What is modernism and how did it affect theatrical design?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The collection of artistic movements and styles that developed in the early twentieth century espoused a belief in progress, celebrated innovation and the materials of the industrial world, and rejected art that simply attempts to reproduce objective reality. Modernists proposed that color, texture, and pure form could directly express emotions and even the intangible truths of the unconscious mind. Modernism was evidence in set designs that suggested meaning through nonrepresentational forms. In some designs, even human beings were reduced to abstract forms, using costumes that turned performers into geometric objects moving through space. Constructivist designers, for example, took inspiration from industrial structures and created functional sets using scaffolding, wooden platforms, and metal pipes, turning the stage into an abstract machine in which actors worked like cogs in a wheel. In the US, the ideas of modernism were expressed in what was known as the new stagecraft, in which designers called for a renewed theatricality in the visual world on stage.