1 Early Alternatives to Realism (Appia and Craig) Adolphe Appia (1862-1928) first learned about theatre through his musical studies. He was heavily influenced by Wagner’s music- dramas and theoretical writings. He recognized that the way Wagner’s (and other’s) productions were created did not actually embody Wagner’s own theories. He published three books between 1895 and 1921 which put forth ideas about theatrical production that were eventually accepted almost everywhere. Appia began with the assumption that artistic unity is the fundamental goal of theatrical production. He then sought to analyze failures to achieve it. Adolphe Appia. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Appia 1

2 Early Alternatives to Realism (Appia and Craig) Appia concluded that stage presentation involves three conflicting visual elements: The moving 3D actor The perpendicular scenery The horizontal stage He considered 2D painted settings to be one of the major causes of disunity in a play. Above all, Appia emphasized the role of light in fusing all visual elements into a unified whole. To him, light was the visual counterpart to music ( a la Wagner), which changes from moment to moment in response to moods, emotions, and actions. He wanted to manipulate light as carefully as a musical score. Appia’s design for the Sacred Grove in Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. Image: http://socks-studio.com/2013/12/13/a-revolution-in-stage-design-drawings-and-productions-of-adolphe-appia/ 2

3 Early Alternatives to Realism (Appia and Craig) Appia came to believe that rhythm in a text provided the key to every gesture and movement on stage. Proper mastery of rhythm will unify all spatial and temporal (time) elements of a production. This is in response to “eurythmics,” a system in which a person experiences music by responding physically to the rhythm of a piece. Appia designed the first theatre of modern times to be built without a proscenium arch. Appia saw the theatre artist as an interpreter of the composer-dramatist’s work. He assigned a hierarchy to theatrical elements. He created sets in terms of one setting for every location. Appia considered light to be the unifying element in a production. Image: http://socks-studio.com/img/blog/appia-10-800x771.jpg 3

4 Early Alternatives to Realism (Appia and Craig) Gordon Craig began his career as an actor, before becoming a designer and director. His career is fraught with controversy due to his ideas about theatrical production. He considered theatre an independent art, arguing that a true theatre artists uses actions, words, line, color, and rhythm to create a product as pure as anything made by a painter, sculptor, or composer. Theatre is art itself, not a combination of other arts. Therefore, the theatre artist is an artist in his own right, not simply an interpreter. Craig proposed that a master-artist did not need a literary text to create a wholly autonomous art form. His influence is most heavily felt in design. Edward Gordon Craig. He’s known by “Gordon.” Image: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Gordon-Craig 4

5 Early Alternatives to Realism (Appia and Craig) Craig argued that the public goes to see a play, not hear a play. He thought of theatre in purely visual terms. His designs show a preference for right angles, an obsession with parallelism, and grandiose height. He sought a single set capable of expressing the spirit of the entire work. He refused to assign a hierarchy to technical elements and blamed faults of the past on the dominance of one element over others. He denounced actors for interjecting their own conceptions between those of the director and the public. He suggested the use of a “superpuppet” without any ego but capable of carrying out all demands. Craig’s set design for the 1911 production of Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theatre. Image: http://flavorwire.com/490694/45-transgressive-spins-on-shakespeare-past-and-present/view-all 5