Theatre and Performance Design A Reader in Scenography

Theatre and Performance Design:A Reader in Scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices. Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design. The volume is organised thematically in five sections: looking, the experience of seeing space and place the designer: the scenographic bodies in space making meaning This major collection of key writings provides a much needed critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. By locating this study within the broader field of scenography – the term increasingly used to describe a more integrated reading of performance – this unique anthology recognises the role played by all the elements of production in the creation of meaning. Contributors include Josef Svoboda, Richard Foreman, Roland Barthes, Oscar Schlemmer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Crary, Elizabeth Wilson, Henri Lefebvre, Adolph Appia and Herbert Blau.

PART I: Looking: the experience of seeing 1 Appearance and reality BERTRAND RUSSELL 2 The simile of the cave PLATO 3 The draughtsman’s contract: how an artist creates an image JOHN WILLATS 4 The camera obscura and its subject JONATHAN CRARY 5 Meditations on a hobby horse or the roots of artistic form ERNST GOMBRICH 6 From Camera Lucida ROLAND BARTHES 7 The most concealed object HERBERT BLAU 8 Fascination and obsession SUSAN BENNETT PART II: Space and place 9 Of other spaces MICHEL FOUCAULT 10 From The Production of Space HENRI LEFEBVRE 11 For a hierarchy of means of expression on the stage ADOLPHE APPIA 12 A taxonomy of spatial function GAY MCAULEY 13 6 axioms for environmental theatre: axiom three RICHARD SCHECHNER 14 Site-specifics NICK KAYE 15 Dancing in the streets: the sensuous manifold as a concept for designing experience SCOTT PALMER AND SITA POPAT 16 Grounding ANDREW TODD 17 Towards an aesthetic of virtual reality GABRIELLA GIANNACHI 18 The house. From cellar to garret. The significance of the hut GASTON BACHELARD 19 Making and contesting time-spaces DOREEN MASSEY PART III: The designer: the scenographic 20 Postmodern design 145 ARNOLD ARONSON 21 "Oh, to make boardes to speak!" NICHOLAS TILL 22 Stage designs of a single gesture: the early work of Robert Edmond Jones ARTHUR B. FEINSOD 23 Foreword to The Stage is Set LEE SIMONSON 24 Hope, hopelessness / presence, absence: scenographic innovation and the poetic spaces of Jo Mielziner, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller LIAM DOONA 25 Brecht and stage design: the Bühnenbildner and the Bühnenbauer CHRISTOPHER BAUGH 26 The diseases of costume ROLAND BARTHES 27 My idea of the theatre TADEUSZ KANTOR 28 Visual composition, mostly RICHARD FOREMAN 29 Defining and reconstructing theatre sound ADRIAN CURTIN 30 On performance writing TIM ETCHELLS PART IV: Bodies in space 231 31 Docile bodies MICHEL FOUCAULT 32 Eye and mind MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY 33 Of language and the flesh THOMAS LAQUEUR 34 From Adorned in Dreams ELIZABETH WILSON 35 The actor and the über-marionette EDWARD GORDON CRAIG 36 Man and art figure OSKAR SCHLEMMER 37 From Towards a Poor Theatre JERZY GROTOWSKI 38 Woman, man, dog, tree: two decades of intimate and monumental bodies in Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater GABRIELLE CODY 39 The will to evolve JANE GOODALL 40 Glow: an interview with Gideon Obarzanek CRISTIANE BOUGER PART V: Making meaning 41 The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility: second version WALTER BENJAMIN 42 Interaction between text and reader WOLFGANG ISER 43 Semiotics LOIS TYSON 44 Limits of analysis, limits of theory and Pavis's questionnaire PATRICE PAVIS 45 Sound design: the scenography of engagement and distraction ROSS BROWN 46 Olfactory performances SALLY BANES 47 The naturalistic theatre and the Theatre of Mood VSEVOLOD MEYERHOLD 48 Theatre and cruelty ANTONIN ARTAUD 49 The humanist theatre/The catastrophic theatre and The cult of accessibility and the Theatre of Obscurity HOWARD BARKER 50 Drawing in rehearsal RAE SMITH 51 Speech introducing Freud ROBERT WILSON 52 From The Secret of Theatrical Space JOSEF SVOBODA

Jane Collins is Reader in Theatre and Wimbledon College of Art, London, where she currently co-ordinates the contextual studies programme. She is a writer, director and theatre-maker, who works across the UK and internationally. Andrew Nisbet is a lecturer at Northbrook College, Sussex, teaching theatre practice and theory. He has worked in conference, exhibition, event and temporary structure design and museum installations.