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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
The starting point for this brief study (which is a summary of several others) is simple: it is not so much in the location of the theatrical site as in the whole of the constructed spaces in which it is situated, that we glean what few insights there are into the evolution of theatrical space.
In Greece, in Rome, then in the Western world of the late Middle Ages, the primary dramatic site has always been an urban one, so that we could assert, paradoxically, that the question of the origins of the theatrical space is less a matter for theatre studies than an aspect of town planning!
Thus if we are to analyse the theatre we must analyse the town. In any case, the two poles between which the destiny of dramatized spaces is played out can be seen in the morphological unit which dominates the history both of the forms of the urban environment and the individual habitat and of the evolution of the theatrical space itself. In effect there exists an original space, a sort of matrix at the heart of the lived space of the urban/residential area, within which human enterprise includes, from the outset, activity which is generally dramatic: the hall-courtyaid-square,1 a complex of spaces which are identical in morphological, functional and symbolic terms and which is differentiated only by the built environment within which it is inscribed, provides a framework within which are carried out all the collective activities connected with the habitat and the urban area.
1. Camillo Sitte was the first to draw attention to the relationship between the squares of Antiquity and the Middle Ages and the theatre auditorium. See a) L'Art de bâtir les villes, Paris, Editions L'Equerre, 1980 (translated from the German: first published in Vienna, , 1869)Google Scholar; b) Les Voies de la création théâtrales, Volume 15, Paris, CNRS, 1987: ‘Le Théâtre dans la ville’, presented and edited by Elie, KonigsonGoogle Scholar; c) Elie, Konigson, L'Espace théâtral médiéval, Paris, CNRS, 1975Google Scholar: ‘La place urbaine est souvent close comme une cour, on y accède par des ruelles et parfois des portes placées aux angles. La distinction entre cours et places n'est d'ailleurs pas nette. L'evolution des structures urbaines transformera parfois d'anciens espaces privés en places publiques.’ But, there are also cases where a public place can become private, as happened, for example, for the Lucerne Weinmarkt (see Konigson, Elie, ‘La place du Weinmarkt à Lucerne: Remarques sur l'organisation d'un espace dramatise’, in Les Voies de la creation théâtrale, Volume VIII, Paris, CNRS, 1980, pp. 45–90Google Scholar).
2. Alberti, L. B., De re aedificatoha, Rome, 1452; Florence, 1485; French translation, Paris, 1553.Google Scholar
3. For the correspondences between the different levels of mediaeval symbolism and the classification of individuals, see, in particular, Elie Konigson, ‘Le Masque du démon; phantasmes et métamorphoses sur la scène médiévale’, in Le Masque, du rite au théâtre, Paris, CNRS, 1985, pp. 103–17.Google Scholar
4. For the principal points covered in this study, consult Elie Konigson, L'Espace théâtral médiéval.
5. See, in particular, Konigson, Elie, L'Espace théâtral médiéval, p. 109Google Scholar: ‘Quelques riches bourgeois d'Issoudun entreprirent de jouer la Passion [en 1535]; à cet effet ils construisirent un vrai théâtre en bois tel que les Romains en ont édifié avant le grand théâtre de Pompée.’ (Chronique de Zimmern) The chronicler tells us that in Bourges, in 1536, ‘la grandeur du théâtre approchait tout à fait celle du Colisée romain’. In Paris, in 1541, the theatre was set out ‘à l'antique manière des Romains.’ In all these examples, we are, of course, dealing with a cultural metaphor and not a concrete description of a theatre.
6. By demeure we mean principally a private or semi-private space (as defined above). But in its symbolic relationship to the living space, the demeure first comprises highly structured spaces, like performing spaces, gardens, and so on. See, for example, Elie Konigson, ‘La Place du Weinmarkt’, pp. 82–3. Cf. the diagonally structured East-European kitchen with its two focal points, the devotional icon and the hearth, the men's fixed bench and the women's movable bench, the father/son relationship to the icon, the women's to the hearth and so on.
7. Konigson, , L'Espace théâtral, pp. 57–75.Google Scholar
8. Ibid.
9. ‘C'est pourquoi i'inversion carnavalesque n'a que l'apparence du chaos social: cette inversion joue elle-méme sur un code connu et reconnu dans l'ordre social. Le temps festif n'abolit l'idéologie de la chaîne des étres et des états que sur le plan fantasmatique. On joue l'inversion, on ne la realise que rarement. Cela arrive pourtant parfois, la fête se transforme en révolte, comme à Berne en 1513, ou à Cambrai lors de la révoke contre les Pays-Bas ou, encore, à Romans lors du carnaval de 1580 étudié par E. Leroy-Ladurie. Mais dans ce cas on passe à un autre niveau où le code de la transgression est lui-meme aboli et le corps social réagit avec violence. Si l'inversion n'est plus jouée comme simulacre et que des groupes sociaux passent du plan phantasmé à la réalité, ils sont aussitôt réprimés par la force.’ Konigson, ‘Le Masque du démon...’, p. 105.
10. see Konigson, , ‘L'Espace théâtral médiéval’, pp. 13–21.Google Scholar The ecclesiastical symbolism of Carolingian architecture is not restricted to the principles of orientation which divide the space into positive and negative areas, but also by accumulation of symbolic elements.
11. See, in particular, Konigson, , ‘La place du Weinmarkt’, pp. 82–5.Google Scholar
12. See Les Tragédies de Sénèque et le théâtre de la Renaissance, edited by Jean, Jacquot, Paris, CNRS, 1964Google Scholar, particularly, Flecniakoska, J. L., ‘L'Horreur morale et l'horreur matérielles dans quelques tragédies espagnoles du XVIe siècle’, pp. 61–72Google Scholar; see, also, Lebègue, R., ‘Le Théâtre de démesure et d'horreur en Europe occidentale aux XVIe et XVII siècles’, in Forschungsprobleme der Vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte, Tubingen, 1951.Google Scholar
13. The Presentation of Self in Everday Life, 1973.Google Scholar
14. cf. ‘La Place du Weinmarkt à Lucerne. Remarques sur l'organisation d'un espace dramatisé’. See above, n. 1.
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