How Did Adolphe Appia Influence The World Of Live Theatre

Adolphe Appia was a lighting designer that lived from 1862-1928. However, his legacy and theories on lighting and stage design will forever live on and continue to influence the world of live theatre. Adolphe Appia was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1862. He grew up in a very practical household, with very little to inspire Appia artistically. His father was a well renowned physician and was a very stern and forbidding figure in young Appia’s life. This caused him to become very introverted and withdrawn from a young age. Perhaps because of this aspect of his life, Appia became drawn to the liveliness of theatre rather early on. Though his father tried to steer him away from such an interest, he could not manage to dissuade his

Though he had much love for the opera, he did not care at all for the way they were staged. Perhaps an effect of his strict and simple upbringing, the typical proscenium arch style stages and elaborate costumes and set designs did not sit well with Appia. He spent years studying operas and finally came to the conclusion of why he cared so little for these flashy elements of opera-style theatre. He felt as though all of the above mentioned elements, just did not fit together and were overall jarring to have to look at and process. It was around this time that he also began to theorize about what he believed stage design should be like. Appia favored stage designs that were evocative and created atmosphere through simplicity. He believed that scenery should be blended with the actors’ movements. To achieve this, he designed stages that included ramps, steps, and platforms to bring out to really accent the actor’s performance. He utilized the stage space with these designs because to him, this was the most important aspect in creating a dynamic scenery to attract the audience. In order to further create this dynamic scenery, Appia used lighting as a way to really make all of the visual elements meld