A Study on the correlation of spatio-temporal elements as the physical environment with lighting in ≪The Glass Menagerie≫

초록

This study attempts to analyze correlation between physical environments and light in ≪The Glass Menagerie≫ written by Tennessee Williams. To associate the meanings and structure of physical environments with the process of performance design, a scenographic approach is used as an analysis method, This practical approach to theatre productions analyzes structure, characters, theme, mood, and physical environments of the text and conceptualizes the analyzed meanings within a visual/auditory context. Design concepts or ideas that are applicable to realized productions can be conceived through this approach, The major environmental elements in ≪The Glass Menagerie≫ can be mentioned as surroundings of the apartment, the fire escape, the dining room and the living room, seasons, the time of day, and weather. They create diverse layers of meanings through the interaction with dramatic circumstances, moods, mental states of characters, structure of the text. Since the analyzed meanings from the environmental elements provide the conceptual frameworks for stage visualization, they can be used as the materials of lighting visualization. Tom's family is enclosed by stark and hopeless reality, which is a metaphor of surroundings of the apartment. This surroundings as the expression of 'being trapped' are reflected in the formation of lighting concept. The fire escape is functioned as the boundary(or threshold) between the present and the past. In the case of the lighting for the fire escape, designers should make a discrimination between the lighting of present tense and the lighting of past tense. The space layout of dining room and living room enables the dynamic movements of characters that has a strong influence on the rhythms and tempos in each scene. In this case, acting zones where characters stay should be separately lit and lighting should change in accordance with the blocking of characters. The seasons of this text begin in midwinter, end in late spring. To express the seasons by the lighting, designers should be careful of the conceptual contrasts in the temperature, color tones, and atmosphere with regard to the seasons. The time of day such as dusk or evening corresponds to the atmosphere of memory indispensible to the play. By controlling the brightness of lighting elaborately, dim and shadowy lighting effects need to be created. The meeting and romance of Laura and Jim is set in the weather changes before and after a shower. When Laura is forced to meet Jim, her past highschool crush, the weather reinforces Laura's anxious mind visually and auditorily. Lights coming through the openings such as doors or windows can be very effective in expressing the weather as an external environmental element.

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