SCENIC DESIGN, PERFORMANCE, AND PERCEPTION

A theatre can be an impressive work of architecture, or it can be a bowl-shaped lawn, or just a box on the street. It is a place where people come together for a shared experience, and the physical configuration shapes the act of gathering, the parameters of performance, and the perceptions of the audience. The action begins and the words and movement evoke an imagined space. This performance space exists beyond the physical location but is linked with the theatre to varying degrees; theatrical productions can take us to distant places, or they can bring us to a deeper awareness of our everyday surroundings.

The stage set supports the performance and grounds the action in the physical space. Scenic design embraces a basic paradox of performance – it is simultaneously here and elsewhere. Scenic elements can be highly realistic or suggestively abstract and they serve to link the imagined with the real and the performance with the physical surroundings. This article explores the practice of scenic design and its approach to the complementary and contradictory relationship between performance space and physical space.

For this purpose, we turn to three Philadelphia-based scenic designers — Marie Laster, Thom Weaver and Matt Saunders. Matt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College, has an MFA from Yale and has designed over 150 works of theater, opera, and dance in Philadelphia, New York and beyond. Thom is a lighting and scenic designer who also went to Yale and has designed a similarly impressive number of performances. Both have been recognized with various theatrical awards. Marie offers a younger perspective for our inquiry. She studied architecture at Philadelphia University and was drawn back to the theatre after graduating in 2015. Since then, she has designed award nominated productions in the city and elsewhere.

The work of these three designers operates within a realm between architecture and performance. The form of the stage, seating arrangement and viewing angles are of obvious importance to the design of the theatrical experience. According to Matt, “It is very much the purview of the set designer to be hypersensitive to the physical relationship between the performer and the audience” Scenic design and the architecture of the theatre work together to support the audience’s experience. “There is a commonality of purpose between the two that has to do with ritual, and the ‘gathering of humanity’ together under one roof,” continues Matt. The ideas addressed in this article reflect on the relations between the perceptions of the audience, theatrical performance, and physical design.

EXAMINE THE EVERYDAY

Scenic designers often begin with the ordinary. Matt explains that he strives to “appreciate beauty in the mundane…the history of spaces, and the stories told by those spaces.” Everyday objects can serve as sources of inspiration, of particular interest are the materials that support the stories of humanity. These materials are tied to the action through their functional roles. As Thom asserts, “functionality is often what creates beauty. These pathways to clarity, to understanding. Design hints that send you in a direction and give you the tools to manage the path, but don’t tell you explicitly how or what to feel or think. Great design makes you do that part on your own.”

The mundane is used in expressive form in the set of Describe the Night, a collaboration between Thom and Matt for the Wilma Theater in 2020. The play was written by Rajiv Joseph and follows the story of seven citizens of the Soviet Union, weaving real and imagined events while reflecting on the ambiguous relations between truth and falsehood. The stage is lined with 400 cardboard boxes that form the space around different functions ranging from an interrogation room to a car rental office [1]. The boxes are filled with records of the past that haunt the characters. The common, cardboard box is multiplied to claustrophobic effect to convey the idea of life trapped within a world of dubious facts.

The physical model is the most important tool to convey the design of a stage set. The model affords an understanding of the physical space, assists with the staging of the action, and supports the collaborative process between the designer, the director and the actors. According to Matt, “computer aided modeling…feels too virtual. When designing for performance, the worlds created want to be filled with character, history and texture…a ‘realness.’ The physical, tactile model is much better at communicating that sense.”

Great works of architecture can sometimes serve as inspiration for scenic design. Matt examined the houses of Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler and Eileen Gray for the design of Daddy, a 2019 play written by Jeremy O. Harris and performed at Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street (designed by Frank Gehry). The play is set in a midcentury house in the LA hills and explores the problematic relationship between a black artist and a white art dealer [2]. For his “secondary” research, which Matt describes as poetic exploration, he studied the paintings of David Hockney, which “communicated a certain ‘vibe’ that felt right.” The projection of a feeling or an emotion that supports the action on stage is a central concern of the scenic designer.

SUPPORT THE STORY

Storytelling is key to the theatrical arts and the scenery is intended to sustain the story and engage the minds of the audience. A Boy and His Soul was written by Colman Domingo and performed at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, New York in 2021. The solo performance explores the main character’s record collection in the basement of his West Philadelphia family home and uses music to bring the audience through the vibrant memories of his youth.

The play takes place in a partially rendered basement [3]. The projecting joists frame the action and draw the audience within the psychic space of the character’s memories. Subtly suggestive scenic elements invite the audience to render the place within their minds. “Abstract sets leave more opportunity for the audience to interpret what they see on stage,” explains Marie. “When you see forms that don’t present themselves as ‘normal’, your mind attempts to figure out what you are looking at. That engages the audience and places their imagination within the show.”

Scenic design requires the designer to “get into the minds of characters and figure out where they are... Sometimes, there are elements that make suggestions of a place or feeling and the words and movement of the actors create the full scene.” A scenic designer must develop a deep understanding of human expression and movement to support the connection between the performance and the place created on stage. This understanding is broadened through observation of everyday life. “I can walk down the streets of center city and see vibrant people and so many different types of expression,” says Marie.

FOCUS ON THE FIGURE

Stage sets are intended to support the activities and movements of the performers. Matt explains that “the design is the context where the thing happens, it is not the thing.” The “thing” is the dramatic performance, and the scenes are designed around the drama. When Matt sketches his initial ideas, he “always draws the figure first…then the environment around that figure…Theater is an art form that uses humanity as its medium.”

Performances bring life to the stage and “body language will give the audience a sense of where they are and how it makes them feel,” explains Marie. This can be seen in the two photographs of Marie’s set design for Quintessence Theatre’s 2020 performance of Rachel [4, 5]. The play was written in 1916 by Angelina Weld Grimke and focuses on a young woman struggling with the realities of American racism. The play is historically significant for its realistic portrayal of black domestic life and the frank manner it addresses the painful manifestations of racism in the early twentieth century.

A comparison of the two images – one with an uninhabited stage and one with actress Jessica Johnson in the role of Rachel — reveals the transformation of lifeless objects into active elements within the story. The chairs and table gain the life and meaning conveyed by the actor; the tie between the animate and the inanimate is apparent. Both scenic design and architecture derive their significance through association with human experience.

EXPRESS THE POETICS

Stage sets can focus more on the poetics of place than actual physical characteristics. The set Matt designed for the Guthrie Theater’s 2017 production of The Bluest Eye, based on the novel by Toni Morrison, is a powerful example of intentional absence [6]. Set in 1940s Ohio, the story focuses on a young girl seeking love and survival amidst domestic turmoil. Matt did not attempt to portray the specific locations within the play, “but rather the depiction of an emotional state…the set design became an envelope for the scenes to shift inside of, an envelope for the violence, and the emotions. I designed the great expanse of the Guthrie stage as a large, overwhelming void of cracked concrete, with a single lonely dandelion emerging through a crack in the back wall.”

Abstraction provides opportunities for imaginative engagement and allows greater degrees of interpretation by both actors and audience. It also leaves room for ongoing change. According to Matt, “Theatrical Design is a collaborative effort, and on some level, given the ephemeral, communal aspect of the craft, a design for the theater can never be truly “finished.” Theater is a living, breathing art form, which is constantly changing, evolving. A theatrical design is a malleable world…it is certainly not a static, or fixed product.” The ephemeral nature of the stage reflects the changing dynamics of reality and the mutability of experience. Scenic design utilizes physical elements to evoke visual poetics. Through imaginative perception, the audience forms visceral connections to the challenging content of contemporary drama; content that can vary on a nightly basis.

CONNECT THE SPACES

Matt and Thom also collaborated for the set of James Ijame’s play, Kill Move Paradise, for the Wilma in 2018 [7]. The pure, white stage has multiple proscenium arches that recede to frame a horizontal band of light approached by a steeply pitched ramp. Three black men and one adolescent, who were all recently and unexpectantly killed, are dropped one by one onto the stage and left to grapple with the reasons they are there. The setting is a form of purgatory, a place of reflection that challenges the audience to think more deeply about violence in America.

The repeating prosceniums reflect the space of the physical theatre, but the abstract peculiarity of the stage creates a place apart. This division is removed when the fourth wall — the separation between performance and audience — is torn aside by an actor who turns to ask why the audience is there. The surprise and awkwardness of the moment lays the challenging content of the play before the consciousness of the gathering.

The stage design activates a tension between the performance space and the physical space. The sensation could be compared to the relation between the portrayed depth of a painting and the canvas surface, which is also a relation between the imagined and the physical. The austerity of the scene, the artful manipulation of light and the tense play of dual realities, engage the audience within a shared psychological experience. For Thom, “theatre design is about creating a sense of place or space in the mind…good design engages and employs the imagination of the audience...makes them see things that aren’t there and completes the design in their own heads.”

This short inquiry into the scenic arts highlights several important concepts relevant to the practice of architecture: human experience is the central determinant of design, the everyday is a fundamental source of inspiration, and an understanding of place resides in both the body and mind. The dynamic relationships between performance space and physical space crafted by these three scenic designers are compelling examples of the connections between the tangible and the intangible, between imagination and reality.

One significant difference between architecture and scenic design is that one aspires towards permanence while the other is inherently ephemeral. This ephemerality affords an expressive freedom to explore the changing relations between narrative, movement, and space. The final conclusion is that anyone interested in developing an understanding for the interactions of human experience, physical space, and perception would do well to attend the theatre.

Timothy Kerner, AIA is Principal of Terra Studio, LLC; Adjunct Professor of Architecture, Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and Member of the Context Editorial Board.