Simon WWWagner . org

Website of Simon Wagner :: projects > stage design

Stage Design Projects

Contents: A few words about my approach - H. v. Kleist, Penthesilea (2005) - W. Shakespeare, Macbeth (2005) - A model for a staircase (2005)

A few words about my approach

What is the point in theatre? To depict outer reality? No. Rather, it is to create a space for its own, a kind of retort for experiments that affect our existence. It is not characters or individuals that form the generative layer of reality in theatre, but psychic and social forces: love, hatred, longing, compulsion, coldness, fire, loneliness, injustice, tenderness, grace.

It is from such forces and energies that the movements of the actors as well as the psychic reality of the dramatis personae come into being, and the same is true for the visible shape of the stage: it is becoming-form of the underlying play of forces. In the design of the stage, the persons' conscious and unconscious motivations - fear, passion, etc. - emerge as figures in their own right, made from light and matter, being the result of enormous hidden forces, just as mountain ranges are.

According to this approach, a stage's design is not an illustration of the action going on on the stage; rather, it is the expression of the dramatic reality itself - it is action without actors, performance before any performer enters the place.

Heinrich von Kleist, Penthesilea (2005)

William Shakespeare, Macbeth (2005)

Model for a Staircase (2005)

Top of page Back to Projects overview