3.4.

Space Key terms:

• realism
• naturalism
Space is an important element in drama since the stage • stage props
itself also represents a space where action is presented. • word
One must of course not forget that types of stage have scenery
changed in the history of the theatre and that this has • symbolic
space
also influenced the way plays were performed (see Types
of Stage ch. 3.8.). The analysis of places and settings in
plays can help one get a better feel for characters and
their behaviour but also for the overall atmosphere.
Plays can differ significantly with regard to how space is
presented and how much information about space is
offered. While in George Bernard Shaw’s plays the
secondary text provides detailed spatio-temporal
descriptions, one finds hardly anything in the way of
secondary text in Shakespeare (see Gurr and Ichikawa
2000).
The stage set quite literally ‘sets the scene’ for
a play in that it already conveys a certain tone, e.g.,
one of desolation and poverty or mystery and secrecy.
The fact that the description of the stage sets in the
secondary text is sometimes very detailed and sometimes
hardly worth mentioning is another crucial starting
point for further analysis since that can tell us
something about more general functions of settings.
Actual productions frequently invent their own set,
independent of the information provided in a text. Thus,
a very detailed set with lots of stage props may simply
be used to show off theatrical equipment. In Victorian
melodrama (see ch. 3.9.2.), for example, even
horses were

Basics of English Studies, Version 1

03/04, Drama
brought on stage in order to make the ‘show’ more
appealing but also to demonstrate a theatre’s wealth and
ability to provide expensive costumes, background
paintings, etc. A more detailed stage set also aims at
creating an illusion of realism, i.e., the scene presented
on stage is meant to be as true- to-life as possible and the
audience is expected to succumb to that illusion. At the
same time, a detailed set draws attention to problems of
an individual’s milieu, for example, or background in
general. This was particularly important in naturalist
writing, which was premised on the idea that a
person’s character and behaviour are largely determined
by his or her social context.
By contrast, if detail is missing in the presentation
of the setting, whether in the text or in production, that
obviously also has a reason. Sometimes, plays do not
employ detailed settings because they do not aim at
presenting an individualised, personal background but a
general scenario that could be placed anywhere and
affect anyone. The stage set in Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot, for example, is really bare: “A country road. A
tree”. One can argue that this minimal set highlights the
characters’ uprootedness and underlines the play’s focus
on human existence in general.

3.4.1. Word
Scenery

Since drama is multimedial, the visual aspect inevitably

plays an important role. The layout/overall appearance of
the set is usually described in stage directions or
descriptions at the beginning of acts or scenes. Thus, all
the necessary stage props (i.e., properties used on stage
such as furniture, accessories, etc.) and possibly stage
painting can be presented verbally in secondary texts,
which is then translated into an actual visualisation on
stage. One must not forget that directors are of course
free to interpret secondary texts in different ways and
thus to create innovative renditions of plays. An
example is Richard Loncraine’s 1996 film version
of Shakespeare’s Richard III, where the play is set in the
1930s.
The set or, more precisely, what it is supposed to
represent, can also be conveyed in the characters’
speech. In Elizabethan times, for example, where the
set was rather bare with little stage props and no
background scenery, the spatio-temporal framework of a
scene had to be provided by characters’ references to it.
The jester Trinculo in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for
example, gives the following description of the island and
the weather:

Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any

weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear
it sing i’ the wind. Yond same black cloud, yond
huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed
his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before I know
not where to hide my head, yond same cloud cannot
choose but fall by pailfuls.
(The Tempest, II,
2: 19-23)

While Elizabethan theatre goers could not actually ‘see’

a cloud on stage, they were invited to imagine it in their
mind’s eye. The setting was thus created rhetorically as
word scenery rather than by means of painted
canvas, stage props and artificial lighting (which was not
common practice until the Restoration period).
3.4.2. Setting and
Characterisation

The setting can be used as a means of indirect

characterisation. Thus, the anonymity and unloving
atmosphere among the characters in Edward Bond’s
play Saved is anticipated by and mirrored in the
barrenness of the stage set where only the most
necessary pieces of furniture are presented but nothing
that would give Pam’s parents’ flat a more personal
touch. The characters in William Congreve’s The Way of
the World, by comparison, are implicitly characterised as
high society because they meet in coffee-houses, St.
James’ Park and posh private salons. A close look at the
setting can thus contribute to a better understanding of
the characters and their behaviour.

3.4.3. Symbolic
Space

Another important factor to consider in this context is

the interrelatedness of setting and plot. Obviously, the
plot of a play is never presented in a vacuum but always
against the background of a specific scenery and often
the setting corresponds with what is going on in the
storyworld. Thus, the storm at the beginning of
Shakespeare’s The Tempest not only starts off the play
and functions as an effective background to the action
but it also reflects the ‘disorder’ in which the characters
find themselves at the beginning: Antonio unlawfully
holds the position of his brother, Prospero; Sebastian is
willing to get rid of his brother, King Alonso, in order to
take his place; and the savage and deformed slave
Caliban broods on revenge against his self-appointed
master, Prospero. The lack of peace and order in the
social world is thus analogous to chaos and destruction in
the natural world. Likewise, in Shakespeare’s King Lear,
a storm signifies disorder when King Lear’s daughters
Goneril and Regan turn their father out of doors although
they had vowed their affection for him and had
received their share of the kingdom in return. In A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, the secretive and highly
sexual atmosphere is underlined by the dark forest at
midnight, in which fog and darkness partly support but
also thwart the characters’ secret plans and actions. One
can say that rather than only functioning as a background
or creating a certain atmosphere, these spaces
become symbolic spaces as they point towards other
levels of meaning in the text. The setting can thus support
the expression of the world view current at a certain time
or general philosophical, ethical or moral questions.

SO
WHAT?

Nowadays, theatres are equipped with all sorts of sets,

props and technical machinery which allow for a wide
range of audiovisual effects. When analysing plays, it is
therefore worthwhile asking to what extent the plays
actually make use of these devices and for what purpose.
One important question one can ask, for example, is
whether space is presented in detail or only in general
terms. Consider the following introductory commentary
from Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock:

The living-room of a two-room tenancy occupied by

the Boyle family in a tenement house in Dublin. Left,
a door leading to another part of the house; left of
door a
 window looking into the street; at back a dresser;
farther to right at back, a window looking into the back
of the house. Between the window and the dresser is a
picture of the Virgin; below the picture, on a bracket,
is a crimson bowl in which a floating votive light is
burning. Farther to the right is a small bed partly
concealed by cretonne hangings strung on a twine. To
the right is the fireplace; near the fireplace is a door
leading to the other room. Beside the fireplace is a box
containing coal. On the mantelshelf is an alarm clock
lying on its face. In a corner near the window looking
into the back is a galvanized bath. A table and some
chairs. On the table are breakfast things for one. A
teapot is on the hob and a frying-pan stands inside the
fender. There are a few books on the dresser and one
on the table. Leaning against the dresser is a long-
handled shovel – the kind invariably used by labourers
when turning concrete or mixing mortar. […]

What strikes one immediately is the minute precision with

which the set is organised. Not only do we get a great
number of even small stage props (picture, books, coal
box, breakfast things, etc.) but their relative position to
one another is also exactly described. If one considers
that this is the very first scene the viewers see, it is
almost as if they looked at a very detailed and realistic
picture of a working-class home. The shovel indicates the
social background of the people who live in the flat, and
the fact that it is only a two-room flat points towards their
relative poverty. The setting tells us even more about the
family. Thus, we can conclude from the picture of the
Virgin Mary and the floating votive light that this must be
a religious family or at least a family which lives
according to the Irish Catholic tradition. Furthermore,
we identify a potential discrepancy when we look at
the books. While the small number of books suggests on
the one hand that the people who live there are not
highly educated, the fact that there are books at all also
indicates that at least someone in the family must be
interested in reading. The text itself continues by
explaining who that person is, Mary, and another
member of the family, Johnny Boyle, is also introduced.
We are even given information on Mary’s inner conflict
caused by her background on the one hand and her
knowledge of literature on the other hand. Just as the first
appearance of two of the characters blends in with a
pictorial presentation of the setting, Mary and Johnny
also seem to ‘belong’ to or be marked by that
background. In other words: The naturalistic setting is
used as indirect characterisation and defines the
characters’ conflicts or struggles.

Sometimes a bare stage indicates the play’s focus on the

characters’ inner lives and consciousness, and technical
devices and stage props are mainly used to emphasise or
underline them. Consider the setting in Peter Shaffer’s
play Equus:

A square of wood set on a

circle of wood.
The square resembles a railed boxing ring. The rail,
also of wood, encloses three sides. It is perforated on
each side by an opening. Under the rail are a few
vertical slats, as if in a fence. On the downstage side
there is no rail. The whole square is set on ball
bearings, so that by slight pressure from actors
standing round it on the circle, it can be made to turn
round smoothly by hand.
On the square are set three little plain benches, also of
wood. They are placed parallel with the rail, against
the slats, but can be moved out by the actors to stand
at right angles to them.
 Set into the floor of the square, and flush with it, is a
thin metal pole, about a yard high. This can be raised
out of the floor, to stand upright. It acts as a support
for the actor playing Nugget, when he is ridden.
In the area outside the circle stand benches. Two
downstage left and right are curved to accord with the
circle. The left one is used by Dysart as a listening and
observing post when he is out of the square, and also
by Alan as his hospital bed. The right one is used by
Alan’s parents, who sit side by side on it. (Viewpoint
is from the main body of the audience.)
Further benches stand upstage, and accommodate the
other actors. All the cast of Equus sits on stage the
entire evening. They get up to perform their scenes,
and return when they are done to their places around
the set. They are witnesses, assistants – and
especially a Chorus.
Upstage, forming a backdrop to the whole, are tiers of
seats in the fashion of a dissecting theatre, formed into
two railed-off blocks, pierced by a central tunnel. In
these blocks sit members of the audience. During the
play, Dysart addresses them directly from time to
time, as he addresses the main body of the theatre.
No other actor ever refers to them.
To left and right, downstage, stand two ladders on
which are suspended horse masks. The colour of all
benches is olive green.

What strikes one immediately when looking at this stage

set is that it does not even try to be realistic. Whether
scenes take place in Dysart’s practice, in Alan’s home or
in the stables, there is no furniture or other stage props
to indicate this. The horses are played by actors who
simply put on horse masks but this is done on stage so
that the audience is reminded of the fact that it is
watching a play. The alternation of scenes is marked by
the usage of different parts of the stage (upstairs,
downstairs) and time shifts become noticeable through
changing lights. The stage seems to be arranged like this
intentionally and one can ask why. First and foremost, the
set lacks detail so that attention can be drawn to the
performance of the actors. Secondly, what the actors
perform is thus also moved to the centre, namely Alan’s
psychological development, his consciousness and
memories. Put another way, the focus is on mental
processes rather than on social factors (although they of
course influence Alan’s development and are thus also
brought on stage, albeit symbolically and rhetorically
rather than realistically).
Whatever explanation one comes up with, the first
step is to note that the stage and the represented setting
usually have a purpose and one then has to ask how they
correlate with what is presented in the actual text, to
what extent they express concepts and ideas, etc.