stage space
The art of theater has its own specific language. Only the knowledge of this language provides the viewer with the possibility of artistic communication with the author and actors. An incomprehensible language is always strange (Pushkin, in his manuscripts for Eugene Onegin, spoke of “strange, new languages,” and ancient Russian scribes likened those speaking in incomprehensible languages to dumb ones: “There is also a cave, that language is dumb and with a Samoyed they sit at midnight”). When Leo Tolstoy, reviewing the entire edifice of contemporary civilization, rejected the language of opera as “unnatural,” the opera immediately turned into nonsense, and he justifiably wrote: they express feelings that they don’t walk like that with foil halberds, in shoes, pairs anywhere except in the theater, that they never get so angry, they don’t feel touched, they don’t laugh like that, they don’t cry like that ... there can be no doubt about it. The assumption that a theatrical spectacle has some kind of conventional language of its own only if it is strange and incomprehensible to us, and exists “so simply”, without any specific language, if it seems natural and understandable to us, is naive. After all, the kabuki theater or no seems natural and understandable to the Japanese audience, while Shakespeare's theater, which for centuries of European culture was a model of naturalness, seemed artificial to Tolstoy. The language of the theater is made up of national and cultural traditions, and it is natural that a person immersed in the same cultural tradition feels its specifics to a lesser extent.
One of the foundations of the theatrical language is the specificity of the artistic space of the stage. It is she who sets the type and measure of theatrical conventionality. Struggling for a realistic theater, a theater of the truth of life, Pushkin expressed the profound idea that the naive identification scenes and lives or a simple cancellation of the specifics of the first not only will not solve the problem, but is practically impossible. In the outline of the preface to Boris Godunov, he wrote: “Both the classics and the romantics based their rules on credibility and yet it is precisely this that is excluded by the very nature of the dramatic work. Not to mention time and so on, what the hell can be plausibility 1) in a hall divided into two halves, one of which accommodates two thousand people, as if invisible to those who are on the stage; 2) language. For example, in La Harpe, Philoctetes, after listening to Pyrrhus's tirade, pronounces in the purest French: “Alas! I hear the sweet sounds of Hellenic speech," and so on. Remember the ancients: their tragic masks, their double roles - isn't all this a conditional improbability? 3) time, place, etc. and so on.
The true geniuses of tragedy never cared about verisimilitude." It is significant that Pushkin separates the “conditional implausibility” of the language of the stage from the question of genuine stage truth, which he sees in the life reality of the development of characters and the veracity of speech characteristics: “The plausibility of positions and the veracity of dialogue - this is the true rule of tragedy.” He considered Shakespeare a model of such truthfulness (whom Tolstoy reproached for abusing “unnatural events and even more unnatural speeches that do not follow from the positions of persons”): “Read Shakespeare, he is never afraid to compromise his hero (by violating the conventional rules of stage “decency”. - Y. L.), he makes him speak with complete ease, as in life, for he is sure that at the right moment and under the right circumstances he will find for him a language corresponding to his character. It is noteworthy that it was the nature of the stage space (“hall”) that Pushkin put at the basis of the “conditional improbability” of the language of the stage.
The theatrical space is divided into two parts: the stage and the auditorium, between which relationships develop that form some of the main oppositions of theatrical semiotics. First, this opposition existence - non-existence. The being and reality of these two parts of the theater are realized, as it were, in two different dimensions. From the point of view of the viewer, from the moment the curtain rises and the play begins, the auditorium ceases to exist. Everything on this side of the ramp disappears. His true reality becomes invisible and gives way to the wholly illusory reality of stage action. In the modern European theater, this is emphasized by the immersion of the auditorium into darkness at the moment the light is turned on on the stage and vice versa. If we imagine a person so far from theatrical conventions that at the moment of dramatic action he not only with equal attention, but also with the help of the same type of vision observes at the same time the stage, the movements of the prompter in the booth, the illuminators in the box, the spectators in the hall, seeing in this some unity, then it will be possible with good reason to say that he does not know the art of being a spectator. The border of the "invisible" is clearly felt by the viewer, although it is not always as simple as in the theater we are used to. So, in the Japanese bunraku puppet theater, the puppeteers are right there on the stage and are physically visible to the viewer. However, they are dressed in black clothes, which is a "sign of invisibility", and the public "as if" does not see them. Turned off from the artistic space of the stage, they fall out of the field theatrical vision. Interestingly, from the standpoint of Japanese bunraku theorists, the introduction of a puppeteer to the stage is estimated as improvement: “Once the puppet was driven by one person, hidden under the stage and controlling it with his hands so that the public saw only the puppet. Later, the design of the puppet was improved step by step, and in the end the puppet was controlled on stage by three people (the puppeteers are dressed in black from head to toe and are therefore called “black people”).
From the point of view of the stage, the auditorium also does not exist: according to Pushkin’s precise and subtle remark, the audience “ as if(emphasis mine. - Y. L.) are invisible to those on the stage.” However, Pushkin's "as if" is not accidental: invisibility here has a different, much more playful character. It is enough to imagine such a series:
text | audience
stage action | viewer
book | reader
screen | spectator -
to make sure that only in the first case the separation of the space of the spectator from the space of the text hides the dialogic nature of their relationship. Only the theater requires the addressee, who is present at the same time, and perceives the signals coming from him (silence, signs of approval or condemnation), varying the text accordingly. It is with this - dialogic - nature of the stage text that such a feature of it as variability is associated. The concept of "canonical text" is as alien to the spectacle as it is to folklore. It is replaced by the concept of some invariant, which is realized in a number of variants.
Other significant opposition: significant - insignificant. The stage space is characterized by a high symbolic saturation - everything that enters the stage tends to be saturated with additional meanings in relation to the directly objective function of the thing. Movement becomes a gesture, a thing - a detail that carries meaning. It was this feature of the stage that Goethe had in mind when he answered Ackermann's question: "What must a work be like in order to be staged?" “It must be symbolic,” Goethe replied. - This means that each action should be full of its own significance and at the same time prepare for another, even more significant. Molière's Tartuffe is a great example in this respect." In order to understand Goethe's thought, one must keep in mind that he uses the word "symbol" in the same sense in which we would say "sign", noting that an act, a gesture and a word on the stage acquire in relation to their counterparts in everyday life. life, additional meanings are saturated with complex meanings, allowing us to say that they become expressions for a bunch of various meaningful moments.
In order to make Goethe's deep thought more clear, let us quote the following phrase from this entry following the words we have quoted: “Remember the first scene - what an exposition in it! Everything from the very beginning is full of meaning and excites the expectation of even more important events to follow. The “fullness of meanings” that Goethe speaks of is connected with the fundamental laws of the stage and constitutes an essential difference between actions and words on the stage and actions and words in life. A person who makes speeches or performs actions in life has in mind the hearing and perception of his interlocutor. The scene reproduces the same behavior, but the nature of the addressee is twofold here: the speech refers to another character on the stage, but in fact it is addressed not only to him, but also to the audience. The participant in the action may not know what the content of the preceding scene was, but the audience knows it. The spectator, like the participant in the action, does not know the future course of events, but, unlike him, he knows all the previous ones. The viewer's knowledge is always higher than the character's. What the participant in the action may not pay attention to is a sign loaded with meanings for the viewer. Desdemona's handkerchief for Othello is evidence of her betrayal, for the stalls it is a symbol of Iago's deceit. In the example of Goethe, in the first act of Moliere's comedy, the mother of the protagonist, Madame Pernel, just as blinded by the deceiver Tartuffe as her son, enters into an argument with the whole house, protecting the hypocrite. Orgon is not on stage at this time. Then Orgon appears, and the scene, just seen by the audience, seems to be played a second time, but with his participation, and not with Mrs. Pernel. Only in the third act does Tartuffe himself appear on the scene. By this time, the audience has already received a complete picture of him, and his every gesture and word becomes for them symptoms of lies and hypocrisy. The scene of Tartuffe seducing Elmira is also repeated twice. Orgon does not see the first of them (the audience sees her), and refuses to believe the verbal revelations of his family. He watches the second one from under the table: Tartuffe is trying to seduce Elmira, thinking that no one sees them, but meanwhile he is under double surveillance: a hidden husband lies in wait for him inside the stage space, and an auditorium is located outside the ramp. Finally, all this complex construction receives an architectonic completion when Orgon retells to his mother what he saw with his own eyes, and she, again acting as his double, refuses to believe the words and even the eyes of Orgon and, in the spirit of farcical humor, reproaches her son for not waited for more tangible evidence of adultery. An action constructed in this way, on the one hand, acts as a chain of different episodes (syntagmatic construction), and on the other hand, as a multiple variation of some nuclear action (paradigmatic construction). This gives rise to that “fullness of meanings” about which Goethe spoke. The meaning of this nuclear action is in the clash of hypocrisy of a hypocrite, deft twists and turns representing black as white, gullible stupidity and common sense, exposing tricks. The episodes are based on the semantic mechanism of lies carefully revealed by Moliere: Tartuffe tears words from their true meaning, arbitrarily changes and twists their meaning. Molière makes him not a trivial liar and rogue, but a clever and dangerous demagogue. Molière exposes the mechanism of his demagogy to a comic exposure: in the play, before the eyes of the viewer, verbal signs that are conditionally related to their content and, therefore, allow not only information, but also disinformation, and reality change places; the formula "I do not believe the words, because I see with my eyes" is replaced for Orgon by the paradoxical "I do not believe my eyes, because I hear the words." The position of the spectator is even more piquant: what is reality for Orgon is a spectacle for the spectator. Two messages unfold before him: what he sees, on the one hand, and what Tartuffe says about this, on the other. At the same time, he hears the intricate words of Tartuffe and the rude, but true words of the bearers of common sense (first of all, the maid Dorina). The clash of these diverse semiotic elements creates not only a sharp comic effect, but also that richness of meaning that delighted Goethe.
The semiotic concentration of stage speech in relation to everyday speech does not depend on whether the author, by virtue of his belonging to one or another literary movement, is guided by the "language of the gods" or by the exact reproduction of a real conversation. This is the law of the stage. Chekhov's "gibberish" or remark about the heat in Africa is caused by the desire to bring stage speech closer to real, but it is quite obvious that their semantic richness infinitely exceeds that which similar statements would have in a real situation.
Signs are of various types, depending on which the degree of their conditionality changes. Signs of the "word" type quite conditionally connect a certain meaning with a certain expression (the same meaning in different languages has a different expression); pictorial (“iconic”) signs connect the content with an expression that has a similarity in a certain respect: the content “tree” is connected with the drawn image of a tree. A sign over a bakery, written in some language, is a conventional sign, understandable only to those who speak this language; the wooden “bakery pretzel”, which “golden a little” above the entrance to the shop, is an iconic sign that everyone who has eaten a pretzel understands. Here the degree of conventionality is much less, but a certain semiotic skill is still necessary: the visitor sees a similar form, but different colors, material, and, most importantly, function. The wooden pretzel is not for food, but for notification. Finally, the observer should be able to use semantic figures (in this case, metonymy): the pretzel should not be “read” as a message about what is being sold here only pretzels, but as evidence of the ability to buy any bakery product. However, from the point of view of the measure of convention, there is a third case. Imagine not a signboard, but a shop window (for clarity of the case, let's put an inscription on it: "Goods from the shop window are not for sale"). Before us are the genuine things themselves, however, they do not appear in their direct objective function, but as signs of themselves. That is why the showcase so easily combines photographic and artistic images of the items being sold, verbal texts, numbers and indexes, and authentic real things - all of which act as an iconic function.
Stage action as a unity of actors acting and performing actions, verbal texts spoken by them, scenery and props, sound and light design is a text of considerable complexity, using signs of different types and varying degrees of conventionality. However, the fact that the stage world is symbolic in nature gives it an exceptionally important feature. The sign is inherently contradictory: it is always real and always illusory. It is real because the nature of the sign is material; in order to become a sign, that is, to turn into a social fact, meaning must be realized in some material substance: value must take shape in the form of banknotes; thought - to appear as a combination of phonemes or letters, to be expressed in paint or marble; dignity - put on “signs of dignity”: orders or uniforms, etc. The illusory nature of the sign is that it is always Seems, that is, it denotes something other than his appearance. To this it should be added that in the sphere of art the ambiguity of the plane of content increases sharply. The contradiction between reality and illusory forms the field of semiotic meanings in which every literary text lives. One of the features of the stage text is the variety of languages it uses.
The basis of stage action is an actor playing a person enclosed in the space of the stage. Aristotle revealed the symbolic nature of stage action extremely deeply, believing that “tragedy is an imitation of action”, - not a genuine action itself, but its reproduction by means of the theater: “Imitation of action is a story (the term“ story ”is introduced by translators to convey the fundamental concept of tragedy in Aristotle : "telling with the help of actions and events"; in traditional terminology, the concept of "plot" is closest to it. Y. L .). In fact, I call a legend a combination of events. "The beginning and, as it were, the soul of tragedy is precisely the legend." However, it is precisely this basic element of stage action that receives a double semiotic illumination during the performance. A chain of events unfolds on the stage, the characters perform actions, the scenes follow each other. Inside itself, this world lives a genuine, not iconic life: each actor "believes" in the full reality of himself on stage, as well as his partner and the action in general. The viewer, on the other hand, is in the grip of aesthetic, and not real, experiences: seeing that one actor on the stage falls dead, and other actors, realizing the plot of the play, carry out actions that are natural in this situation - they rush to help, call doctors, take revenge on the killers - the viewer leads himself differently: whatever his experiences, he remains motionless in the chair. For the people on the stage, an event takes place; for the people in the hall, the event is a sign of itself. Like a product in a shop window, reality becomes a message about reality. But after all, the actor on stage conducts dialogues in two different planes: expressed communication connects him with other participants in the action, and unexpressed silent dialogue connects him with the audience. In both cases, he acts not as a passive object of observation, but as an active participant in communication. Consequently, his existence on the stage is fundamentally ambiguous: it can be read with equal justification both as an immediate reality and as a reality turned into a sign of itself. Constant fluctuation between these extremes gives vitality to the performance, and transforms the viewer from a passive recipient of a message into a participant in that collective act of consciousness that takes place in the theater. The same can be said about the verbal side of the performance, which is both real speech, oriented towards extra-theatrical, non-artistic conversation, and the reproduction of this speech by means of theatrical conventions (speech depicts speech). No matter how the artist strives in an era when the language of a literary text is fundamentally opposed to everyday life, to separate these spheres of speech activity, the influence of the second on the first turned out to be fatally inevitable. This is confirmed by the study of rhymes and vocabulary of the dramaturgy of the era of classicism. At the same time, the theater had a reverse effect on everyday speech. And on the contrary, no matter how hard the realist artist tries to transfer to the stage the unchanging element of non-artistic oral speech, this is always not a “transplantation of tissue”, but its translation into the language of the stage. An interesting post by A. Goldenweiser of the words of L. N. Tolstoy: “Once somehow in the dining room below there were lively conversations of young people. L.N., who, it turns out, was lying and resting in the next room, then went out into the dining room and said to me: “I was lying there and listening to your conversations. They interested me from two sides: it was simply interesting to listen to the disputes of young people, and then from the point of view of the drama. I listened and said to myself: this is how you should write for the stage. One speaks and the other listens. This never happens. It is necessary that everyone speaks (at the same time. - Y. L.)“. It is all the more interesting that with such a creative orientation in Tolstoy's plays, the main text is built in the tradition of the stage, and Tolstoy met Chekhov's attempts to transfer the illogicality and fragmentation of oral speech to the stage negatively, opposing Shakespeare, blasphemed by him, Tolstoy, as a positive example. A parallel here may be the ratio of oral and written speech in artistic prose. The writer does not transfer oral speech into his text (although he often strives to create the illusion of such a transfer and may himself succumb to such an illusion), but translates it into the language of written speech. Even the ultra-avant-garde experiments of modern French prose writers, who refuse punctuation and deliberately destroy the correctness of the syntax of the phrase, are not an automatic copy of oral speech: oral speech, put on paper, that is, devoid of intonation, facial expressions, gesture, torn from the obligatory for two interlocutors, but missing for readers of a special “common memory”, firstly, it would become completely incomprehensible, and secondly, it would not be “accurate” at all - it would not be living oral speech, but its killed and skinned corpse, more distant from the model than a talented and conscious transformation of it under the pen of an artist. Stopping being a copy and becoming a sign, stage speech is saturated with additional complex meanings drawn from the cultural memory of the stage and the audience.
The premise of the stage spectacle is the viewer's conviction that certain laws of reality in the space of the stage can become the object of playful study, that is, be subjected to deformation or cancellation. Thus, time on the stage can flow faster (and in some rare cases, for example, in Maeterlinck, more slowly) than in reality. The very equating of stage and real time in some aesthetic systems (for example, in the theater of classicism) has a secondary character. The subordination of time to the laws of the scene makes it an object of study. On the stage, as in any closed space of the ritual, the semantic coordinates of the space are emphasized. Categories such as "top - bottom", "right - left", "open - closed", etc., acquire on the stage, even in the most everyday decisions, increased importance. So, Goethe wrote in his Rules for Actors: “For the sake of a falsely understood naturalness, actors should never act as if there were no spectators in the theater. They should not play in profile, just as they should not turn their backs to the public ... The most revered persons always stand on the right side. Interestingly, in emphasizing the modeling meaning of the concept of "right - left", Goethe has in mind the point of view of the viewer. In the inner space of the stage, in his opinion, there are other laws: “If I have to give my hand, and the situation does not require that it must be the right hand, then with equal success you can give the left one, because there is neither right nor left on the stage. ".
The semiotic nature of scenery and props will become more understandable to us if we compare it with analogous moments of such art, which, it would seem, is close, but in fact is opposed to theater, like cinema. Despite the fact that both in the theater hall and in the cinema we have a spectator (the one who watches), that this spectator is throughout the entire spectacle in the same fixed position, their relation to that aesthetic category, which in structural theory art is called "point of view", profoundly different. The theatrical spectator maintains a natural point of view on the spectacle, determined by the optical relation of his eye to the stage. Throughout the performance, this position remains unchanged. Between the eye of the moviegoer and the screen image, on the contrary, there is an intermediary - the lens of the movie camera directed by the operator. The viewer, as it were, conveys his point of view to him. And the device is mobile - it can come close to the object, drive off to a long distance, look from above and below, look at the hero from the outside and look at the world through his eyes. As a result, the plan and foreshortening become active elements of film expression, realizing a mobile point of view. The difference between theater and cinema can be compared to the difference between a drama and a novel. The drama also retains a “natural” point of view, while between the reader and the event in the novel there is an author-narrator who has the ability to put the reader in any spatial, psychological and other positions in relation to the event. As a result, the functions of the scenery and things (props) in cinema and theater are different. The thing in the theater never plays an independent role, it is only an attribute of the actor's performance, while in the cinema it can be both a symbol and a metaphor, and a full-fledged character. This, in particular, is determined by the possibility of shooting it in close-up, keeping attention on it by increasing the number of frames allocated to its display, etc.
In the cinema, the detail plays, in the theater - it is played out. The attitude of the viewer to the artistic space is also different. In the cinema, the illusory space of the image, as it were, draws the viewer into itself; in the theater, the viewer is invariably outside the artistic space (in this respect, paradoxically, the cinema is closer to folklore and farce spectacular performances than the modern urban non-experimental theater). Hence, the marking function, which is much more emphasized in theatrical scenery, is most clearly expressed in the pillars with inscriptions in Shakespeare's Globe. The scenery often takes on the role of a title in a movie or the author's remarks before the text of a drama. Pushkin gave the scenes in Boris Godunov titles like: “Maiden's Field. Novodevichy Convent”, “The Plain near Novgorod-Seversky (1604, December 21)” or “Tavern on the Lithuanian border”. These titles, to the same extent as the titles of chapters in the novel (for example, in The Captain's Daughter), are included in the poetic structure of the text. However, on the stage they are replaced by an isofunctional iconic adequate - a decoration that determines the place and time of the action. No less important is another function of theatrical scenery: together with the ramp, it marks the boundaries of the theatrical space. The feeling of the border, the closeness of the artistic space in the theater is much more pronounced than in the cinema. This leads to a significant increase in the modeling function. If the cinema in its “natural” function tends to be perceived as a document, an episode from reality, and special artistic efforts are required in order to give it the appearance of a model of life as such, then the theater is no less “natural” to be perceived precisely as the embodiment of reality. in an extremely generalized form and special artistic efforts are required in order to give it the appearance of documentary "scenes from life".
An interesting example of the collision of theatrical and film space as a space of "modeling" and "real" is Visconti's film "Feeling". The film takes place in the 1840s, during the anti-Austrian uprising in northern Italy. The first frames take us to the theater to the performance of Verdi's Il trovatore. The frame is built in such a way that the theatrical stage appears as a closed, fenced-off space, the space of a conditional costume and theatrical gesture (the figure of a prompter with a book, located outside this space). The world of film action (it is significant that the characters here are also in historical costumes and act in an environment of objects and in an interior that is sharply different from modern life) appears as real, chaotic and confusing. The theatrical performance acts as an ideal model, ordering and serving as a kind of code to this world.
The scenery in the theater defiantly retains its connection with painting, while in the cinema this connection is utterly disguised. Goethe's well-known rule - "the scene must be considered as a picture without figures, in which the latter are replaced by actors." Let us refer again to Visconti's "Feeling" - a frame depicting Franz against the background of a fresco reproducing a theater stage (the film image recreates a mural recreating a theater) depicting the conspirators. The conspicuous contrast of artistic languages only emphasizes that the conditionality of the scenery acts as a key to the confusing and, for him, the most obscure state of mind of the hero.2. Scenes of party life The death of V. I. Lenin on January 23, 1924 occurred as a result of three strokes that followed on 05/25/1922, 12/16/1922 and 03/10/1993. After the third stroke, it was a living corpse, deprived of reason and speech by the gods, obviously, for crimes against the motherland. A country,
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Continuing our journey through the theatrical world, today we will get into the world behind the scenes and find out the meaning of such words as ramp, proscenium, scenery, and also get acquainted with their role in the play.
So, entering the hall, each spectator immediately turns his gaze to the stage.
Scene is: 1) a place where a theatrical performance takes place; 2) a synonym for the word "phenomenon" - a separate part of the action, the act of a theatrical play, when the composition of the characters on the stage remains unchanged.
Scene- from the Greek. skene - booth, stage. In the early days of Greek theater, the skene was a cage or tent built behind the orchestra.
Skene, orchectra, theatron are the three fundamental scenographic elements of the ancient Greek performance. The orchestra or playground connected the stage and the audience. The skene developed in height, including the theologeon or playground of the gods and heroes, and on the surface, along with the proscenium, an architectural façade, a forerunner of the wall decorum that would later form the proscenium space. Throughout history, the meaning of the term "stage" has been constantly expanded: the scenery, the playground, the scene of action, the time period during the act, and, finally, in a metaphorical sense, a sudden and bright spectacular event ("setting someone a scene"). But not all of us know that the scene is divided into several parts. It is customary to distinguish between: proscenium, rear stage, upper and lower stages. Let's try to understand these concepts.
Proscenium- the space of the stage between the curtain and the auditorium.
As a playground, the proscenium is widely used in opera and ballet performances. In drama theaters, the proscenium serves as the main setting for small scenes in front of a closed curtain that tie the scenes of the play. Some directors bring the main action to the fore, expanding the stage area.
The low barrier separating the proscenium from the auditorium is called ramp. In addition, the ramp covers the stage lighting devices from the side of the auditorium. Often this word is also used to refer to the system of theatrical lighting equipment itself, which is placed behind this barrier and serves to illuminate the space of the stage from the front and from below. Spotlights are used to illuminate the stage from the front and from above - a row of lamps located on the sides of the stage.
backstage- the space behind the main stage. The backstage is a continuation of the main stage, used to create the illusion of a great depth of space, and serves as a reserve room for setting the scenery. Furks or a revolving rolling circle with pre-installed decorations are placed on the backstage. The top of the rear stage is equipped with grates with decorative risers and lighting equipment. Warehouses of mounted decorations are placed under the floor of the rear stage.
top stage- a part of the stage box located above the stage mirror and bounded from above by a grate. It is equipped with working galleries and walkways, and serves to accommodate hanging decorations, overhead lighting devices, and various stage mechanisms.
lower stage- a part of the stage box below the tablet, where stage mechanisms, prompter and light control booths, lifting and lowering devices, devices for stage effects are located.
And the stage, it turns out, has a pocket! Side stage pocket- a room for a dynamic change of scenery with the help of special rolling platforms. Side pockets are located on both sides of the stage. Their dimensions make it possible to completely fit on the furka the scenery that occupies the entire playing area of the stage. Usually decorative warehouses adjoin side pockets.
The “furka”, named in the previous definition, along with the “grids” and “shtankets”, is included in the technical equipment of the stage. furka- part of the stage equipment; a mobile platform on rollers, which serves to move parts of the decoration on the stage. The movement of the furca is carried out by an electric motor, manually or with the help of a cable, one end of which is behind the scenes, and the other is attached to the side wall of the furca.
- lattice (wooden) flooring, located above the stage. It serves to install blocks of stage mechanisms, is used for work related to the suspension of performance design elements. The grates communicate with the working galleries and the stage with stationary stairs.
Shtanket- a metal pipe on cables, in which the scenes, details of the scenery are attached.
In academic theaters, all the technical elements of the stage are hidden from the audience by a decorative frame, which includes a curtain, backstage, a backdrop and a border.
Entering the hall before the start of the performance, the viewer sees a curtain- a piece of fabric suspended in the area of the stage portal and covering the stage from the auditorium. It is also called "intermission-sliding" or "intermission" curtain.
Intermission-sliding (intermission) curtain is a permanent equipment of the stage, covering its mirror. Moves apart before the start of the performance, closes and opens between acts.
Curtains are sewn from dense dyed fabric with a dense lining, decorated with the emblem of the theater or a wide fringe, hemmed to the bottom of the curtain. The curtain allows you to make the process of changing the situation invisible, to create a feeling of a gap in time between actions. An intermission-sliding curtain can be of several types. The most commonly used Wagnerian and Italian.
Consists of two halves fixed at the top with overlays. Both wings of this curtain open by means of a mechanism that pulls the lower inner corners towards the edges of the stage, often leaving the bottom of the curtain visible to the audience.
Both parts Italian curtain they move apart synchronously with the help of cables attached to them at a height of 2-3 meters and pulling the curtain to the upper corners of the proscenium. Above, above the stage, is paduga- a horizontal strip of fabric (sometimes acting as scenery), suspended from a rod and limiting the height of the stage, hiding the upper mechanisms of the stage, lighting fixtures, grate and upper spans above the scenery.
When the curtain opens, the viewer sees the side frame of the stage, made of strips of fabric arranged vertically - this backstage.
Closes the backstage from the audience backdrop- a painted or smooth background made of soft fabric, suspended in the back of the stage.
The scenery of the performance is located on the stage.
Decoration(lat. "decoration") - the artistic design of the action on the theater stage. Creates a visual image of action by means of painting and architecture.
Decoration should be useful, efficient, functional. Among the main functions of the scenery are the illustration and depiction of elements supposedly existing in the dramatic universe, the free construction and change of the scene, considered as a game mechanism.
The creation of scenery and decorative design of the performance is a whole art, which is called scenography. The meaning of this word has changed over time.
The scenography of the ancient Greeks is the art of decorating the theater and the picturesque scenery resulting from this technique. During the Renaissance, scenography was the technique of painting a canvas backdrop. In modern theatrical art, this word represents the science and art of organizing the stage and theatrical space. Actually the scenery is the result of the work of the set designer.
This term is increasingly being replaced by the word "decoration" if there is a need to go beyond the concept of decoration. Scenography marks the desire to be writing in a three-dimensional space (to which the temporal dimension should also be added), and not just the art of decorating the canvas, which the theater was content with up to naturalism.
In the heyday of modern scenography, decorators managed to breathe life into space, enliven time and the actor's performance in the total creative act, when it is difficult to isolate the director, lighting, actor or musician.
The scenography (decorative equipment of the performance) includes props- the objects of the stage setting that the actors use or manipulate during the course of the play, and props- specially made items (sculptures, furniture, dishes, jewelry, weapons, etc.) used in theatrical performances instead of real things. Props are notable for their cheapness, durability, emphasized expressiveness of the external form. At the same time, props usually refuse to reproduce details that are not visible to the viewer.
The manufacture of props is a large branch of theatrical technology, including work with paper pulp, cardboard, metal, synthetic materials and polymers, fabrics, varnishes, paints, mastics, etc. The range of props that require special knowledge in the field of stucco, cardboard , finishing and locksmith works, painting of fabrics, embossing on metal.
Next time we will learn more about some theatrical professions, whose representatives not only create the performance itself, but also provide its technical support, work with the audience.
The definitions of the terms presented are taken from the websites.
“The whole world is theater!”
I AM GOING TO THE LESSON
Zoya SANINA,
anninskaya school,
Lomonosovsky district,
Leningrad region
“The whole world is theater!”
Experience in analytical work with dramatic productions in the 7th-8th grades of secondary school
And the study of dramatic works in the school literature course is a methodologically special process - this is facilitated by the specifics of the drama (the works are intended more for staging on stage than for reading), when in the course of even the most detailed analysis of the play it is often impossible to achieve the main thing - “transfer”, albeit mental, all the replicas, movements, experiences of the characters from paper into an environment similar to the situation of real life. Theatrical performances (mostly performances on the professional stage, but amateur performances with the participation of the children themselves are also possible) according to the works studied at school are a good assistant to the student and teacher, as they help to better feel the idea and pathos of the work, to “plunge” into the atmosphere era, to understand the thoughts and feelings of the author-playwright, to realize his individual style.
A visit to the theater helps to develop students' written speech through first creating a review (in grades 7–8, in the lessons of the Russian language and literature, schoolchildren receive the basic, basic methods of text analysis necessary for writing it), and then a review, which develops critical skills. analysis.
After reading and analyzing the play in class, the students are already prepared to visit the theater: they have received information about the author and the era of writing the work, they know the plot twists of the play, they have an idea about the system of images and the main characteristics of the characters, and therefore during the performance they will not be passive spectators, but, rather, young critics who are able to evaluate the director's ideas and compare them with the author's intention, to compare their own mental images of the characters with the way the actors represent these roles. To help students understand their thoughts, feelings, preferences is called upon to write a review or review of the performance.
This article will give examples of the work of seventh graders on a review of the play "Romeo and Juliet" at the Baltic House Theater (stage director B. Zeitlin) and eighth graders on a review of the play "Treachery and Love" at the Bolshoi Drama Theater (stage director T. Chkheidze).
The individuality of perception and evaluation of any theatrical production necessitates the absence of a review and review plan. Nevertheless, students, of course, need supporting questions, phrases, words that draw their attention to the most important moments of the performance in its connection with the peculiarities of the original text, directing and acting skills.
During the discussion of the performance with seventh graders, they were asked to answer the following questions (orally):
- What is your impression of the performance as a whole (what did you like, what did you not like)?
- Remember the last names director performance, leading actors. Do you know them from other performances, movies?
- What is the nature of the performance? Which director's finds did you like the most? What did not like?
- Describe the images of the main characters created by the theater actors. Are the heroes images, created by the actors on the stage, to your ideas?
- Which of the characters in the play did you like the most before visiting the theater? Has your opinion changed after watching the play? If yes, what influenced him?
- How does the director use stage space? (What are the advantages and disadvantages scenery performance? Do they match director's idea, author's remarks, your thoughts before the performance?)
- Describe suits the characters of the play. Did you like them? Do they contribute to the disclosure of the character of the main and secondary characters?
- Did you pay attention to the use of music in the play? Did it help or hinder the understanding of key mise-en-scène plays?
The course of the discussion may be different, depending on the overall impression of the performance, as well as the level of understanding of the play by the students. After such an analysis, seventh graders learn the main, key points of the analysis, on the basis of which they are invited to write a review about the performance. It should be noted a significant negative moment of the discussion in the class: the students develop an average, so-called “collective view” on almost all issues, as a result of which the teacher risks receiving a certain number of fairly monotonous reviews with completely similar value judgments. However, we should not forget that at this stage the main task is to develop the skills of writing a review about the performance, along with the improvement of which the individuality of statements will certainly appear.
When working on a review of the play "Romeo and Juliet", most of the seventh graders focused on thinking about the originality of the production (and it is really quite original) and their impressions.
“... And so the performance began: the eternal enmity that accompanies humanity like a bloody ghost. The peculiarity of the performance is that it begins in English. The host's voice tells us about the beautiful Italian town of Verona. It seems that it was created for the joy and happiness of people, but there is no rest for them: they quarrel, fight, kill each other. Two noble families live in the town - the Montagues and the Capulets. In this beautiful country, the love of two young creatures blossomed.”
Shimenkova Sveta
“... The end of the play is also peculiar: the main characters in black clothes, which mean death, go to the gate, to the light. They are together forever and nothing can stop it.”
Semenyuta Zhenya
“... True, I didn’t like much in the performance. Firstly, there was little scenery, so it was not interesting to watch. But then I remembered that in the days of Shakespeare there were no scenery at all in the theater. Secondly, the climax of the play, when Romeo learns of Juliet's death, is not very tense. And another drawback is the end: in the work it is tragic, but on the stage the main characters remained together (although they look at everything from another world), and the families that had been at enmity for a long time reconciled.
Probably the director did not want the end to be so sad, but I think that the end should be the way Shakespeare saw it.”
Lukina Zhenya
Noteworthy is the musical accompaniment of the performance:
“...During the performance, solemn music sounded, which characterized the state of the main characters. For example, when Romeo was talking to Juliet standing on the balcony, the music was very beautiful, listening to it, I understood how the characters feel: they were happy, it was true love.”
Lukina Zhenya
“…However, not everywhere music helps in this performance. For example, the climax when Romeo learns of Juliet's death is not very tense and exciting…”
Semenyuta Zhenya
And, of course, the images of the characters created by the actors deserve appreciation.
“... The images of the main characters are carefully thought out in the play. Juliet (K. Danilova) is a fragile, cheerful girl. Romeo (A. Maskalin) is a madman in love who will stop at nothing to win Juliet's love. Nanny (E. Eliseeva) is a plump, cheerful woman who nursed Juliet. Brother Lorenzo (I. Tikhonenko) is a smart, kind person who helps lovers and blames himself for their death. All of these roles were well thought out and executed. But most of all I liked Mercutio performed by the artist Ryabikhin. This is an ardent, courageous, selfless person who loves life very much and, dying, curses both families, through whose fault he dies, he fades away young, like many other people who were killed in these strife.
The secondary characters are also important in the play. Juliet's father, whose role is played by A. Sekirin, is distinguished by the originality of character. This man is quite cruel and stubborn, he is sure that his daughter will be happy with Paris, although he does not even ask her about it. Paris (V. Volkov) is depicted as a funny, stupid little man who saw how beautiful Juliet was and decided to marry her without hesitation, whether she loves him or not ... ”
Semenyuta Zhenya
In their initial works, 7th grade students in most cases do not pay attention to the idea of the performance, the symbolism of details and scenery, and so on. Gradually, the reviews turn into more thorough and thoughtful reflections on the features of the production, on the originality of the actors' play, on the role of scenery and costumes. Therefore, when working with eighth graders, you can avoid oral discussion of the performance in class and invite them to concentrate on their own thoughts. Instead of a plan, in order to avoid turning a review into sequential answers to questions with standard statements like “I really liked this performance”, students can use key words and expressions that are better not arranged sequentially:
Such an arrangement resembles a mosaic, having collected it in one sequence or another, we will get a fairly complete review of the performance.
Thinking about the play "Cunning and Love" at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre, eighth-graders first of all pay attention to the features of the title (built on the principle of antithesis) and the plot of the play (an eternal love story):
“Staging a play at the Bolshoi Theater always means great actors, original direction, well-known plays. All this is combined in the tragedy "Cunning and Love". This is a story from the life of the townspeople, opposed to the world of wealth and nobility. Two principles collide here: deceit and love. What is more in the play? We understand that love…”
Zlobina Vika
“The basis of Schiller's play “Deceit and Love” is the tragic love story of Louise and Ferdinand. The title itself contains the opposition of two principles: deceit opposes the power of love, and in the performance of the BDT, in my opinion, there is more deceit than love. The heroes of the tragedy are divided into two groups: the philistines who are looking for truth and happiness in this cruel world are represented by the music teacher Miller and his family members (his wife and daughter Louise) and the court and aristocratic circles (President von Walter, Marshal Kalb, Lady Milford, Secretary Wurm)…”
Kuprik Nadia
"Love! Love is the most beautiful of all human feelings. But how sad when something interferes with love. And how terrible it is when two loving hearts are destined to perish.
The immortal plot of "Romeo and Juliet" is repeated in Friedrich Schiller's tragedy "Treachery and Love". Two young people are in love with each other. But their love is hindered by the difference in social status: they belong to different classes. He is a major, the son of the president at the palace of the German duke. She is a bourgeois, the daughter of a music teacher. Everyone opposes their love. Louise and Ferdinand, seized with despair, decide to commit suicide.
Zheleznova Xenia
From textbooks and critical articles in magazines, students can learn additional information about the work, about the actors and the theater and include them in the review.
“I remember this performance because I saw a lot of actors familiar to me from films and serial TV shows. This is A.Yu. Tolubeev, K.Yu. Lavrov, N. Usatova and, of course, Alisa Freindlich, famous for the film The Three Musketeers. I remember their characters well. The hero von Walter is very changeable: at first he seems good, then bad, then good again. I remember Lady Milford with her passionate love, I was struck by the destructive power of Wurm, which creates only for its own good. These are real living people with their real living feelings and non-fictional behavior. The images of Ferdinand and Louise remained in my memory. Although they were played by not very young artists M. Morozov and E. Popova, they perfectly performed the roles of young heroes.”
Ivanov Zhenya
“Schiller's tragedy “Deceit and Love” became the pinnacle of enlightenment realism, and Schiller was the first to write not only about kings and nobles, but also about ordinary people. This idea was transferred to the stage and wonderfully embodied in the performance by T.N. Chkheidze".
Abramov Zhenya
The characterization of the main and secondary characters, which is given by eighth graders, includes a description of the features inherent in a particular character, and personal judgments and assessments.
“The staging of this tragedy was carried out in the BDT by the director T.N. Chkheidze. Many famous actors play in the performance: K. Lavrov, N. Usatova, A. Freindlich and others. This, I think, is the success of the show. I watched them play with bated breath, especially when Alisa Freindlich entered the stage (by the way, on this day she received the Golden Mask award for great achievements in art). The actors of this theater play so wonderfully that you are immediately and unconditionally drawn into the plot.
As for the roles, they are not similar to each other. For example, von Walter is played by K.Yu. Lavrov. The actor managed to show us a tough, firm, resolute, imperious and inexorable ruler and a kind, loving father who hides his feelings from his son, not knowing how to express them. This father is opposed by another father, more sincere and gentle towards his daughter - this is the music teacher Miller, played by V.M. Ivchenko. The role of Wurm, the President's personal secretary, is played by A.Yu. Tolubeev. This is a very cunning hero who does everything for his own benefit. You can see that he appears in those episodes where something intriguing happens, as if he is a spy for the duke. Von Kalb plays A.F. Chevychelov. It seems to me that this is a very interesting role, personifying all the secular people who constantly gossip about each other. Ferdinand performed by M.L. Morozov, although a nobleman by birth, is not at all like his father-president and his entourage. True, in some cases noble prejudices are manifested in him, but he is very emotional, he is one of those sturmers who were against the existing order and fought for individual freedom. His beloved Louise (actor E.K. Popova) is a calm, determined heroine, ready for anything for love.”
Kuprik Nadia
“Most of all I liked the way Miller was played, his daughter Louise and the President's son Ferdinand. All these roles are played by folk artists. In Chkheidze's production, Louise is a young girl who is ready to do anything for love. Ferdinand, on the other hand, is influenced by others, strives for power, but loving and not forgetting about loyalty. Miller is a caring father, suggesting how tragically his daughter's love can end. And I think that he is right when he thinks that Louise and Ferdinand, representatives of different classes, will not be happy in love. The main opponents of their love - Wurm, cunning, treacherous, always appears where something happens, he always gets his way; Lady Milford is an ambiguous person, both deceit and love are clearly expressed in her. In this performance, in my opinion, there is still more love than deceit.”
Abramov Zhenya
“Most of all I liked the game of Nina Usatova, who played the role of Louise's mother. When I read the tragedy, this is exactly how I imagined it. This heroine is brave, smart and fair, she is completely on the side of her daughter; she always says what she thinks, even about the courtiers. I also really liked Alisa Freindlich. Her Lady Milford managed to embody the qualities of a kind-hearted and sweet philistine, as she once was in her youth, and a majestic, proud aristocrat.
Kuprik Nadia
“... But, it seems to me, the most striking character is Lady Milford. This role was played by People's Artist of the USSR Alisa Brunovna Freindlikh. Lady Milford experienced a lot in life: poverty, the death of loved ones, she did not know human happiness. Fatal passion made her go to any tricks to achieve Ferdinand's love. However, realizing that she cannot break the chain that binds her lovers, Lady Milford retreats. In this heroine, deceit and love merged together. This role is played very emotionally. Not without reason, when the performance ended, it was announced that Alisa Freindlich received the Golden Mask Award for the best stage image. She seemed to get used to her heroine, and it seems that this is the lady that Schiller wrote about.
Zheleznova Xenia
It is also interesting to watch how the director uses the stage space.
“The stage director Chkheidze, like Schiller, is not afraid to break the boundaries of classicism. I liked that the stage shows two houses at once: Ferdinand's house and Louise's house. The rooms in these houses are separated by transparent curtains - this allows the director to accurately convey the meaning of this or that mise-en-scene.”
Lazarev Misha
“The interior of the stage itself consists of details of three different houses: in the Miller house there is a simple wooden table with exactly the same chairs, in Lady Milford's living room there is a comfortable and luxurious sofa with a table for drinks, and in the interior of the palace there is a table with business papers and an inkwell. , and next to it is a soft chair with a high back. In the background is a door that opens from time to time. A ray of light is visible behind the door, it seems to be in another world: Louise ran there, drinking poison to get away from all problems.
Abramov Zhenya
“The scenery of the performance is also interesting. On the same stage - and the dwelling of a simple tradesman, and the palace of the president. It's as if two worlds have united: the life of the poor and the rich. And on the other hand, these are two worlds of feelings - deceit and love. And they are separated only by white transparent curtains, which are then raised, then lowered again. The poverty of the interior in Miller's house was accentuated by a low table and two chairs. And in the presidential palace there was a luxurious table on lion's paws, on it was a small candlestick; next to it is a large chair with a high back; wealth was also emphasized by a luxurious chandelier. Illumination also determined the position in society: Miller's house was lit from below, Lady Milford's palace on the side, von Walter's house from above.
Kuprik Nadia
“In the performance, I really liked the scenery. I was struck by how several houses, several different spaces were placed on one stage at once. The curtain rises, and before us is the house of the musician Miller; one of the curtains falls - we find ourselves in the rich house of President von Walter; another curtain falls - and we are in the house of Lady Milford, the duke's favorite. So, due to the white curtains, we can be in different places. It is remarkable that the director, following the playwright, is not afraid to break the rules of classicism. The performance does not preserve the unity of place (we are transferred from one house to another) and time (two dialogues can be conducted at once in different places).
Zheleznova Xenia
“The music box also caught my attention. She stood at the back of the stage and at first glance was unattractive. But in fact, the box played an important role: it was, as it were, a link connecting different classes. I believe that the box symbolizes the love of Louise and Ferdinand, the consonance of their souls.”
Suslova Masha
Making a conclusion in a review of a performance that is meaningful and felt, students are likely to bypass the well-known clichés, trying to most accurately express why they liked (or disliked) this performance.
“The performance shows different loves: the romantic love of Louise and Ferdinand, the fatal passion of Lady Milford, the destructive feeling of the cruel but strong Wurm. Different and parental love. And although the main characters die, we understand that love still won.”
Lazarev Misha
“After reading the tragedy “Deceit and Love”, I realized that there are no barriers to true love, and even if those who love die, love will live forever. And the theater convinced me of this even more.”
Zheleznova Xenia
Modern literature programs provide great opportunities to turn to theatrical productions for a deeper understanding of the works of drama. And written works allow you to comprehend what you saw on the stage, express your attitude to the performance, justify your point of view. A thoughtful reader learns to be an intelligent viewer as well. The theater also helps to "revive" the best creations of world classical literature.
The article was published with the support of the ArtKassir.ru website. By visiting this site, which is located at http://ArtKassir.ru, you can get acquainted with the theater and concert posters of Moscow. Do you want to please your loved ones and give an original gift? Theater tickets will be the best solution for you. Also on the site ArtKassir.ru you can find tickets for sports events and classical music concerts. Convenient search by site categories, as well as a flexible payment system will save you time and money.
Any theatrical production requires certain conditions. In the common space, not only actors are involved, but also the audience themselves. Wherever a theatrical action takes place, on the street, indoors or even on the water, there are two zones - the auditorium and the stage itself. They are in constant interaction with each other. The perception of the performance, as well as the contact of the actor with the audience, depends on how their form is determined. The shaping of space directly depends on the era: its aesthetic and social values, the artistic direction that is leading in a given period of time. The scenery, in particular, is influenced by eras. From the use of expensive baroque materials in compositions to such as profiled timber.
Types of stage space
Spectators and actors can be positioned in two main ways in relation to each other:
- axial - when the stage is located in front of the viewer, the actor is on the same axis, he can be observed frontally;
- beam - the audience is around the stage or the stage is built in such a way that the visual places are in the center, and all the action takes place around them.
The stage and the auditorium can be one volume, located in an integral space, flowing into each other. A clear division of volume is a division of the stage and the hall, which are located in different rooms, closely adjoining and interacting with each other.
There are scenes where the action is shown from different points of the auditorium - this is a simultaneous view.
Introduction
The modern stage language owes its origin not only to the renewal processes that took place in dramaturgy and acting at the turn of the century, but also to the reform of the stage space, which was simultaneously carried out by stage direction.
In essence, the very concept of stage space, as one of the structural foundations of the performance, arose in the process of the aesthetic revolution begun by naturalists in prose and theater. Even among the Meiningenites in the 70s of the last century, their hand-painted scenery, carefully verified and brought into line with the data that historical science had at that time, taking into account even the latest discoveries of archaeologists, was nevertheless just a background for the actors to play. The functions of organization - one way or another - of the space of the stage were not performed by the historically reliable scenery of the Meiningen performances. But already at the Antoine Free Theatre, as well as at the hands of German or English directors-naturalists, the scenery received a fundamentally new purpose. She has ceased to perform the passive function of a beautiful background in front of which the acting action develops. The scenery took on a much more responsible mission, declared a claim to become not a background, but a scene of action, that specific place where life takes place, captured by the play, be it a laundry, a tavern, a rooming house, a butcher's shop, etc. Objects on the stage, furniture Antoine had real (not sham), modern, and not museum ones, like the Meiningens.
In the subsequent complex and sharp struggle between various artistic trends in theatrical art of the late XIX-early XX. the stage space was always interpreted in a new way, but invariably perceived as a powerful, and sometimes decisive means of expression.
Organization of the stage space
For the implementation of a theatrical production, certain conditions are needed, a certain space in which the actors will act and the audience will be located. In every theatre, in a specially built building, on the square where traveling troupes perform, in the circus, on the stage, the spaces of the auditorium and the stage are laid everywhere. The nature of the relationship between the actor and the audience, the conditions for perceiving the performance depend on how these two spaces relate, how their shape is determined, etc. This division is the starting point in the scenographic solution of the performance. The types of relationship between the actors and the audience part of the theatrical space have historically changed (“Shakespearean theatre”, box stage, arena stage, square theater, simultaneous stage, etc.), and in the performance this is reflected in the spatial assignment of the theatrical work. Three points can be distinguished here: this is the architectural division of the theatrical space into the spectator and stage parts, in other words, the geographical division; the division of the theatrical space into actors and spectators, and hence interaction (one actor and a hall filled with spectators, a mass stage and an auditorium, etc.); and, finally, the communicative division into the author (actor) and the addressee (spectator) in their interaction. All this is united by the concept of scenography - "organization of the general theatrical space of the performance." Directly the term "scenography" is often used both in art history literature and in the practice of the theater. This term denotes both decorative art (or one of the stages of its development, covering the end of the 21st - the beginning of the 20th centuries), and the science that studies the spatial solution of the performance, and, finally, the term "scenographer" denotes such professions in the theater as a production designer , artist-technologist of the stage. All these meanings of the term are correct, but only insofar as they outline one of the sides of its content. Scenography is the totality of the spatial solution of the performance, everything that is built in a theatrical work according to the laws of visual perception.
The concept of "organization of the stage space" is one of the links in the theory of scenography, and reflects the relationship between the real, physically given, and the unreal stage performance, formed by the entire course of the development of the action of the performance. The real stage space is determined by the nature of the relationship between the stage and the auditorium and the geographical features of the stage, its size, and technical equipment. The real stage space can be diaphragmed by curtains, hedges, decrease in depth by “curtains”, i.e. it changes in the physical sense. The surreal stage space of the performance changes due to the relationship of the masses of space (light, color, graphics). While remaining physically unchanged, it at the same time changes in artistic perception depending on what is depicted and how the scene is filled with details that organize the space. “The stage space is highly saturated,” notes Y. Lotman, “everything that enters the stage tends to be saturated with additional meanings in relation to the directly objective function of the thing. Movement becomes a gesture, a thing - a detail that carries meaning. The feeling of size, volumetric space in its artistic perception is the starting point for the organization of the stage space, the next is the development of this space in a certain direction. Several types of such development can be distinguished: closed space (as a rule, this is a pavilion structure of scenery depicting an interior), perspective and horizontally developing (for example, an image with the help of written "curtains" of distances), simultaneous or discrete (showing several scenes of action simultaneously with its own a given space) and aspiring upward (as in the play "Hamlet" by G. Craig)
The stage space is essentially a tool for the actor to play, and the actor, as the most dynamic mass of the stage space, is its accentuating element in building the compositional structure of the scenography of the performance. And therefore, such a concept in the theory of scenography as "the relationship of the masses in the ensemble of actors" is necessary. it reflects not only the interaction of the acting ensemble in the space of the stage, but also its dynamic correlation in the course of the development of the theatrical action. “The stage space, - as A. Tairov notes, - in each of its parts is an architectural work, and it is even more complicated than architecture, its masses are alive, moving, and here achieving the correct distribution of these masses is one of the main tasks.” Actors in the course of a stage performance constantly form separate semantic groups, each actor-character enters into complex spatial relationships with other actors, with the entire playing space of the stage, in the course of the development of the action of the play, the composition of the groups, their masses, construction graphics, are distinguished by light and a color spot individual actors, individual fragments of actor groups are accentuated, etc. This dynamic of the actors' masses is in many ways already embedded in the dramatic material of the performance and is the main thing in creating the theatrical image. The actor is inextricably linked with the world of objects around him, with the whole atmosphere of the stage, he is perceived by the viewer only in the context of the stage space, and all artistically significant images of spatial relations, the very dynamics of regulating the masses, the visually significant environment of the performance from the point of view of aesthetic perception, are built on this mutual determination.
The three named concepts are the links of a single system of ordering the masses of the stage space and form the compositional level of the theory of scenography, which determines the relationship of masses (weights) in the spatial solution of the performance.
The next compositional plan of scenography is the color saturation of the performance, which is determined by the laws of light distribution and the color palette of the stage atmosphere.
Light in a theatrical work manifests itself in its external form primarily as general illumination, general saturation of the space of the performance. External light (theatrical lighting fixtures or natural lighting on an open stage) is designed to highlight the volume of the stage, saturate it with light, the main thing is to make it visible. The second task is the general state of light, the certainty of the time of action, the creation of the mood of the performance. External light also reveals the form, color palette of the organized stage space and the acting ensemble acting in it. All this should be included in the concept of the theory of scenography "external stage light".
The color diversity is manifested in the color certainty of all stage objects, volumes, in the color scheme of the curtains, in the costumes of the actors, in the make-up, etc. All this should be reflected in the concept of "the inner light of stage forms", which will concentrate the general regularity of color interactions in the stage space.
External and internal light (color) can be completely separated only theoretically, in nature they are inextricably linked, and on the stage this finds its expression in the light-color interaction of the color gamut of the masses of space, including the costume, the actor's make-up and the light rays of theatrical spotlights. There are several main directions here. This is the identification of the stage space, where every detail must be shown or “taken away” into the depths of space, depending on the logic of the theatrical performance. The interpenetration of light and color of the masses of the stage determines the entire color system in the performance. The nature of the light-color interaction in the performance also depends on the semantic loads in the course of the development of the action. It is also the participation of light, light and color spots in the space of the stage, color dominants in the game element of the stage performance: light-color accents, dialogue of light with the actor, viewer, etc.
The third compositional level of scenography is the plastic development of the stage space. Since an actor acts on the stage, this space must be plastically developed and must correspond to the plasticity of the ensemble of actors. The composition of the plastic solution of the performance is manifested through the plasticity of stage forms - firstly; secondly, through the plastic drawing of the acting game, and, thirdly, as a correlating interaction (in the context of the development of a theatrical work) of the plastic drawing of the acting game and the plasticity of the forms of the stage space.
The transitional link from a single mass to plasticity is the tactility of the surface, the certainty of texture: wood, stone, etc. In the emerging theory of scenography, the content of the concept of "plasticity of stage forms" should be dictated mainly by the influence on the objective world of the stage of the dynamics of lines and the plasticity of the body. Stage things are in continuous dialogue with the plastic development of actors' poses, ensemble constructions, etc.
The plasticity of the human body was reflected in the art of sculpture, having received its further development in the works of theatrical creativity, especially in ballet. In the performance, the plasticity of the acting ensemble is manifested in the construction and dynamic development of mise-en-scenes, which subordinate the actors and the entire stage space to a single task, welded onto the disclosure of the content of the stage work. "Plastic acting" - the most developed concept of scenography. It is revealed in the works of K.S. Stanislavsky, A.Ya. Tairova, E.B. Vakhtangov, V.E. Meyerhold, A.K. Popova and others.
The plastic elaboration of the stage space finds its compositional completion in the interaction of acting and the plasticity of stage forms, the entire visually defined environment of the performance. The mise-en-scene drawing of a stage work develops in the dynamics of the action, every detail of it is connected with the actor by direct and feedback, included in the development of the action of the performance, constantly changing, every moment is a new visually significant “word” with new accents and nuances. The variety of plastic language is connected both with the movement of the stage masses, the change in light-color saturation and direction, and with the course of development of the dramatic dialogue, the action of the play as a whole. The plastic solution of the performance is formed in the constant communication of the actors with the objective world of the stage, the total stage environment.
Three compositional levels of the scenography of the performance: the distribution of masses in the stage space, the light-color state and the plastic depth of this space are in a theatrical work in constant correlative interaction. They form every stage detail, therefore, in the theory of scenography, we can consider the actor, who is the main one in the scenography of the performance, as a certain mass of theatrical space, interacting with other masses of this space, as a color spot in the overall color scheme of the performance, as a dynamically developing plastic throughout the plastically deepened space of the stage.
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