Theatre graphics and graphic theatre : Zich's semantics in posters and publicity

• Authors: Martin Maryška
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The essay employs the concept of the 'semantic image' as articulated by Czech aesthetician Otakar Zich in his book The Aesthetics of Dramatic Art in order to outline how theatre publicity relates to theatre production and performance. Theatre graphics, posters, and other promotional materials contain images that substitute or compensate for what is not to be seen and heard onstage in form of 'technical images'; thus, these graphics condition the 'representational images' of dramatic locations.1 Publicity images can be also used to manipulate imagery associations related to actors as well as dramatic characters in order to facilitate their desired reception. This article focuses on the posters produced for Prague's National Theatre opera production of Tramvestie (2019) and two stagings of Peter Shaffer's Equus (1973, 2007) along with Alphonse Mucha's posters for Sarah Bernhardt.

Keywords

EN

theatre poster; theatre publicity; theatre iconography; visual communication; graphic design; Otakar Zich; Ivo Osolsobě; Gilbert Lesser; Uli Weber; Jakub Gulyás; Alphonse Mucha; Sarah Bernhardt

Discipline

• ARTS_&_ARCHITECTURE: ARTS & ARCHITECTURE

• Publisher: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts
• Journal: Theatralia: Revue současného myšlení o divadelní kultuře (Theatralia: The revue of contemporary thought on theatre culture)
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 105-129
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Martin Maryška

• Theatralia, redakce, Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta, Katedra divadelních studií, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic