Performing Arts and Technology

Technology has always affected the theater. The Ancient Greeks introduced scenic painting but also the deus ex machina, a wooden elevator that brought a character onto the stage straight from heaven. In the eighteenth century, with the construction of the National Opera in Paris, there were wing-supporting chariots, overhead rigging sets, and an elaborate system of wing-operated floor traps set between the chariot slots. Those operations were mainly operated by ‘‘manpower’’—a sizable number of stagehands—as well as by horses. In the nineteenth century, powered prime movers took over this task.

In the modern theater there are a variety of mechanisms used to erect, position, and manipulate scenery: hoists, lifts and horizontal drives. Hoists raise or lower scenery from the stage penthouse, lifts bring up scenic elements beneath the stage floor, and horizontal drives slide platforms, flats, and large properties from the wings onto the visible part of the stage or from one area of the stage to another.

Lighting and lighting effects have been of special interest in the performing arts for a long time. The modern era of stage lighting started with the invention of a practical electric lamp by Thomas A. Edison in 1880; gas lighting, which had been used before, was quickly discarded. At the turn of the twentieth century, incandescent lamps were in general use for stage lighting. Shortly before World War I concentrated oil filaments made incandescent spotlight possible, which in turn gave rise to the further development of stagecraft.

Much lighting equipment was developed for special effects, moving clouds, for rain or snow or for fire effects. The oldest effects projector, the ‘‘Linnebach lantern,’’ dates from the World War I era. In this ‘‘scene projector,’’ as the Linnebach lantern was also called, a concentrated light source is placed in a deep black box; a painted slide is placed on the side of the box left open. The design painted on the glass is projected against a drop onstage, greatly enlarged, at a relatively short distance. As no lens is used in a Linnebach lantern, the light source must be powerful and concentrated.

Around the mid-twentieth century new interest arose in the use of projections. At a Wagner music festival at Bayreuth, Germany in the 1950s, Richard Wagner’s grandson Wieland reduced the three-dimensional scenic elements to their essentials and then flooded the stage with multiple, overlapping projected patterns. Shortly afterwards the Czechoslovakian designer Josef Svobada developed his concept of ‘‘visions on space.’’

He massed three-dimensional screens and, with slide and films, created a montage effect. In the early twentieth century motor-driven dimmers controlled auditorium lighting, but they were cumbersome and expensive for stage lighting. In 1890 the first remote-controlled dimmer was used, beset with problems. A good half-century later, remote control worked satisfactorily as the result of the work by George Izenour from Yale University, who in 1948 developed a dimmer with a thyratron, a type of electron tube. A few decades later, computerization increased the parameters of what can be done to enhance theatrical illusion and to come close the Wagnerian ideal of ‘‘total theater.’’ With computerization hardly anything has to be left to chance.

Remote control is a key innovation in twentieth century theater technology. Computers are part of every operation. They seem to be best at repetitive or standardized operations and repetition, which is necessary for grand spectaculars requiring the complex coordination of various scenic elements. The director, as the main creative artist in the theater, is in charge of all this; interpreting the script, guiding the designers, and also manipulating the performers in order to realize his artistic objectives.

Today many actors and critics argue that computer-controlled theater has established conditions in which the director, as puppet-master, is in total command of what is happening. He or she sits at the console and coordinates the sound, adjusts the lightening, and shifts the scenery. The director manipulates the performer, who is bereft of spontaneity and required to conform rather than to create. This pessimistic assessment plays down the important role that some directors already had in precomputer times and also the amount of artistic freedom famous actors still enjoy today, but the problem hinted at above certainly exists.