Contemporary Scenography

Practices and Aesthetics in German Theatre, Arts and Design

Birgit E. Wiens, Birgit E. Wiens

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350064485
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Europäisches Drama

Contemporary Scenography investigates scenographic concepts, practices and aesthetics in Germany from
1989 to the present. Facing the end of the political divide, the advent of the digital age and the challenges of globalization, German-based designers and scenographers have reacted in a variety of ways to these shifts in the cultural landscape. The edited volume, a compilation of 12 original chapters written in collaboration with acclaimed scenographers,
stage designers and distinguished scholars, offers fresh insights and in-depth analyses of current artistic concepts, discourse and innovation in this multifaceted, dynamic field. The book covers a broad spectrum of scenography, including theatre works by Katrin Brack, Bert Neumann, Aleksandar Denic, Klaus Grünberg, Vinge/Müller and Rimini Protokoll, in addition to scenography in museums, exhibitions, social spaces and in various urban contexts. Presenting a range of perspectives, the volume explores the interdisciplinarity of contemporary scenography and its ongoing diversification, raising questions relating to cultural heritage, genre and media specificity, knowledge transfer, local versus global practices, internationalization and cultural exchange. Combined with a set of stimulating examples of scenographic design in action – presented through interviews, artists' statements and case studies – the contributors develop a theoretical framework for understanding scenography as an art practice and discourse.

PART ONE

Scenography in and beyond the theatre: Aesthetics and epistemes

1

‘I am trying to add more layers to the story’: From the model to the stage

Scenographic thinking and artistic practices in Aleksandar Denić’s theatre works with Frank Castorf and others

conversation between Aleksandar Denić and Birgit E. Wiens

Stage designers play an important role when it comes to the development of theatre productions; their work is an integral part of the productions, of the artistic conceptions and of the aesthetic form of a staging that they often decisively influence. Usually, however, the theatre audience only experiences the result of their work in the framework of the actual staging itself. The creative impact that stage design has – in other words, the entire process that takes place in the studio, within the theatre workshops and during rehearsals until the opening night – is rarely ever reflected in theatre reviews or even discussed in academic publications;¹ moreover, it has also been largely marginalized within the ongoing debate on ‘artistic research’ and ‘research in the arts’.² Within this book, the various chapters focus, from different perspectives, on questions of scenographic design processes, artistic practices, tools and ‘scenographic thinking’ as well as ‘knowledge production’. This chapter – very much practice based – presents a workshop discussion with one of the most acclaimed scenographers in contemporary German theatre, Aleksandar Denić. In the course of the conversation, we will introduce some of his major works; thus perspective on the ‘making-of’, on the scenographic process from the model to the stage, is at the centre of the discussion.

Denić, who is based in Belgrade (Serbia), is a scenographer who, since the late 1980s, has mainly worked as a production designer in the film industry; within the German-language theatre world, and also internationally, he became known in recent years for his ongoing collaboration with the theatre director and former artistic director of the Berlin Volksbühne at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Frank Castorf.³ In their numerous renowned and award-winning productions, Castorf and Denić carry out a type of collaboration that is principally non-hierarchical and fuelled by artistic dynamics in which both – the director and the scenographer – understand the other to be a partner on equal terms. This form of artistic collaboration, which Castorf also shared with Bert Neumann (his long-time stage designer since the late 1980s, who passed away in 2015), had its historic prefiguration in the research-based production mode that Bertolt Brecht and his stage designers, mainly Caspar Neher, had developed (de Ponte 2006). With their so-called model productions, they had not only searched for a ‘new type of performance’, but also aimed at implementing a decidedly modern ‘work sharing’ collaboration model within the theatre.⁴ Castorf’s theatre, in a certain sense, can be seen in this tradition. Since, on the aesthetic level, his productions at the Berlin Volksbühne were typically marked by a non-linear, radical and multi-perspective narration, they were often described as ‘postdramatic theatre’ (using the term coined by Hans-Thies Lehmann in 1999). The term also implies that, in these kinds of theatrical forms, scenography (or ‘visual dramaturgy’, as he also puts it) can actually become as important – or sometimes even more important – as the play text (Lehmann 1999: 158–61). As influential as Lehmann’s term had been for quite a long time in German-language theatre discourse – and beyond it – it is after all, as Matt Cornish states, ‘not always useful’ for understanding twenty-first-century scenographic aesthetics (Cornish 2018: 465). Also, it does not say much about the changes in artistic production forms and the ways in which they question standardized schemes of theatrical production. Thus, when we talk about what we have termed the ‘scenographic process’ in the theatre, we need particularly to describe the creative process, the decision-making, the rehearsals and the various modes of collaboration; nowadays, they are complex, often experimental, so they have become nearly as diverse as the artistic signatures and the aesthetics themselves.

The stages of Aleksandar Denić, a few of which will be discussed in the following, are probably best described as hybrid spatial structures loaded with references to our urban surroundings as well as to the history of our recent past. Denić’s years of experience in the film industry are definitely noticeable when looking at these spatial compositions. But instead of designing ‘sets’ or ‘backdrops’, he creates multi-storey, labyrinth-like stage architectures that are accessible and often take up the entire height and width of the stage. Typically, these constructions are full of small details, which at first glance can barely be recognized or deciphered. Preferably, they are set on a revolving stage, so that they are moveable and can even be turned in front of the audience’s eyes. Like in most productions with Castorf, there can also live film sequences being played as well as an excessive use of cameras on the stage, which again exponentially adds to the aesthetic complexity of these designs. In terms of semiotics, Denić’s spatial setups are multilayered and ambiguous while, phenomenologically, they seem to be highly energetic and expressive. ‘At first glance all of it seems familiar. But if you look closer then you rea­lize that such constellations would never exist in reality’ is how he himself describes his designs.⁵ Compared with the feature- and equipment-oriented film scenography with all of its requirements, theatre work obviously allows for more artistic freedom. Nevertheless, Denić does reuse a lot from film when it comes to the drafts and design practices and the technical tools. For example, he uses – much more than most other stage designers – computer programs, animation as well as 3D simulations, during the creative design process. The following discussion gives insights into his artistic way of thinking, and explains how he actually works.

Aleksandar Denić, your stage settings have been described as being ‘monumental nightmares’ ( Cornish 2018 : 468), in which – at the sketching level – different historical contexts and location references are intertwined. They are complex structures; with their oversupply of signs, they are not easily readable and often they spread a threatening atmosphere that cannot be rationally grasped by a theatre audience. An explicit example here is the stage that you designed for Journey to the End of the Night (Residenztheater Munich, 2013), a theatre adaptation of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s semi-biographical novel (Voyage au Bout de la Nuit, 1932). It is set in the First World War, colonial Africa, post-war America and Paris, and deals with the traumatizing events as well as the misanthropy and world weariness of the protagonist.

The stage design for this production, an assembly of Céline’s text with scenes from Heiner Müller’s Der Auftrag (The Task), was a courtyard located in Congo, combined with the entrance of the Auschwitz concentration camp. During the Second World War, Ferdinand Céline collaborated with the Nazis, then he went into exile, later returning to France, and was celebrated as being one of the best French writers of his generation. Nobody approached him, but when he died, only a few days later, someone burned down his house, as if to say that his art work can be respected but not his political attitude and what he had done. For a similar reason, I quoted the Auschwitz entrance door, but replaced the inscription Arbeit macht frei (‘Work sets you free’) with Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. What happened to these ideals, to ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’; where have those postulates of democracy gone? Scenography, I think, has to be thought-provoking. To achieve this, I use various elements, in this case a photo of Céline and various objects that connect to his biography, for example a first aid box, since over the years, he had worked as a medical doctor specializing in epidemic control and disease protection, aside from writing books and articles. The scene was located in the African jungle: a troublesome camp, built of bare wood and scrap metal, and above all of it, there was a large screen, which was used for projecting live videos. On the scene, there was a van, like the mobile hospitals used by Médecins du Monde or Médecins sans Frontières, after whose humanitarian interventions, only flags and banners remain. I also included advertising posters for movies, especially the so-called blaxploitation movies that were released in the 1970s, and Cassius Clay’s famous ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, which was a boxing match but also a huge, liberating event for black people, African people and African American people at the time. But where are we now; what is the situation today? My aim is, here and now, to raise such questions using artistic means. Like in this production, my designs usually are structures composed of strong symbols, small emblems and heterogeneous signs; in other words: they are ‘scenographic allegories’. Parts of these sets are hyperrealistic but all in all, in the way they recontextualize and combine things, they are hugely imaginary – in fact, they are impossible constructions. My task is not to be provocative or rude but to provide, with the means of scenography, some ‘food for thought’. The creative potential of this approach becomes particularly obvious in opera productions. In opera, as we know, the libretto is set – you cannot escape, you can’t change the storyline. But as we showed with the Ring at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth (2013) or, more recently, with our staging of Charles Gounod’s Faust at the Stuttgart State Opera (2016), you can add more layers to the story and thus open it up.

Castorf’s staging of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) and your stage designs were described as being a kaleidoscope of references, locations and associations. In this production, the Nibelung myth was reinterpreted as a parable of our contemporary fixation on the quests for power, financial profit and world domination through the control of ‘liquid gold’ – oil. Your designs, placed on a revolving stage, led the audience from an American motel on Route 66 (Das Rheingold) to the early days of oil production in Azerbaijan (Die Walküre), and from there onto Mount Rushmore (Siegfried), to Alexanderplatz in Berlin, then to a run-down GDR apartment block, and finally to the Stock Exchange of Wall Street (Götterdämmerung).⁶ Reviewers complained that, with the ‘essentially non-Wagnerian’ approach of the staging, you were all too rigorously doing away with Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, ⁷ while others, however, admittedly valued it as being a ‘provocative, irritating yet fascinating production’. ⁸

FIGURE 1.1 Aleksandar Denić, Reise ans Ende der Nacht (Journey to the End of the Night), directed by Frank Castorf, Munich, Residenztheater, 2013. Photo © Aleksandar Denić.

It is pretty obvious what we did in Bayreuth with Wagner’s Ring, and indeed, it became much debated. By tracing the history of oil, we did indeed add more layers to Wagner’s opera, and the stories were even conveyed on a parallel basis. With my designs, I am sending out a lot of messages. At first, that was difficult for parts of the classic audience in Bayreuth – there was a lot of booing; later on, our approach became more accepted and in the end, it was celebrated.

These stage designs are attention seeking but also disorienting, thought-provoking and on the conceptual level quite complex – not only with regard to their rich visual facets but also in terms of materiality and spatial dimensions. How are they conceived and created, and what can be said about the artistic collaboration, rehearsals and the production processes? Could you give us some insights?

First of all, it might be important to mention that I work both in film and in theatre, and I don’t make any distinction about how I approach projects in these different fields. I work in my studio. I have my own team, which is organized akin to the production companies in the film industry and, within this team, I have several assistants who are responsible for their own parts (e.g. model making, drawing and construction plans). All this work also supports the production process in the theatre. We prepare a lot in advance to make it easier for the theatres to apply our concepts.

Still, for the theatres and their workshops, this can become quite challenging. For instance, in Bayreuth your interpretation of Brunnhilde’s rock in Siegfried, the third p...