DOI issue:
No. 56 (October, 1901)
DOI article:Macfall, Haldane: Some thoughts on the art of Gordon Craig, with particular reference to stage craft
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22775#0348
Gordon Craig
glitter of water. His craftsmanship is the tool of a
finely decorative sense; he has telling composition,
a generous instinct for spacing, and a keen eye for
the dramatic possibilities. His judgment under-
stands the limits of a medium as unerringly as it
grips the essential values of the things expressed,
whether it be a bookplate or a death-scene in an
opera.
What are called, with large-lettered pride of adver-
tisement, “ spectacular effects ” on the stage,
whether in opera or the playhouse, are not only in
themselves somewhat crude and childish in their
appeal to the adult imagination, but they have also
a confusing result upon the opera or play to which
they are the sCenic setting, in that they draw away
the attention of the onlooker from the music or
the words, as well as from the action of the charac-
ters, all of which, by consequence, instead of
dominating the performance, become but a mad
part of the resulting wrangle, perplexing the wits
in a confusing blare to eye and ear. To the
acting, to the individual action of the players, to
the emotions which it is the whole province of
the dramatic arts to arouse, this scenic over-
elaboration is absolutely disastrous—the actors
becoming but mere specks upon the landscape.
This “ spectacular ” vice is most flauntingly
displayed in Opera and the Poetic Drama. Now
Opera, since it relies on reaching our emotions
through the instrumentality of music (the words
at best being rarely heard, except by those who
already know them) can never have so direct an
appeal to man’s imagination or his emotions as
SIGN FOR AN INN BY GORDON CRAIG
the artistically spoken word. The ear has obviously
to make a more pronounced effort to catch the
meaning of music. But the gorgeous stage,
broken up into warring details of scenery that give
the eye no rest, divorces the sight from the hearing,
which, in the midst of the restless pageant, is
already" straining anxiously to catch the drift of
the music — if, indeed, it ever
catch it.
Opera is a somewhat bastard art
at best—it is only when the scenic
setting, particularly the colour, is
rendered atune to the mood of the
music that the essential absurdity
of Opera can be mitigated.
It is common experience in the
Poetic. Drama also that the slightest
discord between the mood of the
scenery and the mood of the spoken
verse, the slightest drawing away of
the eye by the confusion of the
scenery from the emotion sought to
be aroused by the voice on which
the ear is dwelling, blurs the emotion
that the player’s words are intended
to evoke. As a dire result we go
to bed, after an evening spent at “ a
great spectacular representation ”
FROM A DRAWING BY GORDON CRAIG
“ OPHELIA ”
250
glitter of water. His craftsmanship is the tool of a
finely decorative sense; he has telling composition,
a generous instinct for spacing, and a keen eye for
the dramatic possibilities. His judgment under-
stands the limits of a medium as unerringly as it
grips the essential values of the things expressed,
whether it be a bookplate or a death-scene in an
opera.
What are called, with large-lettered pride of adver-
tisement, “ spectacular effects ” on the stage,
whether in opera or the playhouse, are not only in
themselves somewhat crude and childish in their
appeal to the adult imagination, but they have also
a confusing result upon the opera or play to which
they are the sCenic setting, in that they draw away
the attention of the onlooker from the music or
the words, as well as from the action of the charac-
ters, all of which, by consequence, instead of
dominating the performance, become but a mad
part of the resulting wrangle, perplexing the wits
in a confusing blare to eye and ear. To the
acting, to the individual action of the players, to
the emotions which it is the whole province of
the dramatic arts to arouse, this scenic over-
elaboration is absolutely disastrous—the actors
becoming but mere specks upon the landscape.
This “ spectacular ” vice is most flauntingly
displayed in Opera and the Poetic Drama. Now
Opera, since it relies on reaching our emotions
through the instrumentality of music (the words
at best being rarely heard, except by those who
already know them) can never have so direct an
appeal to man’s imagination or his emotions as
SIGN FOR AN INN BY GORDON CRAIG
the artistically spoken word. The ear has obviously
to make a more pronounced effort to catch the
meaning of music. But the gorgeous stage,
broken up into warring details of scenery that give
the eye no rest, divorces the sight from the hearing,
which, in the midst of the restless pageant, is
already" straining anxiously to catch the drift of
the music — if, indeed, it ever
catch it.
Opera is a somewhat bastard art
at best—it is only when the scenic
setting, particularly the colour, is
rendered atune to the mood of the
music that the essential absurdity
of Opera can be mitigated.
It is common experience in the
Poetic. Drama also that the slightest
discord between the mood of the
scenery and the mood of the spoken
verse, the slightest drawing away of
the eye by the confusion of the
scenery from the emotion sought to
be aroused by the voice on which
the ear is dwelling, blurs the emotion
that the player’s words are intended
to evoke. As a dire result we go
to bed, after an evening spent at “ a
great spectacular representation ”
FROM A DRAWING BY GORDON CRAIG
“ OPHELIA ”
250