Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

106 Chapter 5 Designers and Technicians
Lighting
The very word theatre, meaning “seeing place,” implies
the crucial function of light. Light is the basic precondition
for theatrical appearance. Without light, nothing can
be seen.
But stage lighting is not simply used for illumination.
How we see is just as important as what we
see—and what we don’t. The creative use of lighting
for dramatic effect dates back to the earliest surviving
plays. Agamemnon, by Aeschylus, was staged
so the watchman’s spotting of the signal fire heralding
Agamemnon’s return to Argos coincided with
the actual sunrise over the Athenian skene. It is also
probable that the burning of Troy at the conclusion of
Euripides’ Trojan Women coincided with the sunset
that reddened the Attic sky. Modern plays commonly
use light in symbolic ways, such as the blinking neon
light that intermittently reddens Blanche’s quarters in
Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and the searching
follow-spot (a swivel-mounted lighting instrument
that can be pointed in any direction by an operator)
that Samuel Beckett calls for to train upon the hapless,
trapped characters in his play Play. In Streetcar, the
light does more than realistically texture the setting—
although it does that too. The flashes of red reflect
Blanche’s own psychological fragility and hint at the
emotional explosions and revelations to come. In Play,
the follow-spot enhances the characters’ feelings of isolation
on stage—and in the world.
In addition to coordinating the timing of their plays
to the sunrise and sunset, the ancient Greeks paid a great
deal of attention to the proper orientation of their theatres
to take best advantage of the sun’s rays. The medieval
outdoor theatre, though as dependent on sunlight
as the Greek theatre was, made use of several devices
to redirect sunlight, including halos made of reflective
metal to brighten the faces of Jesus and his disciples.
Individual pools of light illuminate the parasols and costumes—and the isolation—of ladies waiting for the soldiers’
return at the beginning of Much Ado about Nothing. This Indiana Repertory Theatre production was directed by Libby
Appel, with lighting design by Robert Peterson. © Courtesy Indiana Repertory Theatre