Critiquing and Reimaging Stage Design - Annotation
This annotation discusses a scholarly article:
Isackes, R. M. "On the Pedagogy of Theatre Stage Design: A Critique of Practice." Theatre Topics, vol. 18 no. 1, 2008, pp. 41-53. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/tt.0.0005.
R.M. Isackes uses his experience as a professor of stage design to critique traditional models of the stage design and propose means to emphasize creativity and performativity over the dramatic text. He attempts to foster his student’s “personal aesthetic” (44) through decentralizing text and alternative processes to drafting, such as photo organizing. He focuses on devising theatre as a means of determining use and interaction of staging elements for his design students, and encourages designers to explore all systems of performance. He says that “the primary obligation of the designer is not to the script, but to the performed event” (44). He reflects on Carlson’s idea of locating the stage design among civil discourse (46) and utilizing the space type to create nuance. The quotation I found most relevant to my research was: “theatrical design functions as a received text that mimetically locates the play for the audience, and…as a practical architecture that is used by performers” (48). He identifies design as existing within a “Multitextual performance frame” (48) which both Knowles and Jürs-Munby identify using other semiotic terms. He uses “performative functionality or transformational reception” (49) as a means of critique and objective over aesthetic value.
Isackes proposes a model for stage designers that encourages an in depth performance analysis that emphasizes staging elements as a system (Pavis 209), which provides a productive framework of acknowledging space, concept, and performance. In Avignon, I found that this criteria was followed by the majority of the designers in some capacity, especially Tzoka, Denic, and Clachan. In America, this is a revolutionary idea. Decentralizing text in stage design so that it works on multiple levels leads to the subtly complex set of Die Kabale, rather than conceptual disaster of Algonquin Highway that appeared to only ask: “How do we get a car on stage and talk about revolution?”. His encouragement of personal aesthetic is important: artists who do not acknowledge their personal aesthetic may create a set that mimics a style rather than creating its own. I realized while looking through the portfolios of Denic and Clachan that all their designs were notably their own, and that is what made them unified and solid, rather than messily eclectic. Theatre centred schools often centre on systems of productivity rather than artistic expression, and Isackes provides a system that allows for the creation of a productive set through creative exploration of all aspects of the performance text.
Works Cited
Jürs-Munby, Karen. “Introduction.” Postdramatic Theatre, edited by Hans-Thies Lehmann, Routledge, 2006, pp. 1-16.
Knowles, Richard Paul. “Introduction.” Reading the Material Theatre. Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp.1-7.
Pavis, Patrice. “Theatre Analysis: Some Questions and a Questionnaire.” Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. University of Toronto Press, 1998, pp. 208-212.
