Extension: Comparison and Influence for Copeau and The Vieux Colombier

It is interesting to note other commentaries on Copeaus stage design as 'along Elizabethan lines" Lawrence D. Kritzman, Brian J. Reilly and Malcom DeBovoise mention in The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought (1893): 

"Copeau opposed the machinery of theatre, preferring a bare stage with a fixed mulit-purpose set of levels, platforms and stair, along Elizabethan lines, that avoided realism. He favoured the classics and presented them in spare, restrained stagings destined to bring out the life of the dramatic text. The staging needed to function of the text rather than of some outside ideology like realism or symbolism, and the instrument of that text was, first and foremost, the actor. ..

…Copeau was..,drawn to the Elizabethan theatre; he stressed the text, the actors, and the uncluttered stage. He has his company work on diction and breathingm and on the sense as the best guide for constructing characters from the inside."

Where, conversely, Thomas Largue (in giving a lecture in 2001 on Elizabethan theatre at BTEC http://shakespearean.org.uk/elizthea1.htm ), suggests that this assumption of the Elizabethan stage as what we would call 'minimalist', is misguided, and that even though 

"The Elizabethans did not use fixed scenery or painted backdrops of the sort that became popular in the Victorian period... those who claim that the Elizabethans performed on a completely bare stage are wrong. A wide variety of furniture and props were brought onstage to set the scene as necessary - ranging from simple beds, tables, chairs and thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, an unpleasant looking cave to represent the mouth of hell, and so forth. Such props often played a major part in the play..."

What can be assured, however, is Copeau's dedication to the text as most important to the theatre production.

There does not seem to be much information with regards to the relationship of the Audience and the performers themselves other than that of the role as 'spectator'. 

Adolphe Appia

Sketch by Adolphe Appia for the set of a Wagnerian drama

notice the similarity to Copeau's stage design in The Viuex Colombier

In Die Musik und die Inszenierung (1899; “Music and Staging”), Appia established a hierarchy of ideas for achieving his aims:



(1) a three-dimensional setting rather than a flat, dead, painted backdrop as a proper background to display the movement of the living actors;



(2) lighting that unifies actors and setting into an artistic whole, evoking an emotional response from the audience;



(3) the interpretive value of mobile and colorful lighting, as a visual counterpart of the music;



(4) lighting that spotlights the actors and highlights areas of action. Appia designed sets in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland. He also designed sets for La Scala opera house in Milan and for the opera house at Basel.

Adolphe Appia(1862-1928) 
a Visionary of Modern Stage Lighting http://www.stage-lighting-museum.com/museum/html/history-5/appia.html

REFERENCES:

A Lecture on
Elizabethan Theatre By Thomas Larque.

(A lecture originally given to BTEC in Performing Arts students
 as part of their course in 2001)

http://shakespearean.org.uk/elizthea1.htm

Return to man: Jacques Copeau and the actor

Author: Vincent L. Angotti^a

Published in:  Communication Studies, Volume 24, Issue 3 Autumn 1973 , pages 151 - 157

Previously published as: Central States Speech Journal (0008-9575) until 1989

Theatre Research International (New Series) (1977), 2: 221-229 Cambridge University Press 

Adolphe Appia(1862-1928) 
a Visionary of Modern Stage Lighting

http://www.stage-lighting-museum.com/museum/html/history-5/appia.html