Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2017 - 12

František Tröster, set design for the production of Julius Caesar, 1936. White ink on
paper. Private collection. Photography by Filip Skalák.

František Zelenka, set design for the production of Richard III, 1943. Pen and ink on
paper. Courtesy of Collections of National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, H6p6850/52. Photography by Jana Kuříková, Alžběta Kumstátová.

exhibit pays particular attention to this seminal production; Hamlet is represented through a set of stage and
costume renderings and through a reconstruction of the
stage model (by Dan Matthews), reconstruction of the
costume for Ophelia (by Kristine Kearney), and a digital
reconstruction of the set (by Cat Fergusson Baugh).
In anticipation of the atrocities of World War II,
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František Tröster (1904-1968), the leading scenographer of the 1930s, and his artistic partner, director
Jiří Frejka, staged Julius Caesar at National Theatre in
1936. This production was later highlighted by architect Oscar Niemeyer as "the beginning of modern stage
architecture" (Koubská 2017, 26). This design shows
inspiration from Baroque architecture and sculpture
that work with optical illusion, and these techniques are
used to spatially evoke the theme of manipulative power
accentuated in the production. Influenced by the art of
film editing, the performance incorporated a turntable;
the action was marked by swift changes of scenes and
audience viewing perspectives, as well as by the dynamic
interplay of scale and proportions. The two architectonic
objects that alternately dominated the stage, the bust of
Pompey and a sculpture of a horse's leg seen as if from
a frog's perspective, were colossal in comparison to the
performers' bodies, strategically affecting the spectators'
perception of the space. In doing so, the design became
an active agent in communicating the pressing political
meanings of the performance.
František Zelenka's (1904-1944) rendering of a set
for Richard III (Terezín, 1943, probably directed by W.
Freud; unrealized) holds a special place in the exhibition. Zelenka, one of the inter-war designers-architects,
whose playful sets and costumes merged avant-garde
approaches to staging such as Constructivism with a
pointed use of humor, continued to be active even in the
inhuman conditions of the ghetto in Terezín (Theresienstadt) to which he was deported in 1943. Richard III
was one of two of Shakespeare's plays and 27 productions the artist worked on in the ghetto (Koubská 2017,
23). The design combined architectonic elements such
as staircases and gothic arches with telling symbols into
a dense scenic environment raised on a platform. As
Vlasta Koubská, Historical Collection Curator maintains, "the drawing illustrates one of the cruelest periods of modern human history in which the perpetrators
sought to destroy human dignity and values. Using the
dramatic texts of William Shakespeare, Jewish prisoners had the opportunity to remind themselves that those
attributes could still prevail and any autocrat would be
eventually defeated. Richard III, one of Shakespeare's
most sophisticated villains, is a comprehensible archetype of evil. It is not difficult to guess the contemporary
associations the theatremakers in Terezín could apply to
the main character" (2017, 24).
This is a powerful example of theatre design not
only as an element of performance, but as an act of
bravery and the invincible human spirit, and as a form
of resistance against the exterminating power of totalitarianism.
Jaroslav Malina's (1937-2016) design for Love's Labour's Lost (National Theatre in Prague, 1987, directed
by Karel Kříž) testifies to the role theatre-and sce-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2017