British Kinematography (1950)

September, 1950 89 STAGE, FILM AND TELEVISION COMPARED Peter Bax* Summary of lecture given to a joint meeting of the British Kinematograph Society and the Television Society on March /, 1950. The paper will be printed in extenso in the journal of the latter Society. MR. BAX first differentiated between the stage, where the audience was present at the time of the performance ; television, where the audience was not present, but saw the performance simultaneously ; and the film, where the audience was remote in time and space from the actor. The evolution of places of entertainment from the prehistoric gatherings around the communal fire, to the modern theatre and kinema, was briefly described. From the early mysteries of the temple, Mr. Bax turned to the Greek theatre, where drama was developed to a very advanced state. The introduction of the actor had occurred about the fifth century B.C., when an obscure character called Thespis played individual roles, as distinct from the Grecian chorus. Sophocles introduced special costumes and masks. Later, the Greek stage had employed scenery and used a proscenium. But the proscenium was first a painted back-cloth, then an arch at the back of the stage, and only later between the stage and the auditorium. A device used for changing scenery consisted of rotatable prisms, each face carrying a different scene. The Evolution of the Stage The origin of the auditorium was, of course, the open-air amphitheatre, the audience seated on the slopes. The theatre at Athens, built in such a way, seated 20,000 to 30,000 people. At first the stage was merely the bowl of the amphitheatre, below the level of the audience, but gradually it rose in height. The orchestra was originally a large depressed stage. It was, said the speaker, still possible to stand in the orchestra of a ruined Greek theatre and get the sensation of being at the base of a funnel, with tiers of seats rising around one. An immense effort of will must have been necessary for a Greek player to put across his personality ; he was assisted by megaphones and possibly by stilted shoes. The Romans decided that the Greek theatre was too serious. Immensely extravagant shows lowered the standard of production. The box-office had appeared and the playwright had lost control. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the theatre in Europe survived in the form of local festivals, and later in mystery plays. By the twelfth century strolling players appeared in this country, presenting their performance on wagons in the street. To Shakespeare, such performances were a living memory. At the time of Elizabethan renaissance, players acted in the courtyards of inns. At the Restoration, foreign actors came over to this country and revived the Greek proscenium, which kept the audience in front of the actors, instead of all around them. Before this the actor had had to declaim his words, but when the proscenium frame was introduced he had only to speak in one direction. The technique of the actor became substantially the same as in the modern film. The Birth of the Film The entertainment film had started with stories of crime. As early as 1904, the flash-back had been used in a film which employed also double-exposure. At this early period, Melies was exploiting every stage artifice before the camera. The early film actors came from the stage. The progress of the film was, however, beset with difficulties, and it got a showing only in the music-halls — * B.B.C. Television Service.