The play of light: rethinking mood lighting in performance

ABSTRACT

Emerging from a context of expanded scenography, this article examines the role of light in creating and shaping atmospheres in performance. This capacity of light is significant in relation to the emerging body of research on the nature and composition of atmospheres in and beyond performance. Within theatre and performance studies, however, light’s atmospheric potential has rarely been considered in depth, and colloquially light is often described as ‘atmospheric’ as a catch-all term that precludes the complexity at stake in its generation of atmosphere, or its provocation of mood. This paper, then, offers a critical rehabilitation of the term ‘atmospheric light’, by examining the sensual as well as visual ways in which light generates shifting atmospheres in Enda Walsh’s Ballyturk. In thinking through this particular example, this article employs scenographic thinking to address the complex multi-modal operation of atmospheric light in performance. In so doing, I aim to show the dramaturgical and ontological significance of atmospheres constructed by and through light in performance, and to point to the material and critical importance of scenographically constructed atmospheres in theatre practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Atmosphere
• scenography
• lighting design
• dramaturgy
• Enda Walsh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The production in question premiered in Galway in 2014, later transferring to the Royal National Theatre in London, before being remounted (and partially recast) in 2017 for performances in Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and St Ann’s Warehouse in New York. The play has also been performed more recently at the Tron in Glasgow (2018), in translation in Germany’s Theater Freiburg (2019) and in Japan’s KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre and Setagaya Public Theatre (2019) but this article focuses specifically on the Landmark production, directed by Walsh.

2. Complicities between scenography and dramaturgy have been established elsewhere (Collins and Aronson 2015; Hann 2019) and specifically in relation to light (Graham 2018).

3. Interestingly, the motif of characters controlling light on stage in the service of storytelling is also notably evident in an earlier Walsh play, The Walworth Farce (2006), the original production of which was directed by Mikel Murfi, the actor who here plays 2.

4. I am using a singular ‘they’ here as a gender-neutral pronoun, to allow for the fact that this role was first played by a man – Stephen Rea – but later played by a woman – Olwyn Fouéré.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Graham

Katherine Graham is a lecturer in theatre at the University of York. She is currently co-convenor of the Theatre and Performance Research Association’s Scenography Working Group and has published work about light in Theatre and Performance Design and Contemporary Theatre Review. She has also worked extensively as a designer for theatre and dance.