A ‘choréographie’ of light and space: Adolphe Appia and the first scenographic turn

While the significance and influence of Appia’s writings and his storyboard scenarios of Wagnerian operas on the development of modern theatre practice is uncontested, their origin has almost universally been explained as instigated by a combination of his musical inspiration alongside the technological development of electric stage lighting. While light was clearly at the heart of this new scenography, it was not as a result of the advent of electricity in the theatres of Europe and North America from the early 1880s as most commentators have suggested, but rather due to an older, pre-existing lighting technology with which Appia was acquainted. In 1886, at the age of 24 Appia embarked on a four-year period when he was primarily resident in Dresden. It was a formative time in his education that was instrumental in the development of a new scenic art and has received surprisingly little critical attention. Appia’s writings and drawings for the staging of Wagnerian drama first conceived in this German city, were to revolutionise thinking about stage space, scenery and perhaps most importantly, the use of light as an expressive material in the theatre.

This article therefore seeks to explain how a specific combination of circumstances converged, in a particular place and time, to provoke a paradigm shift in theatre practice – what we should consider to be the first scenographic turn of the modern theatre. It argues for a reappraisal of Appia as not simply an idealist or theatre theorist, but as a practitioner whose scenographic understanding was rooted in the craft of theatre production. It also suggests that we need to revisit perceived histories of theatre practice which have been established and subsequently re-enforced on the basis of linguistic translations which may lack a scenographic sensibility.