METAPHOR AND IRONY 2 - Divadlo.cz

However, the author of the scenic element is not the stage technician, but the
actor himself. The action of the performer has as its result the movement of the
scene - its change. This change is not only an indication of a change in place
but also relates to the meaning, and even has an emotional impact. The manipulation
of an object (part of the set) thus creates a stage metaphor, and the
“atmosphere” of a particular situation. Most suitable for action scenography are
simple, easily manipulated objects (rope, boxes, drapery), but could include the
“more difficult” dustbin or barrel. Suspended ropes could be a forest; knotted
together, the trunk of a single tree, a net or a gallows (Jan Dušek). Drapery could
represent the sails of a ship, a tent, the foliage of a tree or the sky (Jaroslav
Malina). Incessantly living scenery, scenery in movement, scenery in the hands
of the actor was open to chance and improvisation.
Otherwise “ordinary” materials, discovered on rubbish heaps or in junk
shops, were used as much for their practical qualities as for their capacity to
support aesthetic rationales and period feel. Decoration was foreign to the
designers of this generation; they were attracted towards the exploration of the
qualities of various materials and their direct effect. That connected them with
the influences of European experimental theatres of the time and the visual arts
generally (the anti-decorative and at the same time visual and emotional “poor
theatre”, “aesthetic ugliness”, finding aesthetic qualities in corrosion, in
destroyed and thrown-out objects and so on). However, Czech artists for the
most part adapted accepted “trends” to their own needs. They lightened the
rawness and commented with humor (their playfulness was inherited from the
interwar avant-garde which understood the stage as a space for provocatively
triggered play), they upset austerity and asceticism (often ironically) by use of
decorative details. Under a totalitarian regime, “metaphor and irony” became
weapons and, by a conspiratorial method, a means of communication with an
audience which came to the theatre to taste at least the atmosphere of freedom.
Further tendencies of this trend were sought through the use of nontraditional
space. If designers were working in a traditional proscenium arch
theatre they tried to take the play into spaces other than the stage itself (the
foyer, the front of the theatre, etc.) or to furnish the auditorium with atypical
scenic elements (drapery over-arching the stage, trunks of trees in both the
stage and the auditorium, etc.).
Costume, stylised expressively and daringly, was an important element
of the production. Its metaphorical communicability was underpinned by
quotation and often heterogeneous to the point of an absurd combination of
various historical elements and costume styles. This occurred almost 20 years
before the impact of Post-Modernism was felt in Bohemia. The concept and
appearance of the set and costumes were closely connected (whether in the
sense of stylistic unity or contrast). It was not unusual for the set and costumes
to be designed by the same designer, a link to the past practices of Vlastislav
Hofman.
18