In this series, Edinburgh based photographer, Ines Gennuso, showcases a selection of images taken over a one year period, photographing stage sets prior to performance. The project focuses on the way artificial light, with its reverberating colours, imbues space with a surreal and atmospheric quality; transforming the ordinary into something bold and dramatic.
View the photos on Theatre in Pictures »

In search of a new theatre

Portrait of Meyerhold.

In the early 1900s Meyerhold was still involved with symbolist drama but had begun to experiment with specific elements of the stage; improvising with the proscenium and playing with light. In his production of Alexander Blok’s The Fairground Booth in 1906, he put some of his new techniques to test. The simple but archaic theatre included elements of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, traditional Japanese theatre and characteristics of the old theatres of Spain and England. The most significant development was Meyerhold’s use of a theatre within the theatre, demonstrating the potential of a deliberate display of theatrical illusion. The scenery was non-realistic and sets were raised and lowered in full view of the audience. The Fairground Booth enabled Meyerhold to explore a form which challenged the theatrical conventions from inside the dominant symbolist framework of the day.

The beginnings of Biomechanics

The production of Mikhail Lermontov’s play Masquerade marked a significant step in the development of Meyerhold’s ideas. The decor of the production by Alexander Golovin was designed as an emotional codex which would reflect and in many cases set the mood or atmosphere of the play as it progressed through its various stages. The colours of the curtains and backdrops were designed to lead the viewer from one stage of the production to another so that it became an intricate part of the actors’ performances on stage – highlighting and emphasising their emotional content and psychology. The rising and falling of curtains was not simply a device for opening and closing an act, their graphic input became part of the dramatic process and helped develop the action of the play itself.

The curtains in Masquerade.

To use a musical analogy, the curtains were meant to play the role of an overture with additional orchestral interludes. This was the beginning of breaking up the hierarchy in Russian text-based theatre. Here the abstract graphic element of set design began to play a more equal role in the production as a whole and with this the first seeds were sown of a new acting technique which Meyerhold would name ‘Biomechanics’.

The influence of Constructivist design

Meyerhold’s production of The Magnanimous Cuckold became his boldest experiment in this process. Meyerhold was already developing the acting technique of Biomechanics, a series of exercises to develop and release the emotional potential of the actor through movement. He enlisted Lubov Popova to design a set for the performance. The result was a machine-like moving structure with platforms and whirling wheels against a plain curtain backdrop. The actors’ performances formed a dynamic, pulsating spectacle, moving in unison and integrated with the rhythmic movement of Popova’s constructivist structure. The result was an organic unity on stage between actor and set.

The Man Who Was Thursday Set Drawing.

This production sparked a trend in collaborations with constructivist artists to design theatre sets. The most well known was Alexander Tairov’s production of G.K. Chesterton’s The Man who was Thursday designed by the artist Alexander Vesin. He built a structure with lifts and moving walkways which, it would seem, befitted Chesterton’s literary creation. However the set itself was a disappointment. In many cases it appeared clumsy and actors found it difficult to perform within Vesin’s labyrinth-like and reputedly cumbersome design. Part of the reason why Vesin’s design did not succeed as intended is because the implications of Meyerhold’s innovations had not been entirely understood. The structure was abstract and constructivist in character, but it was also a fairly concrete object and in some sense representational and functional. It was a space in which actors could interact with each other and a world which bore resemblances to emerging forms of the time. In some sense a return to naturalism, albeit of a contemporary or constructivist/urban/industrialist character.

Popova’s Machine

Popova’s machine was completely different in character. It was machine-like but far from the common structures of the day. In present day terms we might refer to it as an installation. It was abstract, it blurred meaning, and had no function other than to be an object in the production. This suited Meyerhold’s desire for the crossing and re-crossing of the borders between tragedy and comedy, pathos and farce and hence embodied his experimentation with theatrical form.

Popova's Machine in production.

The blurring and crossing of borders can be found in Japanese artistic and theatrical forms; as can the emptiness of the stage which like a monotone Japanese landscape painting depends on what is taken out, giving the audience a chance to use their own imagination to fill the void. In this sense, while wanting to stimulate and lead an audience, Meyerhold did not want to control their emotions.

Popova's Machine poster.

Meyerhold’s interest in Japan

To further understand these developments in Russian theatre, it’s important to note Meyerhold’s interest in the traditional performing arts of Japan, particularly Kabuki and Noh. One of the principal characteristics of Noh, and a paradox in a theatre of masks, is that the theatrical process is “unmasked” in full view of the audience. Stage technology is revealed and incorporated into the “work of art”, so that the process becomes an important medium for preserving and relaying information about the play.

Scene from a Noh theatre production of Okina Hōnō.

This appealed to Meyerhold who proceeded to turn his theatre inside out, rejecting the play as an art form wholly based on text. The theatre that Meyerhold wanted demanded a new type of actor with a new style of acting, and Kabuki with its emphasis on dance and physical movement served Meyerhold’s purposes well. The rhythm of dance was important to the futurists and avant-garde artists because through rhythm a new life could be presented and a new type of person would embody this rhythm for a new future era where movement speed and dynamism were optimum. Biomechanics with its visual/graphic potential was meant to be a living synthesis of this transformation.

A ‘return’ to classical drama?

By the time Meyerhold put on his version of The Government Inspector it was heralded by the authorities as Meyerhold’s return to classical drama. Lunacharsky, Commissar of Enlightenment (Narkompros) had earlier criticised Meyerhold’s experiments but welcomed Meyerhold’s return to traditional theatre. However, looking at the photographs and designs of this production the innovations which Meyerhold had pioneered were still apparent. Meyerhold had not abandoned his experiments and they continued to inform his work as much as before. As he himself commented, “Just because we are not rushing about the stage waving red flags does not mean that theatre is not revolutionary”.

Mannequins in the making.

Moreover the revolutionary quality of the production was borne out with Meyerhold borrowing techniques from cinema. In some scenes, several events take place simultaneously and the action spills over from one side of the stage into the other in a torrent of movement uncharacteristic of earlier classical productions. Meyerhold went even further. In the final scene where actors are required to freeze in still poses to dramatise the ossified and static nature of the world portrayed in the production, Meyerhold substituted the actors with specially designed mannequins.

Mannequins in Meyerhold's production of The Government Inspector.

The graphic quality is unmistakable with echoes from Bunraku (puppet theatre of Japan) puppets and the dramatic poses or mie of Kabuki actors. Meyerhold’s vision was bold and radical in its strong integration of the graphic component into the production and emphasises his ability to transcend the boundaries of theatrical form. In this case, instead of real people playing the role of frozen mannequins, real mannequins played the role of people. Whatever Meyerhold’s intention, watching rows of lifelike figures gaze into the auditorium, transformed like idols from an another era, must have made for an eerie climax.

I call it “Desert Storm”. It looks like apple crumble without the apple. Brown sugar mixed with butter and oatmeal, perhaps a pinch of salt. Cooked for one hour on gas mark 4 in a square baking pan until golden brown. But if you look a little closer you’ll see that it is a typical Saturday night in the kitchen of my tiny flat in North London. I have my head in the oven trying to cook building sand. 25 kilos of it. Its everywhere…under my feet, in my hair, on the counter. Guaranteed to be in tomorrow’s lunch.

Working in London’s fringe as a designer finds you in some very odd places. Like trolling the sex shops of Soho looking for leg shackles for the African Slaves that will tour the country during Black History month. I wouldn’t like to guess how many hours of my life I have spent in a frenzy jumping on and off the bus …hitting every charity shop from Clapham Junction to Dalston, trying to find the right shade of purple gloves or size 12 open toe shoes that will match a peach dress. My body aches from carrying heavy bags. It’s never dull and very challenging especially with the limited budgets. You often end up sewing and building the set yourself. Whether it’s in your flat, on a roof, on the bus, in a laneway or in the park across the road from the theatre. I like to think that the city streets and public places are my studio, until it starts to rain.

We fringe designers tend to be isolated as artists. Friends tend to be theatre people who share the pain, laugh and commiserate. You try and support each other’s work while fighting the green-eyed monster. Our lives and relationships are often fragmented by a commitment to a show. Being out of town for months and then trying to slip back into your old life when you return is sometimes difficult. There is also a lack of recognition. Actors who think you are there to serve them, when really you are there to serve the play. Stage managers who shout at you and occasionally producers forget to pay you or don’t include you on the program or website. Critics may not mention your work at all. Directors often ignore you once rehearsals begin, you feel abandoned.

The director-designer relationship was once aptly described to me by one of my tutors as “A love affair. Intense and short lived, followed by a period of grief”. You always feel like you are on the outside. Perhaps our lack of recognition stems from our perceived value in society, our poor compensation, our insecurity as artists or the way we are taught at school. I remember the mantra “it is not about us…it is about the text”.