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1987 » Iceland » Stage and costume design
Island
This is the first time Iceland is represented at the Prague Quadrennial. A definitive history of Icelandic theatre only goes back some two or three hundred years, and unlike the rich tradition of storytelling, evidence for performances before the early part of the 18t h century is scant. Students at the Cathedral school in the south of the country, at Skálholt, began performing an annual ritual in the 18t h century. The students used a raised platform without scenery and the performance consisted for the most part of a satirical speech. This, however, led to the advent of Icelandic drama, as by 1790 the festivities included the performance of a short satirical play or comedy. Iceland was a Danish colony at the time and eventually the authorities found these activities offensive and banned them. The ban was finally lifted in 1820 and when the school moved to Reykjavík in 1846, the students' annual performances began reaching a wider audience. Reykjavík was only a small town at the time, but amateur dramatic societies were soon established and plays were regularly performed in both Danish and Icelandic. During the latter half of the 19th century, the theatre became the most popular form of entertainment, a status it still retains. The chief exponent of the theatre at the time was the painter Sigurdur Gudmundsson, who single-handedly revolutionized Icelandic theatre. Realizing its potential against foreign oppression, and this eventually led him to express the need for a national stage from which the people could be enlightened and made aware of their national identity. Gudmundsson became the first stage designer and can also be considered the first director, since he frequently used to arrange the actors to create a tableaux. His settings usually depicted an Icelandic landscape through the use of a painted backdrop and flats, while interiors were made from painted flats. Gudmundsson was also the first to use make-up on his actors as a means for artistic expression. Gudmundsson was a romantic, both as an artist and visionary, and his ideal was that Iceland will have a national drama created from folklore. He thus prompted poets to write plays from folklore, suggesting that the craft be learned by translating great works, such as the plays of Shakespeare and Moliere. In spite of Gudmundssoďs untimely death in 1874, his influence was evident well into this century, in playwriting as well as in scenery. When the Reykjavík Theatre Company was established in 1897, the aim was to secure the growth of Icelandic drama and to raise the standard of productions. True to Gudmundssoďs ideals, the company presented a large number of new Icelandic plays, mostly neoromantic in vein, until 1920, with scenery in Gudmundssoďs style. Until 1950 the company managed to gradually raise standards, recruiting the first professional actors, who arrived on the scene from training abroad during the twenties and thirties. The existence of the Reykjavík Theatre Company was threatened in 1950 with the opening of the new National Theatre, since nearly all the actors were recruited for the new theatre. A handful of idealists decided to preserve and carry on in competition with the National Theatre. The National Theatre was the realization of Gudmundssoďs dreams, his disciples having fought for it for almost half a century. Gudmundssoďs influence was evident in the romanticism and nationalism of the first productions, but this was probably out of respect for his example and not part of the struggle for independence, because Iceland had already become a republic in 1944. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that experimentation with new styles in scenery began. Those decades saw a renaissance in dramatic writing and new Icelandic plays became the norm rather than the exception. A number of young designers worked in impressionism, realism, expressionism and even close to surrealism. All in all, the last 25 years have proved fruitful in Icelandic theatre and scenic artists have met the challenge with high quality and fine skill, and their solutions have been arrived at through adventurous experimentation with colour, materials and form.
