Theatre Architecture As Embodied Space: a Phenomenology of Theatre Buildings in Performance

Theatre Architecture as Embodied Space A Phenomenology of Theatre Buildings in Performance Lisa Marie Bowler Theatre Architecture as Embodied Space A Phenomenology of Theatre Buildings in Performance Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München vorgelegt von Lisa Marie Bowler aus München 2015 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Christopher Balme Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Michael Gissenwehrer Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 28. Februar 2016 Kurzfassung der Dissertation Theatre Architecture as Embodied Space A Phenomenology of Theatre Buildings in Performance Das Projekt erforscht die Zusammenhänge zwischen Theater- räumen und dem menschlichen Körper mit dem Ziel, eine Phäno- menologie der Raumerfahrung in bestimmten Theatergebäuden zu formulieren. Ausgangspunkt ist die These, dass der leibliche Erfahrungsraum veränderlicher ist als der physikalisch verstandene euklidische Raum und dass deshalb auf die Frage, wie Theater- räume wahrgenommen werden, erstaunliche Antworten möglich sind. So kann zum Beispiel ein modernes Guckkastentheater wie das Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London im Moment der Aufführung ‚verschwinden‘, und so erklärt sich auch, wie Schauspieler und Regisseure des Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre ihr Theatergebäude konsequent personifizieren, sogar vermenschlichen können: „It embraces me,“ oder „It tells you what to do.“ Der Theorieteil der Arbeit untersucht phänomenologische und wahrnehmungspsychologische Theorien des gelebten Raumes auf ihre Anwendbarkeit auf das Theater hin: so z.B. das Konzept des ‚gerichteten Raumes‘, entwickelt von Kurt Lewin, dessen Text Kriegslandschaft (1919) die phänomenologische Gerichtetheit der Kriegslandschaft auf die Frontlinie hin beschreibt. Die von ihm identifizierte perzeptive Veränderlichkeit des Raumes ist, so meine These, auch im Theater erfahrbar. Raumwahrnehmung ist, wie Maurice Merleau-Ponty es formuliert hat, ein körperlicher Prozess, der nicht nur Sinnesleistungen, sondern auch aktive Bewegung, Erinnerung und Imagination erfordert – ein Schaffensprozess also, der nicht nur einen Raum, sondern eine Vielfalt an sinnlichen und affektiven Räumen hervorbringt. Gelebter Raum, so die Erkenntnis, ist immer mannigfach. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit wendet diese Erkenntnis auf drei Fallstudien an: Zuerst wird anhand des Globe Theaters in London gezeigt, wie ein Theatergebäude im Erleben der Schauspieler‚ verkörpert‘ und als zu spielendes Instrument begriffen wird. Dann stellt die Inszenierungsanalyse des Tanzstückes I Don’t Believe in Outer Space dar, wie Körpertechniken und ‚Tonarchitekturen‘ den Raum und seine Wahrnehmung verändern können. Zuletzt wird unter Einbeziehung phänomenologischer Blick- und Aufmerksam- keitstheorien die Erfahrung des ‚verschwindenden‘ Sadler’s Wells Theaters untersucht. Table of Contents Theatre Architecture as Embodied Space A Phenomenology of Theatre Buildings in Performance Introduction “An Actor Walks into a Room, and the Room Changes.” ...............1 PART ONE Phenomenological Approaches ....................................17 I The Phenomenology of Theatrical Space ..........................19 The Ground beneath their Feet ................................22 Taxonomies of Theatrical Space ................................25 Semiotic and Phenomenological Analysis ........................29 Max Herrmann’s Phenomenology of Theatre Space ...............33 Theatre Architecture and Socio-Historical Practice ................35 Tight Roaring Circles versus Perfect Sightlines: Practical Studies of Theatre Architecture ........................37 II Oriented Space ...............................................51 The End of Absolute Space ....................................53 Kurt Lewin and the Directedness of the Landscape ................55 Field Theory and Environmental Psychology .....................58 The Stage as a Field ..........................................63 The Stage-Auditorium System as a Field .........................72 III Embodied Space ..............................................79 A Note on ‘Embodiment’ and the Limitations of the Term ..........81 The Spatiality of the Body .....................................84 Space Perception as a Bodily Activity ...........................87 The Multiplicity of Embodied Space ............................94 Embodiment and Theatrical Space .............................98 The Relationship between Location and Bodily State ..............102 PART TWO Practical Applications ............................................107 IV The Building as Body Anthropomorphic Imagery at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre ...........109 Anthropomorphism in Practice ................................111 Rebuilding the Globe: The Body as Measure .....................116 Life and Death of the Building .................................127 Animate Materials ...........................................132 Resonating Bodies ...........................................134 V Architectures of Bodily Movement Space Production in William Forsythe’s I Don’t Believe In Outer Space ...................................141 Learning to Inhabit (or Become) Space through Dance Technique ...144 The Body Outside Itself .......................................150 Movement Architectures ......................................154 Sound Architectures .........................................158 The Intertwining of Produced Space and Theatre Architecture ......161 VI The ‘Disappearing’ Theatre How Theatres Hide or Make Visible the Audience: Comparing Strategies at Sadler’s Wells and the Globe ...............167 Sadler’s Wells: Designed to ‘Disappear’ ..........................171 The Black Hole .............................................174 Gaze and Embodiment .......................................178 Two Strategies ..............................................181 The Paradox of Shared Light ..................................184 Shared Darkness ............................................188 Conclusion The Theatre – an Organism Space – its Connecting Tissue. 193 Bibliography ....................................................200 List of Figures Fig. 1 Sketch of a vertically tiered theatre with a deep thrust stage (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon) ........42 Fig. 2 Sketch of an end-on proscenium arch theatre (Bayreuther Festspielhaus) ..................................43 Fig. 3 Oskar Schlemmer, The Laws of Cubical Space, drawing from “Man and Art Figure”, in: Oskar Schlemmer, László Moholy-Nagy, Farkas Molnár, Walter Gropius, and Arthur S. Wensinger, eds. The Theater of the Bauhaus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, c1960), 23 ...........................................66 Fig. 4 Oskar Schlemmer, The Laws of Organic Man, drawing from “Man and Art Figure”, Ibid., 24 ..........................67 Fig. 5 Koen Broos, Zero Degrees by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan, Antony Gormly, Nitin Sawhney (2005). Dancer: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui ...............................86 Fig. 6 Sketch of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in performance ..........111 Fig. 7 Sketch of the primary spatial orientations of the balletic body ..............................................147 Fig. 8 Sketch of Sadler’s Wells Theatre in performance: view from the stage .............................................173 With special thanks to Eoin Bowler for the architectural sketches and the title page drawing. Introduction “An Actor Walks into a Room, and the Room Changes.” A thing is never perceived simply in relation to itself. How it appears depends as much on the perceiver as it does on its objective physical features. A cave, for example, might be of a certain shape and have a certain height and depth, but it will only materi- alise as a place of shelter to a creature of the right size, with a body that ‘fits’ and can enter into a meaningful relationship with it. Meaning is made in the intertwining of the two. The same principle applies to buildings and spaces where theatre takes place. The objective physical features of such buildings and spaces can be measured, represented in drawings, plans or photographs, placed in a historical context or described in terms of their stylistic and aesthetic qualities. Even the social and cultural functions of theatre spaces, in so far as they are generally agreed upon and understood, can be described as part of their objective reality.1 None of these ways of engaging with theatre buildings, however, can equal or reproduce direct experience of them. Direct experience, the ‘intertwining’ of object and perceiving body, can only be approached by attending equally to the object of perception, the individual perceiver and the specific situation that person is in at a given moment. This thesis adopts such an approach in relation to theatre buildings, aiming to develop a method for describing how they appear, rather than what they objectively are. In the early stages of my research I once attempted to articulate this idea in an informal conversation with the theatre director Dominic Dromgoole. His response was appreciative but laconic: 1 An exception to this point would be when performance takes place in non-theatre spaces that retain traces of their former identities (typically empty office blocks or hotels, former factories or abandoned military structures). The social functions of such spaces are too indefinite to be described as an objective reality, especially as the purpose of site-specific or immersive theatre work is often to destabilise any notion of a fixed social reality

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