theatre essays

theatre essays Theatre has evolved. Every single day we are learning new ways of how to make theatre and acting more advanced, appealing, and powerful. As far back as the 1800s, people were always looking for something new and different; and much of the first changes happened within new theatre design. In the 1800s in Italy, one family forever changed this element of theatre. This family was known as the Bibienas. They made many contributions to scenic design, and are most accredited for angle perspective. Ferdinando Bibiena, the oldest brother of the Bibiena family, introduced this new design. It had two or more vanishing points on the sides of a setting. Earlier, theatre design had a single vanishing point at the rear, and the angle perspective allowed for important buildings or courtyards to be in the middle while placing more background scenery to the sides. Along with this new perspective, he also altered the scale of settings. In earlier theatre design, the tops of buildings were a lways seen, and he cut them off, allowing for more variation in different viewpoints. This new design, with two or more vanishing points and un-shown buildings, required less space than the once symmetrical and space consuming stage. Because of additional space, the Bibienas then divided the stage into two parts, known as downstage and upstage. The upstage allowed for difficult yet worth-while shifting of machinery, scenery, and other props while the downstage was where most of the acting took place. All of this innovation had a major influence in theatre not only because of its practical and beautiful style, but it also opened the doors for new ways of thinking. All of the innovations that the Bibiena family made to scenic design were extensions of Baroque style. Huge columns, arches, and the use of asymmetrical and curvilinear space made the Baroque era from the 1600s beautiful once again. This caused people to branch away from other dominant renai...