DOI Heft:
No. 173 (August, 1907)
DOI Artikel:Singer, Hans Wolfgang: Modern stage mounting in Germany, [2]: Orlik's ,A winter's tale' at Berlin
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20775#0252
Modern Stage Mounting in Germany
looks well enough as a picture, and seems all right
as long as the actors remain just in front of the foot-
lights, but which gives them no chance to move
about. As soon as they do that, such things
happen as a moderate-sized man knocking with
his helmet up against the keystone of a great
cathedral portal in the background. The old
scene-painting school, starting from the basis that
actual illusion was not the office of the theatre,
simply have accepted the function of the stage
directions. For the coronation scene in Schiller's
" Maid of Orleans" they paint the whole of the
Cathedral of Rheims in the background, without
the least regard of true perspective, so that the
audience may know, without having to consult the
book, where the scene takes place. The new
school does not care in the least about mere facts,
communicable by means of words. Their sole
aim is harmony, with or without the illusion of
reality, and they will not place the actors in a
setting in which they cannot move about without
seeming ridiculously out of proportion. They will
paint only part of a cathedral porch, no matter
whether not even a single man or woman in the
audience can glean therefrom just where the scene
takes place.
That the new school exercises the better judg-
ment of the two is beyond a doubt. For even if
you accept the very prepossessing theory that upon
the stage actual illusion should not be aimed at,
and that an attempt at suggestion should take its
place, the means adopted by the older school to
this end were altogether ill-chosen. For you
cannot suggest a thing by placing a complete cut-
and-dried image of it before anybody's eyes. This,
rather, is describing the thing. And the descrip-
tion is awkwardly misleading, since, for one thing,
an impression of size is intended to be communi-
cated by means of a picture which reduces actuality
to more or less the scale of a miniature.
The prison and the palace-front of Orlik's were
genuine in their actual dimensions, and genuine in
their structure—i.e., wherever there were any recesses
or projections in the ground plan, these were not
only painted, but real. This causes, of course,
more trouble to the scene painter and stage
"a winter's tale" : trial scene
222
by emil orlik
looks well enough as a picture, and seems all right
as long as the actors remain just in front of the foot-
lights, but which gives them no chance to move
about. As soon as they do that, such things
happen as a moderate-sized man knocking with
his helmet up against the keystone of a great
cathedral portal in the background. The old
scene-painting school, starting from the basis that
actual illusion was not the office of the theatre,
simply have accepted the function of the stage
directions. For the coronation scene in Schiller's
" Maid of Orleans" they paint the whole of the
Cathedral of Rheims in the background, without
the least regard of true perspective, so that the
audience may know, without having to consult the
book, where the scene takes place. The new
school does not care in the least about mere facts,
communicable by means of words. Their sole
aim is harmony, with or without the illusion of
reality, and they will not place the actors in a
setting in which they cannot move about without
seeming ridiculously out of proportion. They will
paint only part of a cathedral porch, no matter
whether not even a single man or woman in the
audience can glean therefrom just where the scene
takes place.
That the new school exercises the better judg-
ment of the two is beyond a doubt. For even if
you accept the very prepossessing theory that upon
the stage actual illusion should not be aimed at,
and that an attempt at suggestion should take its
place, the means adopted by the older school to
this end were altogether ill-chosen. For you
cannot suggest a thing by placing a complete cut-
and-dried image of it before anybody's eyes. This,
rather, is describing the thing. And the descrip-
tion is awkwardly misleading, since, for one thing,
an impression of size is intended to be communi-
cated by means of a picture which reduces actuality
to more or less the scale of a miniature.
The prison and the palace-front of Orlik's were
genuine in their actual dimensions, and genuine in
their structure—i.e., wherever there were any recesses
or projections in the ground plan, these were not
only painted, but real. This causes, of course,
more trouble to the scene painter and stage
"a winter's tale" : trial scene
222
by emil orlik