ABSTRACT
Of the many innovations of theatrical modernism, one of the most lasting was a movement to reconfigure the physical stage. Realist three-dimensional scenography usually required numerous set changes, with a closed curtain and entr'acte music, which slowed the progress of the drama. To English and German reformers this seemed especially inappropriate for Shakespeare, whose plays had been written for a non-illusionist stage. Shakespeare's flow of scenes, moving briskly from one fictional locale to another, demanded, they thought, a swifter sequence. What the new arrangement demonstrated most of all was that an open-stage without scenic distraction makes the audience more connected to the actors and more focused on the words of the play. Though the open-stage movement was never restricted to the performance of Shakespeare, it never would have succeeded without Shakespeare as its mascot. Shakespeare's status, which in the twentieth century grew greater than ever before, allowed reformers to appeal to an internationally admired epitome.
