Abstract
Autant and Lara built a Theatre of Space for the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, which modeled the experience of a modern public square. In performances, five simultaneous scenes both surrounded and were surrounded by the audience to summon the multiple elements of a festival. Architectural techniques of layered space, silhouette, and false perspective heightened actors’ movements visually, while cinematic techniques of montage and panorama were transposed into live theatre. Similar strategies appear in the design of modern public spaces, such as Perret’s proposal for Porte Maillot and several buildings designed for the 1937 exposition such as the Palais de Tokyo and Place de Chaillot. Popular festivals in public space were community events that Autant and Perret would consider essential to modern, collective urban life.
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Notes
Corvin NoInitials, Le Théâtre de recherche entre les deux guerres: Le laboratoire Art et Action p. 76.
Apollinaire Noinitials, “Breasts of Tiresias” in Jacques Guicharnaud (ed.), (1961) Modern French Theatre from Giradoux to Beckett (New Haven: Yale) p. 66.
Arnold Aronson (1977) The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography (Ann Arbor: UMI) p. 19. Frederick Kiesler drew an “Endless Theatre” in 1923 and designed a “space stage” for the 1924 Vienna Music Festival. Walter Gropius designed a “Totaltheatre” for director Erwin Piscator in 1927. El Lissitzky designed a surrounding stage in 1926 for Vsevelod Meyerhold for an unrealized production of “I Want a Child” by Tretyakov.
Autant described the Theatre of Space, and explained his intentions and precedents for the design in Art et action, Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes, n.p. Art et action also collected manuscripts for the plays, correspondence, and photos of the building in a scrap book Art et action, Théâtre de l’espace, Folio 27, Fond Art et Action, Archive des Arts du Spectacle Bibliothéque Nationale de France, Paris
The theatre is described with some photos of construction in Art et action, “Théâtre de l’espace” Folio 27.
The built project had operable skylights but not the system of counterweights that would open the ceiling and skylights completely.
Corvin, Le Théâtre de recherche entre les deux guerres: Le laboratoire Art et Action p. 300.
Both of these scenes were part of typescripts written by Autant for Theatre of Space performances. Art et action, “Théâtre de l’espace” Folio 27.
See section on Théâtre de l’espace in Art et action, Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes.
In a 1929 performance of “Cain” by Lord Byron, Autant built an upper platform for celestial scenes and specified that a skirting board should hide the actors’ feet so they would appear suspended in air. Art et action (n.d.) Cain, Fond Art et Action, Archive des Arts du Spectacle, Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) p. 30.
He went on to invoke Corybant, priest of the Phrygian goddess of nature, Cybele, known for ecstatic dance, spontaneous movements inspired by the spiritual world. The entire quote reads: “Le Théâtre de l’Espace concoit une dramaturgie a deux plans dont l’un soit le corollaire de l’autre. Au centre un plateau rectangulaire ou parvis scènique, est destiné à recevoir le public et à réaliser les scènes qui commentent, analysent et rélient l’action publique à l’action universelle, en un mot c’est le rappel du corybante dans l’orchestra.” See also Art et action, Theatre de l’espace Folio 27.
Il y a ceux qui réussissent et ceux qui échouent. Ceux qui échouent, comme les morts par rapport aux vivants sont de beaucoup les plus nombreux. Mais ce sont ceux qui échouent qui fertilisent la pensée humaine. Glorifions ceux qui échouent et encourageons-les car ce sont eux qui créent la vie. Je repartirai, il repartira, nous repartirons, persévérer, persévérer, ≪ Les Prévisionnaires, ≫ Art et action, Théâtre de l’espace Folio 27 p. 50.
Typescripts for Les Prévisionnaires and Les Métaux are held in Art et action, Théâtre de l’espace Folio 27. Autant’s cycle of plays were staged as modest performances for a limited audience, not the grand spectacles that he and Lara had imagined. Letters in the archive suggest that Autant was disappointed by the outcome.
Autant and Lara, La philosophie du théâtre. Craig wrote repeatedly, “we should play in open air” see Craig, The Theatre—Advancing p. 19. Meyerhold also wrote that theatre should get out into the open air, “we want our setting to be an iron pipe or the open sea or something constructed by the new man.” Meyerhold, Meyerhold on Theatre p. 174.
See “Théâtre de L’Espace” in Art et action, Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes.
Roann Barris (1998) “Culture as Battleground: Subversive Narratives in Constructivist Architecture and Stage Design,” Journal of Architectural Education, 52/2 (November 1998), 109–23. See also Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of Art, Architecture and the City p. 17.
Meyerhold NoInitials, Meyerhold on Theatre p. 170.
Barris. “Culture as Battleground” p. 111. Vsevelod Meyerhold used such techniques in the early 1920s. See also C. D. Innes (1972) Irwin Piscador’s Political Theatre: The Development of Modern German Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
In the context of Soviet Russia, Meyerhold asked how theatre could “imbue spectators with that ‘life-giving force’ (to quote Comrade Stalin) which will carry the masses forward to a world of new revolutionary creative effort?” In “The Reconstruction of the Theatre” in Meyerhold, Meyerhold on Theatre p. 270.
In his description of the Théâtre de l’espace, in Cinq conceptions du structures dramatiques modernes, Autant reproduced a plan of Syrkus’ renovation of the Irena Solska theatre in Zolibor near Varsovie, Poland. He also showed a photo of Syrkus’ set design for “Boston” a drama based on the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. In Poland, Autant and Lara saw a model for a massive “Theatre of the Future” designed in 1929 by Syrkus, Tonecki and Andrzej Pronaszko. Tonecki wrote a short history of environmental theatre in which he cites Apollinaire’s poem (quoted above). See Aronson, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography p. 126. Aronson cites Syrkus, Szymon (1973) “On the Simultaneous Theatre” Mysl Teatralna Polskiej Awangardy 1919–1939 (Warsaw). See also Zygmunt Tonecki “Architektura i technika teatralna w inscenizaeji wspolezesnej” Varsovie (1935).
Szymon Syrkus, Theatre of the Future or Simultaneous Theatre, 1928–29.
Art et action, “Analyse de la Quintologie des Conceptions de Structures” in Art et action (1952 (1933)) “Le Théâtre universaire,” in Art Et Action (ed.), Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes (Paris: Corti). n.p.
Art et action, “Cours de comédie spontanée moderne (1e, 2e et 3e année) technique et réalisations,” p. 5. Booklets included in Art et action, Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes. In the early 1920s, Meyerhold also developed a gestural form of acting called “biomechanics.” See Mikhail Kolesnikov (1991) “The Russian Avant-Garde and the Theatre of the Artist,” in Nancy Van Norman Baer (ed.), Theatre in Revolution (San Francisco: Thames & Hudson, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), 85–95 p. 90.
See: Corvin, Le Théâtre de recherche entre les deux guerres: Le laboratoire Art et Action. p.298. In Moscow, Theatre of the Book developed alongside improvisational drama. Autant and Lara wrote “For example, at a certain point in a drama a character, one night, might appear with a bouquet in his hand. On another night at the same point, he might have a suitcase or tool or a musical instrument. The audience returned twenty or thirty times to the same play that they knew by heart in order to see the troupe’s innovative interpretations.” Art et action (1952 (1931)) “Le Théâtre du livre,” in Art Et Action (ed.), Cinq conceptions de structures dramatiques modernes (Paris: Corti) p. 2.
Nikolai Pavlovich Okhlopkov as quoted in James Harbeck (1996) “Okhlopkov and the Naissance of the Postmodern,” Theatre Insight, 7/1. Okhlopkov was a student of Meyerhold in Moscow. He was artistic director of the Realistic Theatre in Moscow from 1930–1937 and developed a type of staging that used many effects from cinema. See also Zygmunt Tonecki (1932) “At the Boundary of Film and Theatre,” Close Up, 9, pp. 31–35. See also
Labrouste’s Bibliothéque St. Genevieve in Paris displayed names of authors on its façade, proposing that architecture honestly reveal its interior on its exterior.
Claude Autant-Lara and Robert Mallet-Stevens were set designers for L’Inhumaine (1923) a film directed by Marcel L’Herbier, who had staged his first play, “Giving Birth to the Dead, Miracle in purple, black and gold” with Autant and Lara in 1919. Claude Autant-Lara designed numerous sets for his parents’ productions and became an independent film-maker. See Claude Autant-Lara (1984) La rage dans le coeur: chronique cinémaographique du 20e siècle ([Paris]: H. Veyrier).
Autant NoInitials and Lara NoInitials, La philosophie du théâtre, p. 5. He was referring to the broad role of art as an experimental field that seeks truth. He quoted Oscar Wilde, “There are times when art attains the dignity of manual labor.”
Porte Maillot in 1930, the palace of the Soviets in 1931, and the Chaillot Hill in Paris in 1933.
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© 2014 Gray Read
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Read, G. (2014). The Festival of Seeing Others and Being Seen: Theatre of Space. In: Modern Architecture in Theatre: The Experiments of Art et Action. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137368683_3
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