Section: What does a lighting designer create? A dynamic communicative environment

Table of Contents

• Section: What does a lighting designer create? A dynamic communicative environment.
• Light as an environment
• Communicative properties of light
• Dynamics of the light environment
• Sources Referenced by the Author, Vladimir Lukashevich

What is "light in a performance"? What definition would correspond to this phenomenon, how can we reduce the entire spectrum of its functions to words equivalent to a formula? I attempted to derive this definition in an article published in 1984 in the journal "Stage Technology and Technique." Undoubtedly, the modern understanding of lighting design in a performance is impossible without knowing the stages of its formation and the transformation of tasks that arose in different periods of theater history. I tried to incorporate the modern understanding into a formula consisting of three words: Dynamic; Communicative; Environment. Let us consider this formula separately, for each component, based on the knowledge of how the requirements for lighting design in performances have changed, how the demands for lighting were resolved, and how, having solved some, new ones arose. Let us consider this three-word formula in reverse order, in accordance with the chronology of achieving solutions for each constituent element.

For a researcher studying the evolution of lighting design in performances, it is practically impossible to create accurate representations of the lighting score of a particular performance. If we consider critical and memoir literature in terms of historical development, apart from a set of descriptions of "successful" lighting effects and, less frequently, analysis of lighting solutions for individual scenes, nothing can be reproduced. In modern criticism dealing with scenography issues, the phrase about the "increased role of light in contemporary performances" has simply become a commonplace statement. Although, as before, in confirmation of this phrase, a description of several successful "effects" or pictures is provided. It is practically impossible to find a detailed, competent functional analysis of the role of light in a performance. After all, "role implies something integral," developing according to certain laws of action. To define the light in a performance as an integral, developing action, it is necessary to clearly understand its functions in the performance, its connections with the dramaturgy and scenography of the performance.

But if we are to speak seriously about the role of light, then an "effect" or "lighting picture" is merely an episode, in the language of a director, a successful sketch on the theme of the performance. As a rule, the light in a performance is not considered as something whole from the beginning to the closing of the curtain, having its own development, its own task in the full sense of the word, as light playing its role. Let us try to consider how the "super-objective" of the role of light in a performance changed in different periods of its history.

The Romantic theater and its genres — melodrama and tearful comedy — had to exist mainly under the conditions of imperfect oil and candle lighting, and yet they could not help but attempt to extract from lighting techniques the expressive means necessary for them. However, undoubtedly, the greatest technical perfection in the Romantic theater was achieved on the opera stage. Enjoying the patronage of the powerful and having significantly more material resources for technical equipment on the one hand, and preserving the traditions of lavish court celebrations on the other, Romantic opera in the last quarter of the 19th century demonstrated significant achievements in lighting technology.

The importance of a meaningful role of light in Romantic opera can be judged by the remark of the Russian composer and critic A. N. Serov, made in 1859:
"In the highest operas of our time, in the flourishing and harmonious fusion of poetry, music, and stage art — each necessity of the staging, along with the music, in its place bears the responsibility of the entire drama, becoming truly acting characters: the evening star, quietly twinkling in the autumn twilight after the return of the pilgrims (in the last act of 'Tannhäuser'), and the moonlight streaming through the open window of the bridal chamber (in the last act of 'Lohengrin')." The same source provides an analysis of the staging of Weber's "Der Freischütz":
"The horrors and fear during the mysterious casting of enchanted bullets, the owl with its glowing eyes, and all this phantasmagoria and devilry constituted, and perhaps still constitute, the main attraction for many, especially those somewhat indifferent to the musical merits of the opera. There have been examples where, in small provincial theaters in Germany, 'Der Freischütz' was performed without music, just to enjoy the horrors of the 'Wolf's Glen,' but certainly nowhere was this opera publicly performed with the omission of the fantastic scene."

Of particular interest are Wagner's operas; they generally provide immense scope for the light composition of a performance. Of course, the theater in Bayreuth was long considered one of the best in the application of lighting effects.

Here it is necessary to recall the theater created by Duke Georg II in Meiningen. The aspiration for historical accuracy in productions, which were to appear not only authentic in detail but also full of life, compelled artists and lighting designers to meticulously work out the lighting design. Special importance was given to the authenticity of various lighting, which allowed, before the eyes of the audience, to create the impression of sunrise or sunset, dawn or the onset of darkness. The "historical pictures" that emerged on the Meiningen stage amazed with their meticulous elaboration. The activity of this theater greatly influenced many theater figures such as Henry Irving. For example, André Antoine writes that he watched 12 performances in this theater. If we also consider that the theater of Georg II was conceived as a touring group that gave about 3000 performances worldwide, including in Russia, it becomes clear what powerful propaganda was conducted for historical accuracy and, among other things, naturalistic authenticity of lighting. Undoubtedly, the first performances of the Moscow Art Theatre were a direct development of the creative experience of the Meiningen theater, to which K. S. Stanislavsky repeatedly referred.

A significant role in the development of lighting design in performances, even with gas lighting, was played by the actor and director of the Lyceum Theatre in London, Henry Irving. He introduced the practice of lighting rehearsals in the theater, began using transparent colored varnishes, and divided the footlights into several sections. Irving brilliantly appreciated, for example, the role lighting plays in choosing fabrics for costumes. During the staging of "Henry VII," he ordered various fabrics to be brought onto the stage and hung, from brocade to dyed canvas, after which he called the artists, costume designers, and prop masters, and with the footlights lit, began selecting materials for costumes. In many cases, the choice fell on the cheapest fabric or dyed canvas, which, under artificial lighting and with appropriate finishing, could perfectly replace expensive fabric.

In his work as a director, Henry Irving strove to subordinate the achievements of the spectacular theater to the new tasks of the theater of psychological revelation of the hero, while subjecting the entire spectacular part of the performance to the cult of beauty. As Gordon Craig later wrote, Henry Irving "absorbed all the best from the old English traditions, discarded everything that was useless to him, and raised the rest to new heights and achievements." Preaching the cult of beauty, "The ultimate goal of stage art is beauty," Irving asserted: "The setting should not attract the viewer's attention by itself as an existing brilliant picture, but at the moment of action, he should, without realizing it, feel the impression of the picture in which the action unfolds. It (the environment) surrounds the actors with an atmosphere in which they can breathe, transports them to the appropriate environment, and places them under the beam of light that should illuminate them."

We see that, without a doubt, at this stage, the problems of the actor's visibility certainly prevail, but at the same time, simple "prettiness of the picture" does not satisfy the artist. This is clear confirmation that at this stage of theater development, stage design is considered not as a decorative component of the performance but already as a certain environment, "atmosphere," connected with the content of the play. It should be noted that at this stage, the most important task becomes the need to replace the impersonal "prettiness" with a truthful "realistic" setting of the events being played out.

The next, and perhaps the most important, step in the development of understanding theatrical lighting was taken by André Antoine, the director of the "Théâtre Libre" in Paris. The achievements of the Meiningen theater did not satisfy Antoine's Naturalistic theater in any way. "Their very successful lighting effects are most often arranged with epic naivety. For example, the wonderful ray of the setting sun illuminating the remarkably beautiful head of an old man who died in his chair suddenly shifts to the painted window at the very moment when the old man has just breathed his last. All this with the sole purpose of creating a picturesque picture, or again, after an amazingly reproduced rain, which was managed to be depicted using electric light projection, I was dismayed to see the rain stop abruptly — all at once, without any transition. And there were many such examples." (1888).

The dissatisfaction of the leader of the Parisian Free Theater is quite understandable. Being, as he called himself, "a faithful soldier of Zola's army," A. Antoine persistently introduced the principles of naturalism into stage practice. Therefore, the truthful depiction of the state of nature could not meet the basic principles of naturalism. Since for determining the social existence of a person, the conditions of human existence played a decisive and determining role, the environment oppressed him, so naturally, it was necessary to rethink the stage space. Impersonal "truthfulness" and prettiness no longer had the right to exist.

Here is the main definition by André Antoine, which determines the approach and solution to the form of the naturalistic theater: "The environment determines the movements of the characters, not the movements of the characters determine the environment."

Thus, the scenery as the environment of existence and light acquire the significance of interacting with the characters as equal components of a single organized stage action. "Space," wrote the French theater scholar Denis Bablet, "has capital importance for naturalists: to create on stage an impression authentic to real life, it is necessary to organize a picture that would completely predetermine all the movements of the characters within it." Light helps organize the artistic space of the performance, allowing the actor to work inspirationally, as well as model the artistic environment recognizable and perceived by the viewer.

Of course, all the previous experience of the theater had fully mastered the techniques that allow the viewer to unmistakably recognize the "proposed circumstances," the place and time of action. These techniques allowed the theater to "communicate" with the viewer quite concretely on an obvious, I would call "descriptive" level. At the same time, in Europe, symbolism arose as a movement polar to naturalism, uncompromisingly rejecting all the basic tenets of naturalism. However, the concept of an interacting environment of stage design discovered by the naturalists served the symbolists no less, and perhaps even more, but from different ideological positions. For the symbolists, the artist's right to subjective creativity in the realm of free invention was axiomatic. Paul Fort, who headed the Paris Art Theater (1890–1892), gathered around him young enthusiasts of symbolist theater: Stéphane Mallarmé, Émile Verhaeren, artists: Odilon Redon, Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis.

The theater of the symbolists becomes not only a "theater of painters." Form and color in the artist's free expression are liberated from the imitativeness of naturalistic theater, becoming self-sufficient expressers of symbols capable of giving the play color harmony, emotional analogy. Light in the performance gains complete freedom in conveying the emotional state of the action, unrestrained by any realities of existence. The meaning of a symbol was loaded onto a solitary beam or a suddenly descended colored plane. Color combinations claimed to express the symbolism of meanings. This idea was expressed, in particular, by Paul Gauguin: "Color, having vibrations similar to music, has the ability to reach that which is most general and therefore most vague in nature — its inner force." Having taken over the theater, the painters stopped the movement. "Poetic visions that arose on the stage of the Art Theater shone through the fourth wall, often covered with a transparent muslin or gauze curtain... The sensation of unreality of the pictures was achieved primarily by their static nature. Mystery reigned on the stage."

Perhaps, from this period begins the active development of methods and techniques for using light in a performance as an expressive element organizing the theatrical spectacle, appealing directly to the emotional perception of the viewer. There are very active attempts to use the semantics of color, the origins of which are found in the history of Indian, Chinese, and other Eastern cultures. These searches later developed in related arts at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as painting, sculpture, literature. Modern "performances" and "installations" are direct descendants of the symbolist theater, in which the "author's vision" prevails over everything, including the viewer's participation.

Thus, we see that as soon as the naturalists determined that the stage environment should not be indifferent to the actions of the characters and can play a certain role in the performance, the symbolists, using this discovery, took it to the extreme, loading the stage design with self-sufficient symbols, stopping the movement of the stage action. It was necessary to stop the movement so that there was enough time to "read all the symbols." A "dynamic crisis" arose...

Perhaps, from this period begins the active development of methods and techniques for using light in a performance as an expressive element organizing the theatrical spectacle, the application of lighting direction techniques. At first, the development of the foundations of lighting direction was mainly theoretical, since its full implementation was not allowed by the low level of technical equipment of theaters.

The correspondence of the performance's design to the emotional development of the dramatic action began to be considered at the beginning of the 20th century. "The decoration should attract the viewer's attention not as an existing brilliant picture in itself, but at the moment of action, he should, without realizing it, feel the impression of the picture in which the action unfolds."

Subsequently, with the development of theatrical technology, theoretical prerequisites found more and more opportunities for implementation in theater practice.

The theoretical foundation of lighting direction was laid in the works of the great reformer of the stage, Gordon Craig. Craig's first musical performances gave a powerful impetus to further research and experiments by a large cohort of European directors. "In Craig's early works, a new way of creating stage form first appeared: the form arose entirely without the use of decorations in their previous form — by the force of only the expressive play of changing curtains of light. A new principle of building the structure of the performance emerged."

Craig's genius is so prescient, his discoveries in the development of scenographic techniques and solutions for entire performances, especially Shakespeare's repertoire, are so great that even today, in the works of directors, entire quotes from Craig's works appear, and their creators may not even know that they are quoting Craig.

A. Y. Tairov develops the problem of "dynamic shifts," "... arising not due to one or another visual change, but due to extreme emotional saturation, inevitably striving for dynamic resolution." Already in the first performance "Sakuntala," the desire to create "a peculiar synthetic image of Kalidasa's text" leads to the use of principles of Indian theater, where "The problem of dynamic shifts I have posed can be solved either through a number of technical adaptations or through the active participation of light in the action.

The role of light on stage is undoubtedly still insufficiently appreciated by us, and the spirits lurking in it are still not extracted from hermetically sealed electric lamps."

A significant event in Tairov's work was his meeting with A. Salzmann. At the beginning of the 20th century, working in the educational theater hall of the Institute of Rhythm in Hellerau, A. Salzmann (a theater artist, "lighting engineer") used an unconventional directorial technique: he balanced the stage and the auditorium with diffused light, thereby highlighting the action, the intensity of sound, and the actors' plasticity. "Diffused light — daylight without the sun — enhances the shades of colors and gives expressive power to the contours themselves."

"The dynamics of the performance were provided by A. Salzmann's lighting direction: the luminous panels framing the playing space, sometimes opaque, sometimes transparent, created an unreal atmosphere; directed colored rays, in the absence of visible light sources, appeared as if from nowhere. Moving light waves, subject to a magical rhythm, enveloped the frozen figures of the actors in radiance or covered them with shadow — thus, higher forces disposed of their life and death. Claudel's poetic concept was embodied here in the symbolism and rhythm of light." It should be noted that Salzmann worked on this performance in close collaboration with Adolphe Appia.

Here are testimonies from contemporaries:

"Our compatriot A. Salzmann, according to whose project the lighting of the large hall in Hellerau is being carried out, is occupied with decorations for the upcoming production at the July school celebrations of Gluck's 'Orfeo.' And further: Dalcroze's production of 'Orfeo'... opened the way... to the only form of operatic art. No scenery: gray and blue calico in the form of curtains on different planes, descending over stairs, steps, and platforms covered with dark blue cloth...

Only one force, besides man and music, participated in the performance — light. Those who have not seen it cannot imagine what the participation of light, its crescendos and decrescendos in the crescendos and decrescendos of music — the simultaneity and agreement of light dynamics with sound — gives.

... But when the light dims over scenes of human malice and spiritual darkness, when it grows together with the musical 'crescendo' and resolves into radiance over scenes of victory and triumph..." In the words of the witnesses, we feel such an intensity of aesthetic pleasure experienced that it can only evoke envy in the participants of this theatrical action.

In this same performance, light also "played its role" in the direct sense of the word. "One of the most interesting applications of light is the role of Cupid. Cupid was invisible; instead of the usual travesty with wings and a quiver on his back, we heard singing from behind the scenes, and on stage, we saw an intensification of light."

The desire to create a stage volume capable of realizing "an emotionally tragic performance developing in the integrity and closure of its aesthetic forms and subject to the laws of its own expressiveness" was the main idea of A. Salzmann.

With the beginning of the First World War, A. Salzmann moved from Austria to Moscow, where he actively participated in the opening of the Chamber Theater of A. Tairov. Their joint work largely determined the uniqueness of the stylistics of the first performances of this theater. A. Salzmann continued to develop the ideas begun with A. Appia in Hellerau.

The search for creating such an emotionally tragic performance that would develop in the integrity and closure of its aesthetic forms and be subject to the laws of its own expressiveness led to lyrical drama. "The emotional element of N. N. Annensky's lyrical drama was perceived as a stream of emotions of a theatrical order." The lighting design of "Phaedra" aimed to create a kind of three-dimensional, spherical saturation of the stage atmosphere with color content. "Paint, as a way of treating the surface of one or another construction, was displaced by light, saturating with its color atmosphere the entire structure of the stage space... Salzmann's ingenious system, placing light sources behind neutral horizons and at several other points, allowed to unusually materialize the entire aerial space of the stage and fill it with changing color content, into which the entire stage atmosphere was immersed." In this way, the problem of lighting the stage space from outside was eliminated, and light became an organic element of the stage atmosphere.

"The stage box, which is almost an unchanging coffin for many searches, parted in mute impotence before the powerful streams of light saturating the model," Tairov recalled. "And now the walls disappeared, and the spreading light atmosphere changed its color, responding to the slightest pressure of the control lever."

"Sunlight and moonlight are uninteresting in themselves; they interest us only as an elementary form of emotional experience." This peculiar paradox of A. Salzmann could probably also belong to Tairov.

Scenography as a communicative environment strives for the fusion of the visible and audible with the idea, super-objective, and concepts of the performance. The desire to move from everyday details to a higher level of emotional communication leads to the problem of creating a complex communicative object environment on stage.

The complex environment must, if necessary, be instantly saturated with a huge number of signals, spatial-temporal landmarks, semantically filled signs, symbols, and object images that make tangible what is subject to direct perception. It must also quickly free itself, clear itself of them in a timely manner, taking on a completely neutral appearance while maintaining internal connection and figurative unity. However, the environment should not act as a dictator or prompter; dynamism should not distract but, on the contrary, sharpen the viewer's perception of the stage action, concentrating attention.

It is important to have an ideal correspondence of light to the sound and plasticity of the performance, allowing the actor to interact with the light: to feel the illumination, to enter the light, to resist or yield to its movement. An expressive mobile light environment is created, subordinate to a unified stage solution.

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This material is distributed with respect to the author, exclusively for educational purposes and to preserve cultural heritage.

In memory of the master whose name will forever remain in the history of theatrical lighting.

1. A. N. Serov, Critical Articles, Vol. 2, St. Petersburg, 1892, p. 1131.

2. A. N. Serov, Critical Articles, Vol. 2, St. Petersburg, 1892, p. 384.

3. K. S. Stanislavsky, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 1954, pp. 130–132.

4. Edward Gordon Craig, Henry Irving, New York – Toronto, 1930, p. 111.

5. H. Irving, The Drama, London, 1893. Quoted from: A. A. Gvozdev, Western European Theatre at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Leningrad – Moscow, 1939, p. 278.

6. A. Antoine, Diaries of a Theatre Director (1887–1906), Iskusstvo, Moscow – Leningrad, 1939, p. 213.

7. A. Antoine, Causerie sur la mise en scène, Paris, 1921, p. 3061.

8. Masters of Art on Art, Vol. IV, Book 1, Moscow, 1969, p. 127.

9. Masters of Art on Art, Vol. V, Book 1, Moscow, 1969, p. 165.

10. Masters of Art on Art, Vol. V, Book 1, Moscow, 1969, p. 62.

11. Quoted from: S. S. Ignatov, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Personality and Work, Moscow, 1914.

12. T. I. Bachelis, The Evolution of Stage Space. From Antoine to Craig, in: Western Art of the 20th Century, Moscow, 1978.

13. A. Ya. Tairov, Notes of a Director, 1921.

14. A. Saltzman, Light, Lighting and Light Intensity, in: Rhythmic Gymnastics Course Sheets, St. Petersburg, 1914, No. 4 (January), pp. 39–41.

15. I. A. Nekrasova, Paul Claudel and the European Stage of the 20th Century, Monograph, St. Petersburg: SPbGATI Publishing House, 2009, 464 p.

16. Rhythmic Gymnastics Course Sheets, No. 3, October 1913, St. Petersburg.

17. Quoted from: Yu. Golovashchenko, The Directorial Art of Tairov, Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1970, p. 203.

18. A. Anensky, Famira Kifared.

19. K. Derzhavin, The Book of the Chamber Theatre, 1914–1934, GIKhL, 1934.

20. Ibid., p. 72.

21. A. Ya. Tairov, Notes of a Director, 1921.

22. A. Saltzman, Light, Lighting and Light Intensity, in: Rhythmic Gymnastics Course Sheets, St. Petersburg, 1914, No. 4 (January), p. 40.