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The Search for New Realities in
the Theatre
Ulrike Riss (Vienna)
Documentation et Art de
l'Acteur
Records and Images of the Art of the Performer
18ème Congrès
International, Stockholm 3-7 septembre 1990 /
18th International Congress, Stockholm 3-7 September 1990
Editor: Barbro Stribolt (Drottningholms Teatermuseum).
Stockholm : 1992, p. 119-121
In 1989 the Austrian
Theatre Museum was in the happy position of being able to
acquire a reconstruction of Friedrich Kiesler's
"space stage" (Raumbühne). This was an
important addition to the collection since it represents
the stage development and the innovative idea of the time
in Austria. Carrying on and bringing somewhat of a
fulfilment to the stage art of the European and Russian
avant-garde from 1917 to 1924 (among them: Tairoff,
Meyerhold, and the people around them) it demonstrates
both an end of a form and a new beginning.
As we will see, this development had a great influence on
both theatre buildings and the stage as well on the
actor. Even the seating of the audience was to be seen in
a new light and surprising effects. Kiesler himself
expressed it very pointedly when he said: "The scene
explodes" ("Die Kulisse explodiert").
What was the reformer reacting against? The traditional
theatre was either run by a court or by private
enterprises more or less connected to a community.
The main concerns of the former were representation, to
see and to be seen, this resulted in extravagant
buildings with the audience seated on the ground floor,
in circled tiers and in private boxes. The latter were
involved in strong competition, almost uninterrupted
financial crises and tried to survive by engaging stars,
offering sensations, and satisfying the audience's taste.
All theatres used the picture-frame stage, in which the
whole stage was framed by the proscenium with hardly any
forestages. The scene design was illusionary, mostly
painted realism.
Settings, costumes and properties were kept in storage
and used over and over again for many different
productions. This resulted in a mixture of styles and a
lack of unity in sets and the visual aspects of a
production. It saved money, but can you imagine an actor
today acting in a setting that is fifty years old? The Hamlet
performed at the Hofburgtheater in Vienna in 1897, for
example, used the sets of 1867.
Since the construction of both building and stage were
oriented more to the representation needs of the audience
than to the requirements of the art and the performers,
special new methods of performance were developed. As was
the case in the Hofburgtheater, actors invented a loud,
exaggerated style with such highlighted moments as the
so-called "Wolter-Schrei", the famous outcry
used by the actress Charlotte Wolter for dramatic
climaxes.
For creative innovators this situation was unbearably
stale. What ideas and revolutions did they introduce to
reform or even abolish the old and traditional? Emerging
from the ideas of symbolism, futurism and constructivism
grew the conviction to entirely refrain from historical
reconstructions, naturalism and historicism.
One of the most eminent reformers was, of course, the
Swiss Adolphe Appia (1862-1928). He reduced decoration to
a handful of basic elements, such as cubes, stairs,
blocks and his famous "inclined planes" (schiefe
Ebenen). The actor becomes more or less a mobile part
of the stage picture; his body was the basic measurement
for all objects on the stage. Drama was staged
rhythmically, non-realistically. Exploring the new
possibilities of electricity, Appia attempted to achieve
totally new effects with light.
The English designer, director and theorist Edward Gordon
Craig (1862-1966) was even more radical. The actor was
scarcely more than a puppet, stressing the elements of
movement, gesture, dance and mime, and thereby minimizing
the importance of the word. Light was given the task of
simulating atmosphere, stage decoration was a set of
mobile elements.
In the wake of these innovations representatives of the
Fine Arts (for example, O. Schlemmer, W. Kandinsky, V.
Tatlin) became interested in contributing their specific
talents. The stage was conceived as a place for dream
impressions and visions. Kandinsky visualized the
performer as the carrier of colors and light; Schlemmer
postulates that costumes, choreography and music form the
basis of the peforming art; his first and best-known
production was the Triadic Ballet.
The performers are artificial beings, not individual
humans. Costumes are architecture and form, not dress.
Literature and the art of the performer to represent a
character were abolished. The new art was dramatized
painting: bringing colors, shapes and space into dramatic
interaction. This is a form which is currently being
carried on by Achim Freyer and Robert Wilson. It seems to
meet a modern desire to counteract the alienation of the
technicality in our civilization. Rationalization and the
separation of mind, emotions and sensations together with
over-stimulation from modem media might be the reason for
the desire for such a visual, non-intellectual art
experience.
All these revolutions and reforms, however, have not
developed any further than a handful of experimental
stages and productions. One major exception (though
moderate) was the introduction of reforms at the Vienna
Opera by Gustav Mahler in cooperation with the stage
designer Alfred Roller. The new elements of symbolic
colors, subtle lights and simplified stage settings
allowed new interpretations of operas. The singer and
actor became integral part of a
"Gesamtkunstwerk".
Another mainstream of innovative impulses for stage
construction and performance came from the Russian
revolutionary theatre. The Austrian Theatre Museum has a
series of stage models that exemplify the ideas and
challenges of the Russian reformers.
For Alexander Tairoff the performer was again the very
center of the art. To enhance the mastery of the specific
skills, he called for the creation of acting schools, the
establishment of permanent ensembles and, most of all,
the creation of suitable spaces in which the actor could
move. The stage floor was broken into various shapes
which are elevated to different levels and permit a great
diversity of movement and action.
It should be mentioned, however, that Tairoff himself
stated that the realization of the model in an actual
stage was not satisfactory.
Summing up and giving these innovative drives a final
form was the Austrian F. Kiesler and his
"space-stage" (Raumbühne) an extended
multi-levelled theatre-in-the-round. The levels
themselves consist of a spiral ramp and a round top in an
open construction with visible building elements. Since
there are no decorations, light plays an important role.
The actor is conscious of being seen from all sides; the
result is "space acting" (Raumspiel), an
acting method concentrating on movement on three levels.
Artistic movement is the basis and major element of this
method of acting. Directing has to emphasize the
orchestration of motion on all three levels with all the
performers.
As a special attraction for the International Exhibition
of Theatre Technology (Internationale Ausstellung fur
Theatertechnik) in 1924, Kiesler was given the
opportunity to build his stage in the centre of the
Vienna Konzerthaus, a classicist music hall, built in
1912/13.
The first play performed was not a lucky one: Paul
Frischauer's In The Dark (Im Dunkeln), only three
persons are involved in a rather heavy story. This did
not provide the stage with the possibility of displaying
its advantages. The second attempt was a much better
choice: Methusalem or The Eternal Citizen
(Methusalem oder Der ewige Bürger) by Yvan Goll.
Karlheinz Martin directed this satirical play, which did
not have an actual performance. We do have, however,
Theodor Csokor's vivid description of the rehearsals. It
is easy to imagine how drastic, slapstick-like direction
could make use of this stage construction: sudden changes
of location, artistic effects of "popping up"
both socially and physically, as well as being chased
back again.
Although Kiesler's idea of performer and space brought
the stage developments begun by Appia and Craig to an
extreme which was not to survive as such, he greatly
influenced conceptions of the stage which followed.
Karlheinz Martin, the director mentioned above, adapted
Kiesler's idea of the "space stage" (Raumbühne)
to the picture-frame-stage of the Raimund Theatre (1925).
In this production of Wedekind's Franziska, he
integrated essential elements with great success.
In contrast to Kiesler's original, such modifications as
Martin used them were highly acclaimed by audience and
critics. What began as an extreme revolt has in one way
developed into a certain stream of visual theatre which
has been triumphantly brought into the repertoire of
theatre and stage art with Martin as a pioneer. Since
Tairoff and Appia, the performer has had to come to terms
with a new understanding of his or her body in the
three-dimensional space of the stage; the stage floor has
won a variety of new possibilities and the stage artist a
new dimension of expression.
18th Congress
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