The Space Defines the Phrase: An Analysis of How Performance Venues Helped Shape Classic Play Texts

Within the world of scenography there is an axiom that states: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with the playwright.” That is to say that designers need to derive their worlds from what the authors present. Scenographers do, of course, engage in research, segments of which include such questions as: What was occurring in the world at the time the piece was written? What stories might the author have been exposed to as inspiration? How have other scenographers interpreted this particular text? Such dramaturgical questions – and others – have a reasonable scenographic utility. However, no matter how reasonable this seemingly modern sensibility might be, it is the position of this paper that the work of playwrights in prior eras was also impacted by the physicality of the performance venue in which a text was originally intended to be performed. Through a combination of close reading of such works as Antigone by Sophocles, and Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Tempest by Shakespeare merged with a tangential analysis of the architecture of the venues of their first performances it becomes possible to perceive the impact which the venues had upon those texts, both within their dialogue and action.