Scenographic Imagination Chapter I Study Questions

Answer all questions and submit via attachment to email to my

address:
kennethellis@lsu.edu no later than Thurs. Feb. 9, 2017.

1-According to Payne, what is the essential point to remember

regarding
scenography?
Prior to this century it was only an adjunct to a production not
necessarily an integral part of it.

2-What considerations were not part of prevailing theatrical thought

prior to the emergence of Wagner and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen?
Any discussions of the appropriateness of a setting for a particular
work usually took place after the designs were done. If the the designs
were very ornate there is little evidence that anyone ever voiced the
opinion that the settings did not really fit the tone of the play or opera
or that they contributed in any way to the totality of the show.

3-What are Richard Southerns two observations regarding the original

purpose of scenery?
Engineering ability was a necessity. The ability to create an appropriate
scene design was at best a secondary consideration.

4-What happened to scenery following the Restoration of Charles II of

England? And, how did the nature of the prevailing conception of space
change?
Scenery became an integral part of the dramatic stage. There was an
attempt to produce an illusion of depth of space and solidarity of form.

5-Describe/ discuss the event presented by Goethe and his painter?

What does the event suggest about that painted scenery and its
relationship to any particular performance?
The event was to view a stock of sets commissioned by Goethe and
executed by Beuther. It proved the scenery, at the time, was more
important than the subject matter of the play or opera.

6-What is the one major change in the visual theatre artists role since
the first uses of scenery until now?
They started to focus on the relevance of the set rather than how
pretty it was.

7-At what historical time did major reforms in theatre occur? And,
whose work and theories influenced these reforms?
At the end of the 19th century, the reform was influenced by the works
of the men born near of ater the peak of the Romantic Movement.
8-Who was the Scenographer introduced The New Stagecraft to
America? And, whose unrealized design for what play exemplified this
new approach to scenery?
Robert Edmund Jones introduced the new stagecraft. Bel Geddes
designed the Divine Comedy.

9-Discuss the eight directions mentioned in the text that scenography

has taken in the last ninety and more years.
Preference to radical stage-audience relationships. Sculptural building
over painted, and skeletal structural forms rather than a box set.
Actual 3 dimensional textures rather than painted textures. Lightweight
synthetics over actual building materials. Greater use of imagery in
design concepts. Simplicity. More than one focus on the stage at a
time. Rediscovery of the theatre as a 3 dimensional world.

10-Since the 19th Century playwrights, directors and designers have

forced the performer to where? How? Because of this, what can
performers not do?
The performer is forced into the real world of form by devising
productions that depend 3 dimensional environments. Performers
could not avoid directly relating to the environment around them.

11-What are the two categories of space?

Private space and Public space

12-Discuss how directors and scenographers are responsible for

expanding the performers possibility of movement. Discuss a number
of ways that this can be accomplished.
The performers movement can be restricted to a set path by physical
obstacles, or by conforming to an accepted convention. Can also be
restricted by providing a carefully delineated path on the stage floor.

13-What is the most elemental unit of private space?

The room

14-Discuss the nature of stage space and how it differs from space in
the day-to- day world.
The very nature of stage space is very fluid and amorphous. It freely
breaks natural laws (ex. separate spaces on stage that represent
spaces possibly miles apart in real life).

15-What must aspiring scenographers realize about the world of the

Play? What must they never forget? And what should they care about
less.
The stage is a real world inhabited by people who are no less real than
the people viewing it. If their work shows up, they have failed. They
should care less about their own signatures and hallmarks in the works
they create.

16-A few pages before the end of the chapter, Payne quotes Robert
Edmond Jones. Find and write that quotation.
A stage setting has no life of its own. Its emphasis is directed toward
the performance. In the absence of the actor it does not exist. Strange
as it may seem, this simple and fundamental principle of stage design
still seems to be widely misunderstood.

17-From the sectioned entitled The Scenographers Role in the

Theatrical Process discuss the (4) patterns of a scenographers actual
task.
To form visual images, set these images on paper, combine diagrams
and visualizations for the purpose of showing the creative team, make
concrete plans.

18-What are the four considerations without which no scenographer

can plan a production?
Budget, time, skill, limitations of the theatre

19-List the (5) types of forms that the competent scenographer

conveys concepts.
Rough and diagrammatic drawings, finished scenic sketches, 3
dimensional models, mechanical working drawings, assemblages of
visual materials that accurately show color, texture, form, and finish.

20-Who composed the final section of this chapter, and what first did
he discover during his early work?
John Bury; the importance of light