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DOI Artikel:Kilian, Adam; Kilian, Joanna: A Stage Design for Caravaggio
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0256
Adam Kilian
Joanna Kilian
A Stage Design for Caravaggio
The authors of the Caravaggio exhibition, Joanna Kilian and Antoni
Ziemba, offered the project of the exhibition design to Adam Kilian-designer
of theatre sets. The fact that we would be collaborating with a “theatre person”
guaranteed from the beginning that the result would be strongly influenced by
the principles of stage design.
At the outset a few words about the nature of theatre. Stage set is actually
very much like the weather. Daily weather always has some particular quality.
It might be wonderful, sunny, awful, or rainy. Likewise, every set design has
some special quality. The architecture of classic Greek theatre possessed unique
sets in olive groves beneath star-scattered skies; medieval stage designers took
advantage of cathedral interiors or the buildings surrounding the square in
front of the church.
Baroque performances displayed unusually rich splendour, with dazzling
illusionary effects in carefully designed sets. Dragons appeared onstage amid
smoke, tritons and mermaids emerged from ocean waves. An empty black or
white space can also be a stage set, acquiring dramatic significance thanks to
the actors and the events taking place on it. Set designs determine and
indicate the place in which the action of a drama takes place. Yet it is not
merely a question of the ordering of the decorative elements in which the
actors move. Above all set design must harmonise, coexist, and cooperate
with the drama. It must contribute to the theatrical work to the same extent
as the music, text, and the craft of the actors. Set design is inseparable from
the staging concept; in other words it is that which gives concrete shape to
the dramatic text or the libretto. Collaboration between the director and the
set designer, especially at the very beginning, has crucial significance. The
most important issues, the concept of the form of the performance’s staging,
the materia prima of every production, crystallize during the first
conversations.
During the production of a museum exhibition, it is the designer who
assumes the role of theatre director. For a stage designer the creation of
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Joanna Kilian
A Stage Design for Caravaggio
The authors of the Caravaggio exhibition, Joanna Kilian and Antoni
Ziemba, offered the project of the exhibition design to Adam Kilian-designer
of theatre sets. The fact that we would be collaborating with a “theatre person”
guaranteed from the beginning that the result would be strongly influenced by
the principles of stage design.
At the outset a few words about the nature of theatre. Stage set is actually
very much like the weather. Daily weather always has some particular quality.
It might be wonderful, sunny, awful, or rainy. Likewise, every set design has
some special quality. The architecture of classic Greek theatre possessed unique
sets in olive groves beneath star-scattered skies; medieval stage designers took
advantage of cathedral interiors or the buildings surrounding the square in
front of the church.
Baroque performances displayed unusually rich splendour, with dazzling
illusionary effects in carefully designed sets. Dragons appeared onstage amid
smoke, tritons and mermaids emerged from ocean waves. An empty black or
white space can also be a stage set, acquiring dramatic significance thanks to
the actors and the events taking place on it. Set designs determine and
indicate the place in which the action of a drama takes place. Yet it is not
merely a question of the ordering of the decorative elements in which the
actors move. Above all set design must harmonise, coexist, and cooperate
with the drama. It must contribute to the theatrical work to the same extent
as the music, text, and the craft of the actors. Set design is inseparable from
the staging concept; in other words it is that which gives concrete shape to
the dramatic text or the libretto. Collaboration between the director and the
set designer, especially at the very beginning, has crucial significance. The
most important issues, the concept of the form of the performance’s staging,
the materia prima of every production, crystallize during the first
conversations.
During the production of a museum exhibition, it is the designer who
assumes the role of theatre director. For a stage designer the creation of
246