomer 1976 p.35). In other words, the grounding and framing of all events, both physical and/or conceptual, is contextualised by space-establishing, space-shaping elements and relational space dimensions within that event. These relationships are defined by a combination of elements in this built environment. Volumetric spaces between elements - surrounds, objects, light - expose the relationships thus formed. Things in space are in the field of view as space-establishing elements that 113
'afford' space-forming and re/forming relationships. Thus space-establishing elements and space-shaping relationships are used to indicate and limit the fictional realm so being framed.
I have coupled the ideas of Goffman and Gibson for my approach to methods of analysis of a theatrical visual world, first perceived as framed, and second by entering the frame to understand and make meaning of the relationships of elements, expressed as spatial patterning. Goffman contributes the sociological, conceptual and cognitive tools and methods for analysis, while Gibson affords, through an ecological approach to visual perception, understandings and terminology to define relative depth in space, site analysis layout, surface and other geographic information41 applicable to spatial interpretations in real world experiences. These are applicable to the make- believe realms. The make-believe realms are reconstituted, by guided doings, from our knowledge of the real world through active indicators, “the affordances of things are what they furnish, for good or ill, that is, what they afford the observer to see”.
Gibson's ideas have provided me with an approach to mapping spatial layouts.42 His fundamental ecological approach to methods of analysis of the visual world empowers this study to get ‘inside the frame’ and to express how, what we perceived as framed, may be analysed. His ideas of direct perception
41 Light as well was an element unique in his ideas: "the world is specified in the structure of the light" Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston, Houghton Mifflin. Light is of particular interest to me, as a light designer, but not immediately applicable to the focus of this study. The increasing ability to manipulate light in performance, with new technologies, has considerable bearing on the perception of space in the theatrical environment. It is used extensively in experimental and new form theatre. 42 "Evidence provided by Gibson, from a very different perspective, also suggests that what he called the "layout" of the scene may be something that the visual system encodes (Gibson would say "picks up") without benefit of knowledge and reasoning”. Nakayama, He, and Shimojo (1995) have also argued that the primary output of the independent visual system is a layout of surfaces in depth. Their data shows that many visual phenomena are predicated on the prior derivation of a surface representation. These surface representations also serve to induce the perception of the edges that delineate and "belong to" those surfaces (my space- shaping elements). Nakayama et al. argue that because of the prevalence of occlusions in our world, it behoves any visual animal to solve the surface-occlusion problem as quickly and efficiently as possible, and that this is done by first deriving the surfaces in the scene and their relative depth Pylyshyn, Z. W. (2003). "Seeing and Visualing: It's Not What you Think.", Pylyshyn, Z. W. (2007). Things and places: how the mind connects with the world. Cambridge, Mass. London, MIT. 114
pertain to my ideas because it is functional to visual perception as it is 'things' in the immediate environment which lead to relationships analyses.
A cornerstone of his concept is that of 'ambient optic array’, which he suggests contains all the information that we require to understand a visual environment. In simple terms ambient optic array is the 'visual field of an environment'. A feature of this idea of ambient optic array is that it contains affordances. A clear example is expressed by Ware (2000 p.22) "… if we want to climb up onto the roof, the visual system will respond to ladders since ladders afford climbing. We never see a ladder in complete isolation. We see it in the context of our garage or our shed, surrounded by other stuff, none of which necessarily affords climbing in the same way as the ladder".
Gibson places significant emphasis on the information contained through dealings with the natural world, as well as a built environment. His concepts of moving through an environment may seem to be less applicable to my work. Certainly the viewer’s full body motion is severely limited in many performance situations. In proscenium arch theatre it is of minor consequence but is an essential consideration in experimental theatre as both the audience and the performer's frameworks are active. Dynamic space relationships do result even within the two sectioned – auditorium and stage - limited built environment of the proscenium arch theatre. The field of view contains movement and motion related to the viewer location even though the scene being viewed is within a fixed physical frame. Certainly in all naturalistic style performances it is reasonable for an audience to expect the dramatic world to behave in a similar way as previous knowledge and experience do have influences on how we interpret an environment.
Performance interpretation by a viewer is crucial to the fabrication of make- believe. This is often triggered by minimal visual information. Here is closure theory in action - implied completion or implied space-forming. Here staging devices, surface information and space-forming elements are employed to communicate visual distance and depth that is often predicated on assumed knowledge of viewer experience imbedded in the culture of the audience. 115
… spatial signification in the theatre will thus be, in large part, a history of how different cultures have altered location, size, shape and exact relationship of acting and audience spaces according to changing ideas about the function of theatre (Helbo 1991 p.152).
Future Research This study is contained within a broad field of the performing arts. My focus is on a design process for a scenography for experimental theatre that can be considered within an emerging scenographic discipline. It is important to place this study against the background of energetic discussions undertaken in Australia regarding the recognition of research status in the performing arts (O'Brien 1997).
Design as a separate university discipline was established very recently. Traditional university disciplines included a design process and methods in many of the humanities, and certainly in engineering and architecture, often as hidden underlining structures or as supporting ‘crafts skills’.
Practitioners in the performing arts who are engaged in research face common theoretical, technical and aesthetic challenges; to find acceptance of their work practices within traditionally based research methodologies with their emphasis on text-based research dissertations.43
The second critical area of concern is whether theatre performance based research can be recognised and accepted as an academic or research
43 It could be argued that a traditional design process mirrors accepted research methods in many qualitative research models; "the concept of a design researcher as ‘bricoleur’ and research/inquiry as ‘bricolage’ ” is noted by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, editors of Handbook of Qualitative Research (1994), as a way non-traditional research may be able to be accepted. John McLeod presented a paper as an introduction to a Panel on ‘Qualitative inquiry in action: researcher as bricoleur’ at the Society for Psychotherapy Research Annual Conference, June 2000, and argued "There is an appreciation that doing good qualitative research is never just a matter of applying a pre-defined method to a clear-cut question. It is acknowledged that to be an effective qualitative researcher requires common-sense, imagination, flexibility and determination to do whatever needs to be done, or can be done, to find meaning in research material." 116
enterprise. A precise link between existing performance practice and new models of research has not been established in Australia. The line between performance practice and performance research is difficult to define. A view, often debated, is that there is a greater concern to gain recognition for research ‘in’ the art form rather than ‘about’ the art form, therefore there remains the tension between academics and practitioners over ownership of the discourses of practice. Academics in the humanities who function as critics and historians who write about the art-forms, even though they may practice the art form, are seen as scholars while those who practice, and only practice, are seen as artists.
Unlike my colleagues in the Visual Arts (also Literature and Film), who create tangible ‘products’, the events under consideration in this study – performance design and the field studies, rod workshops - are unique, ephemeral and dependent upon a symbiotic relationship between environment and artist/designer, performer and viewer within a specified time frame and space. When these events are rendered ‘more permanent’ by being ‘translated’ into a recording media their unique attributes are lost. The same aesthetic experience is not present. Performance documentation, still photography and video, may be useful for research and study, but mutates the event into another, quite different form. “Paradoxically, any efforts to render the forms more accessible to traditional investigative techniques distance the researcher from the primary source material, making it even more elusive” (McAuley 1986 p.33).44
Furthermore, as my project is studying the dynamics of space, as viewed in a controlled environment, methods to recall and represent space are required if
44 Several other social cultural and creative spaces, which actively influence our experiences of performance, are considered in detail in Space in Performance: Making Meaning in The Theatre by Gay McAuley. This book is based on the work undertaken in close collaborations with the author. Theatre Workshop developed into a unified academic study unit offering courses in Performance Studies. These are unique courses in Australia as they are based on methods developed by students and staff working along side professional directors, actors, designers and dramaturges during the mounting of the production of a play. This close working relationship developed new ways of researching and studying the creative process of the making of theatre performances and impact on the spectator. In 1990 the Theatre Studies Unit became an academic Centre within the Faculty of Arts, called The Centre of Performance Studies and its work remains based on the Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies techniques developed during the period of this study. 117
this type of research is to advance. The new recording methods of stage images, both still and moving, have become technically possible, without the integrity of the performance being compromised. This may release new ways of researching the performance and its dramatic space, outside the event time.
The recording of live events was always at best, problematical. Now accepting from the outset that a performance event and its preparations are essentially unrecordable, is no longer a clear limitation. The event is three-dimensional and multi-focused. It exists in a given site for a given duration and it involves a complex and subtle interaction between performers and viewers. This means that the visualisation process of a performance, for so long disregarded by researchers in favor of the more accessible, more manageable written text or script, is able to become a central focus for analysis.
This study is a comparative study of ways to identify, map and represent systems of spatial relationships in which significant entities are defined in terms of their relative locations in a multi-dimensional network of relationships. Study of space design inherent in any performance has to be largely focused on the study of the changing spatial relationships between the performers and the audience and the manipulation of the scenic and architectural space around these bodies.
" … the set is the geometry of the eventual play, so that a wrong set makes many scenes impossible to play. This focuses our attention on a vital hidden requirement of any stage or performance arrangement; the kinaesthetic understanding of the specific playing area or areas for a specific dramatic problem". Peter Brook The Empty Space (Brook 1968 p.101). 118
References:
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Figures
Figure 1 Seymour Theatre Centre Ground Plan 3 Figure 2 York Theatre 6 Figure 3 Everest Theatre 6 Figure 4 Downstairs Theatre Ground Plan 18 Figure 5 Downstairs Theatre Cross Section 19 Figure 6 Setting for Spring Awakening 19 Figure 6 Downstairs Theatre Longitudinal Section 20 Figure 7 The Club Room Seymour 29 Figure 9 Lines in the environment 30 Figure 10 Adding Planes 30 Figure 11 Objects 31 Figure 12 People Planes and Rods 31 Figure 13 Objects 32 Figure 14 Light 32 Figure 15 The Empty Space 34 Figure 16 Black Rod Installation 1 35 Figure 17 Square Black Rod Installation 2 36 Figure 18 Black Rod Installation 3 37 Figure 19 Black Rod Installation 4 37 Figure 20 Black Rod Installation 5 38 Figure 21 Black Rod Installation 6 40 Figure 22 Black Rod Installation 7 41 Figure 23 Black Rod Installation 8 41 Figure 24 Black Rod Installation 9 42 Figure 25 Black Rod Installation 10 43 Figure 26 Black Rod Installation 11 43 Figure 27 Space-forming Notation 58 Figure 28 Function of Surfaces 59 Figure 29 Enclosing Surfaces 60 120
Figures (cont.)
Figure 30 Frontal and Longitudinal Surfaces 65 Figure 31 Field of Vision 65 Figure 32 Angle of Incidence 66 Figure 33 Visibility of Horizontal Surface 67 Figure 34 A Scenographic Model 80 Figure 35 Space Elements and Design 81 Figure 36 Cross Section Downstairs Theatre 88 Figure 37 Viewer Performer Relationship 88 Figure 38 Notated Image of Setting 89 Figure 39 Floor Plan Setting 90 Figure 40 Seating Layout 91 Figure 41 Lighting to disappear Scrim 92 Figure 42 The Central Landscape 93 Figure 43 Final Scene 94 Figure 44 Spatial Elements Outline 95 Figure 45 Thumbnail Images 96 Figure 46 Schroder Stairs 100 Figure 47 Scenographic Model 104
Photographic images were taken by the author except where noted. 121
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Sanoff, H. (1991). Visual research methods in design. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Schafer, E. and S. Bradley Smith (2003). Playing Australia : Australian theatre and the international stage. Amsterdam ; New York, Rodopi. Schechner, R. (1973). Environmental theater, New York, Hawthorn Books [1973]. Schechner, R. (1977). Essays on performance theory, 1970-1976. New York, Drama Book Specialists. Schlemmer, O., L. s. Moholy-Nagy, et al. (1961). The theater of the Bauhaus. Middletown, Conn.,, Wesleyan University Press. Schon, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, Jossey- Bass. Schon, D. A. (1991). The reflective practitioner : how professionals think in action. Aldershot, England, Arena. Snedcof, H. R. (1985). Cultural facilities in mixed-use development. Washington, D.C., Urban Land Institute. Sommer, R. (1969). Personal space : the behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall. Sparke, P. (1986). An introduction to design and culture in the twentieth century. London, Allen & Unwin. Spinks, K. (1992). Australian theatre design. Paddington, N.S.W., Australian Production Designers Association NSW. Spolin, V. (1985). Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook. Northwestern University Press Thiel, P. (1981). Visual awareness and design : an introductory program in conceptual awareness, perceptual sensitivity, and basic design skills. Seattle, University of Washington Press. Thorne, R. (1975). Theatre History and Design. Sydney, Department of Architecture, University of Sydney. Thorne, R. (1992). Performing Arts Centres: The phenomenon, and what has influenced their being. Sydney, Australian Production Designers’ Association, NSW. Thorne, R. and University of Sydney. Architectural Research Foundation. (1971). Theatre buildings in Australia to 1905 : from the time of the first settlement to the arrival of cinema. Sydney, Architectural Research Foundation, University of Sydney. Thorne, R. and University of Sydney. Dept. of Architecture. (1977). Theatres in Australia : an historical perspective of significant buildings. Sydney, Dept. of Architecture, University of Sydney. Tufte, E. R. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, Conn. Graphics Press. Tufte, E. R. (1991). Envisioning information. Cheshire, Conn. Graphics Press. Tufte, E. R. (1997). Visual explanations : images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Cheshire, Conn., Graphics Press. Vella, M. and H. Rickards (1989). Theatre of the impossible : puppet theatre in Australia. Roseville, N.S.W., Craftsman House. 127
References: (cont.):
Volbach, W. R. and A. Appia (1968). Adolphe Appia, prophet of the modern theater; a profile. Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press. Wallschlaeger, C. B.-S. C. (1992). Basic Visual Concepts and Principles. Dubuque, WCB Publishers. Walton, K. L. and J. H. Muirhead (1990). Mimesis as make-believe : on the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Ware, C. (2000). Information visualization : perception for design. San Francisco, Morgan Kaufman. West, J. (1978). Theatre in Australia. Stanmore, N.S.W, Cassell Australia. White, A. O. C. (2007). The Potentials of Spaces [electronic resource] : The Theory and Practice of Scenography & Performance. Bristol, Intellect. Wilson, P. J. and G. Milne (2004). The space between : the art of puppetry and visual theatre in Australia. Sydney, Currency Press. Zeplin, P. (1992). The Brush-Off Syndrome: Stage Design, History and Visual Art in Adelaide. Adelaide, un-published. 128
Appendix 129
Appendix A
Seymour Theatre Centre, Downstairs Theatre
Adaptability of The Downstairs Theatre The images below, of various layouts for audience / performer relationships show the adaptable nature of this venue.
This ‘open space type theatre’ was designed to have the architectural character of a workshop. Walls and ceilings finish are in a concrete colour. Gallery support structure is painted dark blue. Freestanding seating units make it possible for a variety of staging, audience / performer seating relationships. Plywood panels can be fixed to the walls and decorated to suit the production. A cyclorama cloth can be hung from a track on the ceiling to enclose the whole space. 130
Figure A1 Set-up for Noh Theatre.
Figure A2 Set-up for Picture frame Theatre circa 1850. 131
Figure A3 Set-up for Thrust Staging.
Figure A4 Set-up for End Staging. 132
Figure A7 Set-up for Theatre-in-the-Round, Platform.
Figure A8 Set-up for Traverse Staging. 133
Figure A5 Set-up for an Environmental Design.
Figure A6 Set-up for Theatre-in-the-Round, Hexagonal. 134
Figure A9 Set-up for U-Shape staging.
Figure A10 Set-up for V-Shape staging. 135
Appendix B ‘the human visual system is a pattern seeker of enormous power and subtlety” (Ware 2000)
Development of the Black Rod exercises In support of Experimental Performance programmes I ran a series of workshops for students and professional designers. I offered a 'theatre practice design based workshop' as an option to students from Architecture and Fine Arts through the Arts Workshop and graduate students from the National Institute of Dramatic Art Director’s Course. My first intention of these workshops was to invent verifiable and repeatable exercises in support of my ideas. A second was to examine how the visual system instructs and constructs our understanding of three-dimensional space. I wished to expand my knowledge of spatial relationships active in a controlled environment using simple elements to construct installations and add objects as space indicators. I kept a record of these in photographic form.
Perceiving and interpreting the physical environment is a complex process involving the interaction of human psychology, development, experience and cultural sets and values with outside stimuli. In making sense of the visual world we rely on a number of physical characteristics which define objects and the relationships in three-dimensional space. In simple discrimination of elements in the visual field, we rely on interaction of characteristics or cues such as size, shape, colour, brightness, position in the field, overlay, linear and aerial perspective, movement, parallax, light and shade, accommodation, convergence and stereoscopic vision. (Visual Research Methods in Design by Stanoff, 1991) 136
Black Rod Examples
Spatial Tests & Verifications
I thought that to ‘test’ how the visual system instructs and constructs our understanding of three-dimensional space, my studies were to be sited in real time and space. Exercises were based on three reference books which deal with theories of how recorded spatial images, in various forms, can be interpreted by a viewer. As a start point for these workshop exercises I borrowed and adjusted illustrations from the three reference books45, using black rods and black rope, to construct installations. The fundamental difference between my exercises and the writings of these authors was that my viewers and myself, were reading three-dimensional space in ‘action and reaction’ in real time. What was our interpretation of the use of space when black rods were placed in certain configurations? And was there a common viewer perception of space within each group of viewers?
National Institute of Dramatic Art Students (NIDA) After several (undergraduate) workshops, and when I became more confident in developing and progressing these exercises, I considered it would be useful to have a more advanced group of viewers who may take the exercises into more complex and interesting areas. I requested from NIDA the possibility of working with Directors’ Course students. I sought the help of these students for two reasons. First, NIDA Directors’ Course students were post graduate and second these students were in the theatre profession as directors and therefore had given a great deal of thought to how we construct stage pictures and choreograph actors within stage design spaces. I considered the debate that these students may bring to the workshops could be extremely useful in my exploration of scenographic practice in an experimental space.
45 The Pedagogical Sketch Book, (Klee 1977), Point and Line to Plane, (Kandinsky 1979), and Logic and Design in Art, Science and Mathematics (Barratt 1980). 137
Interpretation The workshops were divided into three development phases; Introduction, Foundation and Advanced. In the Introduction the participants were shown installations to stimulate visual thinking in an empty space with the only defining elements being black rods. In the Foundation work the installations were more complex and other surfaces were introduced. During the Advanced work everyday objects and people were introduced into the installations. As each installation was completed I led valuation tutorials under general headings such as: depth, contrast, pattern density, field frame, and vertical positioning. The form of each installation was considered from the point of view of: • Position in the field; for example, upper left, far right. • Size relative to the field; for example, large, small. • Shape as determined by the contours; for example, round, oblong, square. • Direction relative to the field; for example, vertical, diagonal. • Texture as surface pattern; for example, smooth, rough. • Surface quality; for example, glossy, matte.
Documentation For the purpose of this study I consider it useful to show images of some of the installation exercises so that it is clear how my deductions on the use of space in a performance environment were supported by this work. Structure of exercises: Introduction: the exercises were essentially a series of minimal installations using black rods 1.8m in length and 14mm in diameter – lines in the environment. Foundation: common objects used included in installations. Advanced: as the students became more in-tune with interpreting the spatial dynamics, objects and people were introduced and installations were devised to have a space focus and ‘tell a story’. I would like to remind the reader why these workshops should be considered as part of the performance study process and not separate from it. These workshops were structured to emulate the creative process in a capsule form 138
which we undertook when planning and rehearsing and mounting a performance project in the experimental theatre. The process which I followed was this: preparation and workshop/class (the rehearsal); the student demonstration to class (the performance – 1) retained in the minds of participants and 2) in the minds of the spectators); practical experience and creative expression (students as performers) recording of this activity and theories tested (critical reviewing); analysis and critique of the process, performance and documentation (assessments). The workshops were mini versions of the structure of a performance project with each step being closely assessed by academics, students and myself.
Later Research
When I returned to this work in 1992 I re-engaged with these ideas. I further developed my research by referral to these images and re-evaluation of them. I was able to read more widely on the subject. 46 I developed new exercises more closely related to foundation design studies. I focused this new space study to the requirements of the development of the design course and curatorial studies. Exercises started with ‘lines in the environment’ Figures B1 to B3, and gradually built to complex installations with people, objects, planes and lighting, Figures B4 to B15. Each series of exercises was photographed many times recording the progress of each installation for tutorials and assessment projects.
The focal point of Gestalt theory is the idea of "grouping". The main factors that determine grouping are: proximity - how elements tend to be grouped together depending on their closeness; similarity - how items that are similar in some way tend to be grouped together; closure - how items are grouped together if they tend to complete a pattern; simplicity - how items are organised into figures according to symmetry, regularity, and smoothness.
46 Studies in visual perception tend to fall into broad areas of knowledge and research: the lab experiment and experiential events observations in the ecological approach. I found in the literature the ideas of Gibson and Gestalt effects were prominent as foundational references.(Arnheim 1971; Bloomer 1976; Kaufman 1979; Thiel 1981; 1982; Ware 2000; Lawson 2001; Pylyshyn 2007) 139
Example of the Notes on Elements I would present to students at start of a workshop session:
• impose a number of constraints on a visual problem
• formulate constraints
• orchestrate a wider range of visual attributes
• sequentially structure visual patterns
• consider the implications of rhythm
• invent a rhythmic composition
• re-view your design until it reads easily
• more visual attributes size, shape, number, direction
• limit viewer's attention, use size position variations
• express feelings or moods, random patterning of visual elements
• create effective visual relationships
• view elements from all sides
• be aware of volume of air with your design elements
• create a balance of directional forces
• develop exercise with foreground / middleground / background
• explore simple geometric shapes triangle / square /rectangle 140
Figure B1
Figure B2 141
Figure B3
Figure B4 142
Figure B5
Figure B6 143
Figure B7
Figure B8 144
Figure B9
Figure B10 145
Figure B11
Figure B12 146
Figure B13
Figure B14 147
Figure B15 148
Appendix C
Proscenium Arch Theatre Design Principles The proscenium arch theatre building type established a fixed relationship between audiences, the building and performance design and performers.
Proscenium Arch Stage Space - The Geometric Box The spatial dynamics that function on the stage space behind the proscenium can be best illustrated by the functional elements of perspective drawing; a two- dimensional geometric box representing a three-dimensional space. The prime elements are horizontal planes (the performance platforms), and vertical planes (the backdrops). (Barratt 1980)
Using the grid as a design template for designing the placement of surroundings and objects, precise location can be calculated using the intersection of coordinate lines to establish points of reference. These references in turn can define a set of horizontal and vertical relationships. In this way the grid's individual squares conveniently frame specific places or sites both in the horizontal and vertical planes. Such a reference system is reliant on founding principles for analytical geometry. By coupling the principles of analytical geometry with the formulations of Italian one point perspective, the tools for creating endless examples of the ‘scene a l'italienne' (Athanasopoulos 1983 p.71) were established and remain in use today.47
Geometric Box Analytical Method
The Proscenium Arched performance is framed, contained and controlled by a physical box viewed into by the audience from a separate adjoining large room. The volume and spaces used in the box can be represented using established
47 The geometric perspective box created the stage upon which the great dramas of European painting, theatre, internal and external architecture and materialist thinking generally have evolved since the Renaissance. Summers, D. (2003). Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism. London, Phaidon. The geometric perspective box; the scale can be vast, embracing a mighty landscape, or it can be intimate, to contain a bowl of apples. Whatever its size, it is this trapped space that has fascinated both artists and scientists. It offers a stable, secure and finite universe to be explored. Barratt, K. (1980). Logic and Design in art, science & mathematics. London, Godwin. 149
geometric drawing methods and analysed by an understanding of the optical cube.
The principles which govern these elements have changed little in the modern era. The invention of these geometric tools supported practical applications of representations of the real world and advanced the thinking and understanding of the representational arts. The theatre building became a fully functional apparatus for the development and display of representations of the real world. By the theatricalisation of real world experiences, the pursuit of imagined and make-believe realms could be explored.
Directional Navigation Directional navigation within the box can be considered relative to horizontal planes in a transparent cube. Spatial relationships are notated relative to the arch. The audience point of view, the observer's eye, at all times is through the front plane. Within this cube, space-shaping elements fabricate the audience view of space-forming and reforming relationships only from this point of view. These space-shaping elements generate relational space which are so essential to understanding the function of space in a performance. A directional navigation map can unfold these relational spaces and thus reveal the spatial dynamics of any particular performance event within. 150
Figure C1 Directional Navigation within the Box.
References: Athanasopoulos, C. s. G. (1983). Contemporary Theatre: evolution and design. New York; Chichester, Wiley. Barratt, K. (1980). Logic and design in art, science & mathematics. London, Godwin. Summers, D. (2003). Real Spaces: World Art History and the rise of Western modernism. London, Phaidon. 151
Appendix D Postscript
The Interlude48 Scene: An auditorium of a small university theatre, a converted recreational hall which was built as a temporary building in the 1940’s. Jacque Sceno, a scenographer artist in residence at the University and a noted architect active in the ‘façade architecture’ in the adaptive reuse movement, known as the Melbourne style, talks with Sam Semio, a Professor specialising in reception theory who is a keynote speaker of the conference and a leading advocate of the compact living movement in architecture as social healing.
They are in deep conversation during a coffee break in a technical rehearsal. Chatting conferees are heard in the foyer off stage left. This lighting technical run has been offered to delegates of the conference, as a session in practice-in- action on performance studies in post-modern theory of process as research.
Jacque Sceno: - The scenographer A beautiful person, tall and graceful, with a full, womanly figure, and a dark, creamy complexion. Black hair falls in shining waves to her shoulders, and black is her chosen colour, and the colour of her simple woollen rollneck jumper scooped across her bosom. She is wearing a tweed skirt and high leather boots. One of the more radical and intellectual designers, she believes that theatre should be developed and produced towards a ‘moment in space’, to see ‘difference of other’. Theatre is an example of a ‘designed’ environment which is a constructed representation of political, economic and cultural power and values. Designers in the theatre are directly responsible for our cultural ‘seeing’. Sam Semio: -The semiotician
48 An interlude “between play” in the theatre is a short play between the parts of a longer play. My idea to include this form of expressing ideas in a dialogue came from Edward Gordon Craig. Craig, E.G. (1968). On the Art of the Theatre. London, Heinemann. 152
He is wearing a seersucker jacket in canary yellow with a bold blue check. He is bulky rather than big, hair long, with grey highlights and receding patches, and a wrinkled, suntanned face, with a grey moustache that droops downwards at each end. He is a visiting fellow to the ANU (Australian National University) from Calteck (California Institute of Technology). He was originally a late 19th Century romantic novel specialist in the Neo-Critical close-reading tradition. He converted himself (rather opportunistically, it was thought) into a kind of deconstructionist in the nineteen seventies, and enjoys an international reputation in both areas of study.49 Travels a great deal. Conference junkie.
(In low voices and seated in ajoining rows, leaning into each other …)
SEMIO: We semioticians have brought along many ideas and, yes, contributed to performance understandings by inventing analytical method or methods useful really based on codes of behaviour sign systems text of a performance or performance text; this performance text should have received much more critical attention recently and does illustrate the relationship between the dramatic text - the play - and performance text - the event …
SCENO: It clearly functions as a study method used by some fearless scholars who, I mean, must…
SEMIO: Who must what? For the creative artist, the practice method, if you like - it could be applied or certainly be more than useful for the theatre- making process not only applied to a performance but be useful during the rehearsal process, the rehearsal and design process and so on to…
SCENO: Not really. It still remains an area of some controversy because the post-modern thinking in plastic arts – space- this classification system analysis, semiotics, codes and signs thing. Comes out of literature studies, is firmly based on a linguistic model, you know - it’s not a scale model which is, you know you are able to moved about IN SPACE… (hand directions in circles) you
49 While this interlude is peopled by figments of my imagination, I with pleasure acknowledge my ideas’ source from David Lodge (1989) A David Lodge Trilogy, Penguin Books. 153
are fixed to the page on the page with your linguistic fix, it is designed for the more stable written text - the dramatic text maybe - but it doesn't translate easily to a comprehension of a design process or rehearsal. Performance making event, is a dynamic system, an unstable, a dynamic system…
SEMIO: OK - it works for post-performance diagnosis, useful after the event, but of course it works for framing of the event - see how it communicates, it will open up the process to examine …
SCENO: VISUAL space mode is…
SEMIO: … surely the diagnosis of the event releases the construct of the transforming - the spatial, and so to the visual, into a linguistic model of the perception space, however…
SCENO: Artistically shaped space is a visual mode.
SEMIO: If you expose the construction doesn’t this allow you to trace back to the process?
SCENO: Process is not all …
SEMIO: SO, so that the critical relationship between literary text and performance text doesn't remain locked in only within the event itself. Any sign system or code operating on so many more channels than a written text, then it's possible to reveal more of these complicated elements for analysis by using such a method see it as a tool like your scale model, maybe moving the code around to suit.
SCENO: May be true, partly true, of course the performance is so much more clearly a unique event - each time a new performance but broadly speaking the same, when it comes to an analytical tool - and thus less accessible to the sort of analysis designed for the more stable text - a written text or even story board devised text, moving and working the codes in a rehearsal. 154
SEMIO: Will it… it will blend into design areas too, so that you can storyboard the rehearsal process into a visual representation a visually coded, a keying strip, like a film storyboard?
SCENO: That’s front to back thinking. Visual thinking takes place before linguistic cognition and so should be considered first before breaking down the event, its so called coded world, codes. Codes of a contemporary post-modern theorists understanding of ‘the world’ as text - reading the…
(Voice over: SM on PA – run LX 34 – 35 36. House lights go out. On stage lighting X fades between states. Lit only by light spill from stage.)
SCENO and SEMIO continue.
SEMIO: On the contrary Carlson - you’ve read, a researcher in theatre semiotics, Marvin Carlson?50 He recognises this and states clearly the problem facing a study of performance – he says something like - theatre scholarship, trad theatre has privileged - written dramatic text, and many tools developed for literary analysis have been applied to it (performance) with considerable success. He then goes on to express in detail various approaches to the analysis of theatre events and performance using a - our semioticians’ tool kit.
SCENO: Yeah, yeah, I know his ideas, look I do concede that he lays out some very useful ideas and techniques for analysis, but does not specify a specific code or, if you like, tools for the analysis of spatial dynamics -you know - SPACE during a performance, a space between, relationships...
SEMIO: Spatial dynamics!
50 Carlson, M. A. (1989). Places of performance : the semiotics of theatre architecture. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press. 155
SCENO: WAIT - or how an understanding of space may be used in the creative processes, in the rehearsal room. Let me explain it another way: In a classic rehearsal room exercise, by modifying or swapping the relative distance between two actors, playing a scene – say - an intimate scene like…
SEMIO: Romeo and Juliet!
SCENO: Good one! OK – so-called balcony scene – Shakespeare’s play, yeah… (gracefully swaying hands and arms .. in the air above her head. Semio is most attracted by the movement concealed under the loose knitting of the polo neck.) Space, space - interrogation of proximity of the actors is considered space. How does the scene "play", communicate differently or effectively whilst the actors are in close proximity? Or at a distance from each other? Or with one actor raised above the other? Lying down and so on - undertaking such a rehearsal room impro, the process tests how the spatial relationship - relational space dimensions - of the actors communicates various interpretations - or how, the received perceptions of this scene…
SEMIO: Of course! The narrative and linguistic models of reasoning are appropriate to understand the ways in which the mind makes sense of the sensations of those bodies in space - clearly the meaning can also be changed considerably by the spoken word delivery style, by the actors, to use, the text...
SCENO: Back to the text, text. Now, if words spoken, the actors’ delivery, can be held to be the same for each relational space changes, then significant variations in the meaning of what is seen and heard will be revealed by the spatial relationships of the two actors and the actors to the surrounding environment. Such an exercise establishes that changeability or ease of perception of each new communication by a viewer lies more readily with space, more than with spoken words.
SEMIO: Surely verbal delivery style may automatically change with variations in the spatial relationship of the actors but this variable - vocal - can be modified so focus is on space - THE relational space – spatial AND … a minute - These 156
two actors alone on a performance space - I assume are dressed, now there’s a sign of… (playing with jacket) and have a backdrop and floor surface ? All these must signify ‘something’. DO… during the carrying on - this highly emotional – loaded – code loaded conversation exchange - in all creating a cascade of bits of information per second for a viewer. It’s made to be de- coded…
SCENO: Only a tiny percentage of this plethora of informational exchange is verbal. You know, in text form – Yes…
SEMIO: Yes so? Well the remaining and likely majority is concerned with gesture, body movements and position in the performance space. So you do need a 'code' system to see what's going on here which by its nature, to a certain extent, will be complex as the event is complex …
SCENO: For too many years - words, the written text, dominated the study of drama in or out of performance - that a high percentage of information during this theatrically communicated event is implicit and not expressed in words - is embedded in the situation, in the site in which the communication takes place - it’s not open to - it can’t be opened up by use of your ‘linguo’ model…
SEMIO: Linguistic model of perception, please.
SCENO: This - the relationship’s situation communication in which key interaction takes place - actor/actor and audience/actor and audience/audience - uses direct and indirect transfer of information - may be - it might be called meta-communication linguistic model of perception. What’s the - surely it - Depending on what you consider to be the prime channel of communication.
SEMIO: If you’re prepared to recognise embedded information - then two so called meta-communication systems have been identified; proxemics and kinesics - which can help your process and understanding…
SCENO: Who did…? 157
SEMIO: …that American anthropologist, Ray …
SCENO: Yes …
SEMIO: Birdwhistell - Ray Birdwhistell. Kinesics being the systematic study of the relationship between non-linguistic body motions. He studied body motion and gesture and found that people transmitted information not only by speech but complex non-linguistic body motions.
SCENO: That’s OK for - if you’re in social research…Theatre, this is a created space - other rules are working…
SEMIO: Well then, proxemics, a spatial research between human beings - proxemics - Silent Language the book – a classic by Hall.
SCENO: Yes, and anyway as I understand, it came out of social research – the question remains does proxemics change the kinesics of the actors during performances? Answer that one - a difficult question, yes. To answer definitively a performance is a contrived ‘social situation’ and proxemics and kinesics may be most useful in - again - post performance analysis, as are, it seems to me, most of these complex analytical systems - that's where their use lies - post performance!
SEMIO: The semiotic system code does acknowledge kinesics as the examination of bodily movements in space and proxemics as a tool to apply to how bodies relate and utilise spaces in an immediate environment. Now, whether 'the body' utilises a real social situation or a contrived social situation, in a fictional space - the underlying understandings hold true for both?
SCENO: Still - but these codes remain embedded in an overly complex - I want a map you can read - a mapping system - a map of process - Process Mapping. 158
SEMIO: Quite so, and this has been dealt with by Elam in Semiotics of Theatre. He put forward a mapping of theatrical performance by - through an integrated set of theatrical and dramatic codes. He shows a clear understanding of the limitations of applying prescriptive codes and he said something like - "research into these codified, um, overcoded - undercoded norms is at a preliminary stage. The indications (cues) are designed simply to mark out, as it were, the more inviting zones of an uncertain and unstable territory. Elam's map is based on prevailing analytical practices and under headings which are then divided by codes and sub-codes If you want to do - for in depth analysis like (tracing out with finger air playing with each word) systemic… linguistic… inter textual, structural, presentational, behavioural, ideological…um, physiological, logical, aesthetic, ethical, epistemic, historical and so on, whatever…
SCENO: Yeah, Yeah, so on, so on. As I said, too complex a system. Look you must see that from our point of view as a marker to our theatre, our work the key is processes - there are a multitude of channels of communication and the progress of information processed by an audience during a performance, let alone special regard to dynamics of spatial information - this needs to be brought under a less complex system if it is to be a usable tool for the designer and for that matter all performance makers or just plain old theatre workers.
SEMIO: Clearly an audience experiences a performance. Has an active engagement of all the perceptual senses but privileges visual perception as the prime information gather of spatial configurations. This is a focused environment - the event, visual perception - perceived - closely followed by or supported by auditory perception – is the direct route to identifying active 'space shaping elements'. And your space-shaping-elements can best be seen as 'theatre perceived in its reception functions' - general codes of visual functioning in a specific performance context - which leads to a dynamic set of relationships in space.
SCENO: Dynamic set of relationships is the core of - now you’re starting to sound like an academic - lost in deconstruction… 159
SEMIO: Well I am an academic - not lost. You need a map. Space In Performance as a map is - in her book, on this very subject, Gay McAuley51 at Sydney Uni has detailed this - a chief reason to come all this way to see this experimental theatre at work. You should...
SCENO: I know I know her work. Her ideas are - she has lists of spaces which surround the theatre event but not focused on the space explored in a rehearsal - designing process. It goes something...
SEMIO: You should look at it more carefully. She suggests a taxonomy of spatial functions in and supporting the theatre performance event, if you like, this includes 'space' in performance as well as pertaining spaces. Her headings are divided into detailed and specific functional spaces. It’s the cornerstone of her work is that space is, of course, not an empty container but an active agent; it shapes what goes on within it, emits signals about it to the community at large, and is itself affected.
(Lighting on stage stops sequence testing. Black Out. Voice Over: SM on PA LX set to memory, tell when you’ve done it)
SCENO: Ok, ok. This work I know well as I was closely involved. Her quotation, that quotation - echoes the central problem, understanding of the place/space dynamic. But here again I think the best way to define this is to use another analogy. Take that disposable paper cup - we are able to look into the cup and perceive the area or volume of space contained inside. OK. This space is created - size and shape etc. by the design of the cup itself, the object. If we ‘deconstruct’ the cup and layout - its side flat on the surface, this inner space naturally disappears - see gone. Or we could even fill the cup with water and freeze the water – Now, if we cut the sides of the cup away … from the ice, we are left with the volume shape of the space that was created by the cup. But the space itself no longer exists because filled by a solid, it becomes
51 McAuley, G. (1999). Space in performance: making meaning in the theatre. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. 160
an object – ice. Therefore I draw this conclusion that space is a volume - defined by the relationship of objects or bodies - elements to elements.
(Voice Over: PA. LX to SM. Cue 23 to 43. Done, set to go)
SEMIO: Nice analogy - good images. It shows a… So here is the fault line in your thinking - Space is not 'an active agent' as such, it is an 'acted upon' agent. 'What goes on within it' - inside the cup, so to speak, is shaped by relationships to others. The cup itself out side the space container – the space - can't self impose, but sure it does 'emit signals' and 'is itself affected', so we are back to communications through a code of…
(Voice Over: SM on PA: this is your 5 minute call. Stand by Mr Russell OP side entrance. Miss Cartright to OPS window. Prop change ready. ASM to OP set change. LX set Cue 34 35v 36. FX GO cue 67 X fade. House out Black out) (Sceno and Semio feel their way along Row H in linguistic spatial black confusion…)
End Scene Eight
Post-Postscript Several other social cultural and creative spaces which actively influence our experiences of performance are considered in detail in Space in Performance: Making meaning in The Theatre by Gay McAuley. This book is based on the work undertaken in close collaborations with the author at University of Sydney, Theatre Workshop.
Theatre Workshop became Theatre Studies, and which was developed into a unified academic study unit offering courses in Performance Studies. These are unique courses in Australia as they are based on methods developed by students and staff working alongside professional directors, actors, designers and dramaturges during the mounting of the production of a play. This close working relationship has developed new ways of researching and studying the 161
creative process of the making of theatre performances and its impact on the spectator.
In 1990 the Theatre Studies Unit became an academic Centre within the Faculty of Arts, called The Centre of Performance Studies. The centre’s work remains firmly based on the Theatre Analysis and Performance Studies techniques developed during the timeline of this study period 1975 to 1985.
Carlson, M. A. (1989). Places of performance : the semiotics of theatre architecture. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press. Craig, E. G. (1968). On the Art of the Theatre. London, Heinemann. McAuley, G. (1999). Space in performance : making meaning in the theatre. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.