Light first: a central force in theatrical creation

ABSTRACT

This essay is a reflection on the language of scenic light, based on the long operational experience of the author as theatre director and lighting designer. In particular, his workshops on light from 1989 to 2015 at different Italian fine arts academies (Catania, Urbino, L'Aquila, Florence, Rome) are examined. Over the years, these workshops have produced about twenty performances focused exclusively on light, objects and sound, hence without text and without actors, aimed at verifying the ability of light to produce and put into play its own autonomous language, poetry and drama through a concatenation of visual events in time and space. These performances – however abstract and without narrative structure – tend to induce a strong emotional involvement in the audience with reactions such as laughter or tears. This has convinced the author that light is capable of elaborating its own independent dramatic 'discourse', comparable to some extent with that of music.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The definition adopted in Italy echoed the one used since the early 1970s in the United States, with reference above all to Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman.

2 The literature in Italian on the ‘Theatre of Images’ and on ‘post-avant-garde theatre’ is very ample.

3 Italian fine arts academies traditionally comprise four schools: painting, sculpture, decoration and scenography.

4 See www.teatropotlach.org.

5 A list of the performances produced by the workshops, with information, pictures and reviews is given in Tomasevic (2022, 321–349).

6 An important contribution on the subject is Perruchon (2016).

7 Slow Flash by Fabrizio Crisafulli and Andreas Staudinger. Direction, space and lighting design: Fabrizio Crisafulli. With Irene Coticchio and Barbara de Luzenberger. Costume design: Eva Coen. Assistant Director: Lucia Riccelli. Music: Giardini Pensili, Sculthorpe, Shostakovich, Les Tambours du Bronx, Weiss. Premiere: Cairo, International Festival for Experimental Theatre, El Hanager Theatre, 2 September 1997. A detailed description of this work, with information, reviews and images is given by Tomasevic (2022, 162–171).

8 Catania Fine Arts Academy Workshop, Fog-Malevich. A Scenography’s Dance. Premiere: Catania, Fine Arts Academy Theatre, 9 January 1990. On this performance, see Mélissa (1991, 47).

9 On the version of Pictures at an exhibition produced by L’Aquila Fine Arts Academy workshop, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC0FAL-y7tE&ab_channel=jide1981.

10 The overall performance (first part: Pictures of an Exhibition; second part: Upside Down) was entitled Scena in scena (Stage on Stage) and was produced by the workshop of the Urbino Fine Arts Academy in 1994 (Barbieri 1995; Clark 1997; Tarquini 2010b, 53–55).

11 A point of reference on this working method is the concept of ‘Theatre of poetry’ (Mango 1994). It is also possible to establish relationships with what Pierpaolo Pasolini defined as ‘cinema of poetry’ (Pasolini 1976).

12 On the theme of stage light as a material, I would like to point to the international conference Lumière-Matière, curated by Cristina Grazioli and Véronique Perruchon, held at the Lille University, France (7–8 December 2019) and at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice (15–17 January 2020), the proceedings of which are in the process of being published.

13 Il Pudore Bene in Vista by Fabrizio Crisafulli. Direction, space and lighting design: Fabrizio Crisafulli. With Giusi Gizzo, Ramona Mirabella, Agata Monterosso; in the movie: Fabrizio Crisafulli, Giusi Gizzo, Maria Giovanna Palazzo, Gemma Spina. Music: A. Vollenweider, D. Shostakovich, I. Strawinsky, P. Portella, G. Bottesini, G. Paisiello, Biota, S. Jeffes, S. Brown. Premiere: Fara Sabina (Italy), International Theatre Festival, Teatro della Rocca, 4 September 1991. The performance’s title was taken from the poem La pudeur bien en vue included in Eluard (1943), which is one of the texts that inspired the work. A detailed description of the performance, with information, reviews and images, is given by Tomasevic (2023, 106–112).

14 I thank Berilo Luigi Deiró Nosella, professor of Stage Lighting and Theatre Direction at the Universidade Federal de São João del Rei – UFSJ, Brazil, for first urging me to reflect on this issue, referring to my work. My interview with him on this topic is in the process of being published.

15 Centro e ali by Fabrizio Crisafulli. Direction, space and lighting design: Fabrizio Crisafulli. Coreography: Giovanna Summo. With: Giovanna Summo, Carmen López Luna, Anne Line Redtrøen. Artistic collaboration: Adele Mirabella. Costume design: Eva Coen. Music: P. Filastò, M. Monk. Sound design: A. Zammit. Premiere: Rome, Animato 96 festival, Sala 1 gallery, 10 May 1996. A detailed description of this work, with information, reviews and images is given by Tomasevic (2022, 150–156).

16 Some of my scores have been published in full or in part. The score of the performance Jeannette (2002) was published in part in Lux (2003); the score of Magnetico, light performance by the Florence Fine Arts Academy workshop, was published in full in Tarquini 2010a; the score of Die Schlafenden (2013), reproduced here, was published in full in Smorlesi (2018).

17 Die Schlafenden by Fabrizio Crisafulli and Andreas Staudinger. Direction, space and lighting design: Fabrizio Crisafulli. With: Simona Lisi, Angie Mautz, Maria Cristina Nicoli, Sigrid Elisa Pliessnig, Lucrezia Valeria Scardigno. Music and soundscape: Andreino Salvadori. Premiere: Maria Saal (Austria), Tonhof, 24 August 2013. A detailed description of this work, with information, reviews and images is given by Tomasevic (2022, 277–282).