ABSTRACT
In contemporary theatres, the platform is flat, without an incline, all the more so in cases where they were not officially designed as theatre buildings. But this stage, presumably, will always have a floor – in other words, a geometrical space that can be covered. The theatre houses were thus placed in darkness during the performance; the lighting in them had already begun to be dimmed throughout the nineteenth century. Consequently, leaving the lighting on in house, even slightly, as Peter Zadek did for his production of Hamlet in 2000, proves to be troubling for the spectators, who thereby see themselves watching the spectacle and reacting to it. Additionally, rays of light could now be made to focus on a specific place on the stage, and the focalisation could be made to move, creating different degrees of intensity at different points of the stage and, therefore, modifying the perception and dimension of space through light projected on to certain zones.
