SCENIC DESIGN, PERFORMANCE, AND PERCEPTION BY TIMOTHY KERNER A theatre can be an impressive work of architecture, or it can be a bowl-shaped lawn, or just a box on the street. It is a place where people come together for a shared experience, and the physical configuration shapes the act of gathering, the parameters of performance, and the perceptions of the audience. The action begins and the words and movement evoke an imagined space. This performance space exists beyond the physical location but is linked with the theatre to varying degrees; theatrical productions can take us to distant places, or they can bring us to a deeper awareness of our everyday surroundings. The stage set supports the performance and grounds the action in the physical space. Scenic design embraces a basic paradox of performance – it is simultaneously here and elsewhere. Scenic elements can be highly realistic or suggestively abstract and they serve to link the imagined with the real and the performance with the physical surroundings. This article explores the practice of scenic design and its approach to the complementary and contradictory relationship between performance space and physical space. For this purpose, we turn to three Philadelphia-based scenic designers – Marie Laster, Thom Weaver and Matt Saunders. Matt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College, has an MFA from Yale and has designed over 150 works of theater, opera, and dance in Philadelphia, New York and beyond. Thom is a lighting and scenic designer who also went to Yale and has designed a similarly impressive number of performances. Both have been recognized with various theatrical awards. Marie offers a younger perspective for our inquiry. She studied architecture at Philadelphia University and was drawn back to the theatre after graduating in 2015. Since then, she has designed award nominated productions in the city and elsewhere. The work of these three designers operates within a realm between architecture and performance. The form of the stage, seating arrangement and viewing angles are of obvious importance to the design of the theatrical experience. According to Matt, “It is very much the purview of the set designer to be hypersensitive to the physical relationship between the performer and the audience” Scenic design and the architecture of the theatre work together to support the audience’s experience. “There is a commonality of purpose between the two that has to do with ritual, and the ‘gathering of humanity’ together under one roof,” continues Matt. The ideas addressed in this article reflect on the relations between the perceptions of the audience, theatrical performance, and physical design.
20 WINTER 2022 | context | AIA Philadelphia
