Rome

The Roman coliseums reproduce the Greek theater model, but improved by the application of geometric rigor. The hemicycle is now a circle. As in Greece, two projections limit the proscenium. The buildings that rise behind the stage serve to house the actors, facilitating their entry and exit; The same conception of the set is maintained and they operate identical machinery: the costumes for the performers are similar, but from this moment on they will always wear the mask. The ornamental part has been developed. the first floor of the stage will be covered with temple facades, palaces, columns and statues; The proscenium appears covered with sumptuous furniture and hangings and the curtain upholstered with figures and arabesques. During hot days, an immense linen fabric called velum, dyed purple, is spread across the chamber to protect spectators from the sun.[8]​.

Middle Ages

Among the variations of scenography that have had an influence on stage technique, we can mention the circular decoration of the famous cart-scenes of the Middle Ages, on which the most picturesque places typical of the various episodes of the mysteries or stage games of the time were presented to the spectators. That discovery is a precursor to modern revolving stages. Another characteristic of the time was the simultaneous scene, where the action locations of the show took place.

The principle of scenography comes from a simultaneous decoration. It was used throughout the Middle Ages in the representation of religious and secular works until the Renaissance. When it was not possible to represent places such as jungles or battlefields in the compartments or "mansions",[9]​ an actor was used to "explain" the scenery.

Throughout the history of scenography, cases could be studied in which aesthetic effects were achieved with simple elements and simple backgrounds of black curtains or neutral colors. It can be seen that its origin is found in primitive performances, particularly in England, where a simple sign indicated the place or a voice awakened the imagination of the spectators explaining the excellence of a set that did not exist.[8]​.

In English theaters, the layout of the theaters comes from the sales yards. Circular constructions were more common than square ones, such as the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's works were performed. As scenery, tapestries were used to close the back of the stage and the stage was usually covered with a mat. Above the stage there was a kind of balcony that was used as an orchestra box, but where scenes also took place. Outside of this, the scenery was limited to moving elements such as small props.

Renaissance

From the Renaissance until well into the century, Italian scenography has nourished the theater and has been an example for set designers. The evolution of dramatic art begins in 1428, the year in which the unknown comedies of Plautus were found in Rome. At the same time, the development of modern theatrical constructions arose from the performances that took place in the Renaissance courts. The setting for the new shows could be performed anywhere, in gardens or palace halls. The scenery underwent a great transformation thanks to the art of perspective. The need arose to expand the stage, giving its background an artistic layout.

The humanism characteristic of the culture and art of the time makes the themes of the works vary, the comedy of art appears, with its special scenographic demands.

The Renaissance gives us for the first time a theater (the Olympic of Vicenza, 1585, work of the architect Andrea Palladio) with a wooden stage, a grandiose synthesis of the architectural aesthetics of the scenography of the time, and which consisted of the decoration being arranged according to the artistic canons of linear perspective. Corinthian columns, bas-reliefs, statues and cornices adorn the scenic façade. In the middle, the main door opens, or the royal door, according to Vitruvius, because only the main actors appeared through it, like the Greek theater. Through the opening you can see palaces with flattened relief, reduced in perspective, forming a street that seems to be that of Thebes "Thebes (Greece)"), because that was the city in which Oedipus reigned, and with the tragedy of the same name the theater was inaugurated. The optical illusion of the extension of the street is complete.

End of the 16th century

Gradually, the fixed decoration was transformed into a mobile one, and the scene had a majestic and brilliant era both in Italy and France. The telari procedure (triangular cousins) was replaced by the backstage scenography used for the first time at the Farnese Theater. The use of racks spread throughout Italy and became popular in Europe for the speed and ease with which they verified mutations. Giovan Battista Aleotti built the Teatro Farnesio") in 1618 with the horseshoe-shaped stands. Later the architect Fabrizio Garini Motta"), from Mantua, designed the theater with superimposed boxes and arrived at the form that has lasted to this day.

The commedia dell'arte during the century was the most widespread theatrical form in Italy, it appeared before opera and ballet, the set was very simple, partly constructed and partly painted in perspective, no changes were made during the performance.

17th and 18th centuries

In the 17th century, theater developed in three types of spaces. On the one hand, the public space, streets and squares where religious performances are held. The medieval mysteries "Mystery (theater)") had given way in the Renaissance to the moralities "Morality (theater)"), which from the second half of the century began to be called sacramental autos.

In Spanish comedy the theater was installed in the corral of some inn. (Corral de Comedias de Almagro) An overhang protected the stage and the stands, the central space or patio where the masses gathered in the open and the barred windows of the adjacent buildings served as boxes, and since the performances took place during the day, no lighting was required.

In Spain it was with Philip IV when closed theaters were built, like the Italian ones. Although Calderón de la Barca's mythological and fantastic works required tricks such as volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, shipwrecks, which were appreciated by the public.

In Italy, architects and stage designers such as Serlio, Buontalenti, Baccio del Bianco, Burnacini, Tacca, Perruchetti, Nerona and Torelli flourish.

The Galli Bibiena "Bibbiena (family)") (1659-1743) made the discovery of achieving and launching the new pictorial perspective, so that the architecture was not only seen from the front, but also offered us aspects from different angles. In this way a new type of painter-set designer was born. Stage lighting also had to help in the achievements of scenography. The footlights "Footlights (theater)") were an innovation of the century. Opera participated in the development, as it was a genre that demanded great presentation and financial support. But for these new conquests to gain importance, it was necessary for the architect, who was at the same time a builder and painter, to give way to the set designers, that is, those specialized in the art of creating scenic atmospheres.

France had to intervene to consolidate the new conquests. León Moussinac, an expert in this matter, says in this regard: The modern system of painted fabric decorations, that is, of successive decorations replacing simultaneous decorations, was created by Mahelot and Laurent, who worked for Molière. From this era is Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni, a great set designer who put on the best opera shows. It was in that admirable century when theatrical decoration itself was born, in which the artist then put his originality and the contribution of his personality.

The scenery sought the truth. The set designers Albany, Moenck, Alaux and Daguerre compete in ingenuity. Furthermore, the gas, which had just made its appearance, allowed surprising illuminations.[8]​.

19th century

Romanticism abandons reality to surrender to the peculiar. The lighting allowed the transition from objective scenography to more emotional scenography. After the exuberance demonstrated over the centuries and it falls into banality and verismo of bad taste. At this time the invention corresponds to set designers and stagehands such as Camus, Brabant, Varnout, Godin and Colombier. Symbolism concluded that the word could replace everything, with which the scenography took a backseat, thus the scenography became decorative. At the end of the century some efforts against existing conventionalism emerged.

It establishes the hybridization of the scenic, capturing in a work in which the various artistic languages ​​intervene the inexhaustible flow of the real, the infinite movement of the spirit. The total work of art, where the dissipation of limits coincides with the purpose of a work of art that is an extension of the natural and elaborated according to an organic model, in which every rule is flexible and every division permeable. In the total work of art, drama acts as a structural element and music as a mediating and linking element. Music and art would serve as a starting point and drama would grow from them, as a union of music, word and image. Although Wagner did not promote the dialogue between painting and music, he contributed to promoting it in the century through Adolphe Appia. .

20th century

Everything contributes to the formation of new scenographic trends so that the problems are no longer of an external nature. The rooms are closed with walls and ceilings, because naturalism requires an ambient reality that cannot be achieved with frames and backdrops. Gas replaces candle lighting "Candle (lighting)") and oil. In 1887, the Free Theater of André Antoine, in Paris, sought the truth in the set, describing the fourth wall that closes the space: the actors can also reproduce to create the illusion of a closed system, and the spectator has the impression of "immersion" in the daily life of the story, he becomes a voyeur in front of the representation. At this time, entire houses are reproduced on stage, furniture is included that gives the illusion of reality.

Aesthetics follow one another like theories; Thus we see how symbolism needs a new formula (1890): The decoration must be a pure ornamental fiction that completes the illusion through its analogies of color and lines with the drama. Painters such as Maurice Denis and Odilón Redon" adhered to this principle, and a man of theater like Lugné-Poé gave his talent to the initiatives of the moment at the theater de l'Oeuvre.

All of Diaghilev's ballets (1909) discover scenographers of the stature of Backs, Benois and Roerich. In Germany they worked enthusiastically under the directives of Max Reinhardt and Stanislavsky, director of the Moscow Art Theater and one of the figures of the avant-garde.

He was born in England, a genius of the theater, who fought to give a style to the stage so that it would not be confused with reality. For him, the set designer must choose the color and the piece, the artistic motif around which he will group the other objects. For Gordon Craig the word is the place of the lie, the literary occupies a secondary place with respect to the visual and the rhythmic.

Loie Fuller was an American dancer. She was a pioneer in the use of lighting. She achieved great success in Les Folies Bergère with her dances based on taking advantage of the effect of colored light on her vaporous costumes, to reproduce sensations of the natural world. For Fuller, the elements that make up the stage show are in this order: light, color, movement and music.

He was born in Switzerland, a trained musician, for whom the actor's movements and steps must be measured by music. The stage ceases to be the place where physical action is provided to a dialogued conflict to become a space for the materialization of an action and a conflict originally precipitated in music. His reflection on the scenographic is based on his contempt for illustrative sets, he thinks of scenic elements as signs in themselves and not as supports for conventional images. For Appia, light will be responsible for performing Wagner's infinite melody on stage.[12]​.

George Fuchs") who confirms the need for plastic decoration, his discovery is the "relief scene".

Everything was prepared to reap the great advantages that electricity provided. The transformation had arrived. There was in fact a light that could exalt color, project shadows, create atmospheres not known until then and give relief to the corporeal in the scene.

Pablo Picasso made sets for Manuel de Falla's ballet, The Three-cornered Hat, and Jacques Copeau, just as Gaston Baty, Louis Jouvet and Charles Dullin fervently embraced the most audacious trends. Antón Giulio Bragaglia") and Enrico Prampolini") in Italy created sets within very personal directives.

Russians have always had a sense of theater. It was in Russia where Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes were born, revealing to us the scenography of Shéhérazade, whose influence lasted more than ten years on theatrical decoration.

After the October Revolution "October Revolution (1917)"), Russian theater reached great development. Meyerhold's State Theater is one of the most audacious mise en scène laboratories in Soviet Russia. Nor should we forget Stanislavsky's Kamerny Theatre, the Habima and the achievements achieved by Tairov.

Around 1920, an anti-naturalistic and re-theatricalized theater developed in Germany, in which the word gave way to non-verbal communication. The expressionist staging is indebted to Max Reinhardt, he was the set designer and stage director in Germany, famous for his constructive skill and for his surprising use of light on volumes, very given to the opulence and luxury of the presentation.

Oskar Kokoschka presented his work The Burning Bush in 1917. Arnold Schonberg writes The Happy Hand and Vasily Kandinsky The Yellow Sonority. They work on spirituality, longing for the immaterial, it is configured directly on the scene, in images, words and sounds without being previously articulated in a dramatic-literary structure.

The set reduced to its schematic lines as recommended by Appia and Fuchs, was a trend among some who considered that the scenery excessively held the viewer's attention and hindered the scene to the detriment of the actor. In the Russian avant-garde theater, the classical stage set is rejected by a large number of stage directors under the impetus of Meyerhold. French theater is represented at this time by Jacques Copeau, creator of the Vieux Colombier theater school, where the great set designer André Barsaq worked. Georges Pitoeff, achieved a unitary and suggestive atmosphere with the union between scenography and stage direction.

Opera and ballet have had great set designers which has allowed for the best inventions that have been made in scenography, the Teatro la Scala in Milan and Covent Garden are examples of them. Mention must be made of Franco Zefirelli, Lila De Nobili, Eugene Berman, Pino Casarini and Wieland Wagner.

Bertolt Brecht, in his activity as a stage director, developed a scenographic theory - scenography is the science of finding a space that suits each theatrical text. Starting with Brecht, it was considered decadent to give too much importance to scenography and spectacular staging.[8]​ For Brecht, reality must be recognizable in theater, its essence must be made transparent. What happens on stage must be recognizable as something that has been done (in the sense of not something spontaneous or natural). And it is precisely this pointing out the difference between the reality of theater, on the one hand, and the reality that theater tries to reflect, on the other, is an act of alienation. For epic theater, this alienation is precisely a constituent principle in which an object, phenomenon or fact that is close, familiar or known becomes alien to the point that surprises and, through that surprise, makes its knowledge possible. For Brecht, the degree to which a theater spectator empathically feels what is happening on stage is a direct function of the actor's degree of empathy and identification with his character. In other words, if more or less emotional involvement of the viewer is desired, this can be regulated intrinsically, in the actor-character relationship. And just like the acting technique, the scenography must also make its means transparent. For example, light sources must be visible. On the other hand, for Brecht it was very important that everything that was on the stage had a direct relationship with the scenes and their future. His "epic theater" did not allow the scenery to include superfluous objects or objects not directly related to the script.[13]​.

Rome

The Roman coliseums reproduce the Greek theater model, but improved by the application of geometric rigor. The hemicycle is now a circle. As in Greece, two projections limit the proscenium. The buildings that rise behind the stage serve to house the actors, facilitating their entry and exit; The same conception of the set is maintained and they operate identical machinery: the costumes for the performers are similar, but from this moment on they will always wear the mask. The ornamental part has been developed. the first floor of the stage will be covered with temple facades, palaces, columns and statues; The proscenium appears covered with sumptuous furniture and hangings and the curtain upholstered with figures and arabesques. During hot days, an immense linen fabric called velum, dyed purple, is spread across the chamber to protect spectators from the sun.[8]​.

Middle Ages

Among the variations of scenography that have had an influence on stage technique, we can mention the circular decoration of the famous cart-scenes of the Middle Ages, on which the most picturesque places typical of the various episodes of the mysteries or stage games of the time were presented to the spectators. That discovery is a precursor to modern revolving stages. Another characteristic of the time was the simultaneous scene, where the action locations of the show took place.

The principle of scenography comes from a simultaneous decoration. It was used throughout the Middle Ages in the representation of religious and secular works until the Renaissance. When it was not possible to represent places such as jungles or battlefields in the compartments or "mansions",[9]​ an actor was used to "explain" the scenery.

Throughout the history of scenography, cases could be studied in which aesthetic effects were achieved with simple elements and simple backgrounds of black curtains or neutral colors. It can be seen that its origin is found in primitive performances, particularly in England, where a simple sign indicated the place or a voice awakened the imagination of the spectators explaining the excellence of a set that did not exist.[8]​.

In English theaters, the layout of the theaters comes from the sales yards. Circular constructions were more common than square ones, such as the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's works were performed. As scenery, tapestries were used to close the back of the stage and the stage was usually covered with a mat. Above the stage there was a kind of balcony that was used as an orchestra box, but where scenes also took place. Outside of this, the scenery was limited to moving elements such as small props.

Renaissance

From the Renaissance until well into the century, Italian scenography has nourished the theater and has been an example for set designers. The evolution of dramatic art begins in 1428, the year in which the unknown comedies of Plautus were found in Rome. At the same time, the development of modern theatrical constructions arose from the performances that took place in the Renaissance courts. The setting for the new shows could be performed anywhere, in gardens or palace halls. The scenery underwent a great transformation thanks to the art of perspective. The need arose to expand the stage, giving its background an artistic layout.

The humanism characteristic of the culture and art of the time makes the themes of the works vary, the comedy of art appears, with its special scenographic demands.

The Renaissance gives us for the first time a theater (the Olympic of Vicenza, 1585, work of the architect Andrea Palladio) with a wooden stage, a grandiose synthesis of the architectural aesthetics of the scenography of the time, and which consisted of the decoration being arranged according to the artistic canons of linear perspective. Corinthian columns, bas-reliefs, statues and cornices adorn the scenic façade. In the middle, the main door opens, or the royal door, according to Vitruvius, because only the main actors appeared through it, like the Greek theater. Through the opening you can see palaces with flattened relief, reduced in perspective, forming a street that seems to be that of Thebes "Thebes (Greece)"), because that was the city in which Oedipus reigned, and with the tragedy of the same name the theater was inaugurated. The optical illusion of the extension of the street is complete.

End of the 16th century

Gradually, the fixed decoration was transformed into a mobile one, and the scene had a majestic and brilliant era both in Italy and France. The telari procedure (triangular cousins) was replaced by the backstage scenography used for the first time at the Farnese Theater. The use of racks spread throughout Italy and became popular in Europe for the speed and ease with which they verified mutations. Giovan Battista Aleotti built the Teatro Farnesio") in 1618 with the horseshoe-shaped stands. Later the architect Fabrizio Garini Motta"), from Mantua, designed the theater with superimposed boxes and arrived at the form that has lasted to this day.

The commedia dell'arte during the century was the most widespread theatrical form in Italy, it appeared before opera and ballet, the set was very simple, partly constructed and partly painted in perspective, no changes were made during the performance.

17th and 18th centuries

In the 17th century, theater developed in three types of spaces. On the one hand, the public space, streets and squares where religious performances are held. The medieval mysteries "Mystery (theater)") had given way in the Renaissance to the moralities "Morality (theater)"), which from the second half of the century began to be called sacramental autos.

In Spanish comedy the theater was installed in the corral of some inn. (Corral de Comedias de Almagro) An overhang protected the stage and the stands, the central space or patio where the masses gathered in the open and the barred windows of the adjacent buildings served as boxes, and since the performances took place during the day, no lighting was required.

In Spain it was with Philip IV when closed theaters were built, like the Italian ones. Although Calderón de la Barca's mythological and fantastic works required tricks such as volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, shipwrecks, which were appreciated by the public.

In Italy, architects and stage designers such as Serlio, Buontalenti, Baccio del Bianco, Burnacini, Tacca, Perruchetti, Nerona and Torelli flourish.

The Galli Bibiena "Bibbiena (family)") (1659-1743) made the discovery of achieving and launching the new pictorial perspective, so that the architecture was not only seen from the front, but also offered us aspects from different angles. In this way a new type of painter-set designer was born. Stage lighting also had to help in the achievements of scenography. The footlights "Footlights (theater)") were an innovation of the century. Opera participated in the development, as it was a genre that demanded great presentation and financial support. But for these new conquests to gain importance, it was necessary for the architect, who was at the same time a builder and painter, to give way to the set designers, that is, those specialized in the art of creating scenic atmospheres.

France had to intervene to consolidate the new conquests. León Moussinac, an expert in this matter, says in this regard: The modern system of painted fabric decorations, that is, of successive decorations replacing simultaneous decorations, was created by Mahelot and Laurent, who worked for Molière. From this era is Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni, a great set designer who put on the best opera shows. It was in that admirable century when theatrical decoration itself was born, in which the artist then put his originality and the contribution of his personality.

The scenery sought the truth. The set designers Albany, Moenck, Alaux and Daguerre compete in ingenuity. Furthermore, the gas, which had just made its appearance, allowed surprising illuminations.[8]​.

19th century

Romanticism abandons reality to surrender to the peculiar. The lighting allowed the transition from objective scenography to more emotional scenography. After the exuberance demonstrated over the centuries and it falls into banality and verismo of bad taste. At this time the invention corresponds to set designers and stagehands such as Camus, Brabant, Varnout, Godin and Colombier. Symbolism concluded that the word could replace everything, with which the scenography took a backseat, thus the scenography became decorative. At the end of the century some efforts against existing conventionalism emerged.

It establishes the hybridization of the scenic, capturing in a work in which the various artistic languages ​​intervene the inexhaustible flow of the real, the infinite movement of the spirit. The total work of art, where the dissipation of limits coincides with the purpose of a work of art that is an extension of the natural and elaborated according to an organic model, in which every rule is flexible and every division permeable. In the total work of art, drama acts as a structural element and music as a mediating and linking element. Music and art would serve as a starting point and drama would grow from them, as a union of music, word and image. Although Wagner did not promote the dialogue between painting and music, he contributed to promoting it in the century through Adolphe Appia. .

20th century

Everything contributes to the formation of new scenographic trends so that the problems are no longer of an external nature. The rooms are closed with walls and ceilings, because naturalism requires an ambient reality that cannot be achieved with frames and backdrops. Gas replaces candle lighting "Candle (lighting)") and oil. In 1887, the Free Theater of André Antoine, in Paris, sought the truth in the set, describing the fourth wall that closes the space: the actors can also reproduce to create the illusion of a closed system, and the spectator has the impression of "immersion" in the daily life of the story, he becomes a voyeur in front of the representation. At this time, entire houses are reproduced on stage, furniture is included that gives the illusion of reality.

Aesthetics follow one another like theories; Thus we see how symbolism needs a new formula (1890): The decoration must be a pure ornamental fiction that completes the illusion through its analogies of color and lines with the drama. Painters such as Maurice Denis and Odilón Redon" adhered to this principle, and a man of theater like Lugné-Poé gave his talent to the initiatives of the moment at the theater de l'Oeuvre.

All of Diaghilev's ballets (1909) discover scenographers of the stature of Backs, Benois and Roerich. In Germany they worked enthusiastically under the directives of Max Reinhardt and Stanislavsky, director of the Moscow Art Theater and one of the figures of the avant-garde.

He was born in England, a genius of the theater, who fought to give a style to the stage so that it would not be confused with reality. For him, the set designer must choose the color and the piece, the artistic motif around which he will group the other objects. For Gordon Craig the word is the place of the lie, the literary occupies a secondary place with respect to the visual and the rhythmic.

Loie Fuller was an American dancer. She was a pioneer in the use of lighting. She achieved great success in Les Folies Bergère with her dances based on taking advantage of the effect of colored light on her vaporous costumes, to reproduce sensations of the natural world. For Fuller, the elements that make up the stage show are in this order: light, color, movement and music.

He was born in Switzerland, a trained musician, for whom the actor's movements and steps must be measured by music. The stage ceases to be the place where physical action is provided to a dialogued conflict to become a space for the materialization of an action and a conflict originally precipitated in music. His reflection on the scenographic is based on his contempt for illustrative sets, he thinks of scenic elements as signs in themselves and not as supports for conventional images. For Appia, light will be responsible for performing Wagner's infinite melody on stage.[12]​.

George Fuchs") who confirms the need for plastic decoration, his discovery is the "relief scene".

Everything was prepared to reap the great advantages that electricity provided. The transformation had arrived. There was in fact a light that could exalt color, project shadows, create atmospheres not known until then and give relief to the corporeal in the scene.

Pablo Picasso made sets for Manuel de Falla's ballet, The Three-cornered Hat, and Jacques Copeau, just as Gaston Baty, Louis Jouvet and Charles Dullin fervently embraced the most audacious trends. Antón Giulio Bragaglia") and Enrico Prampolini") in Italy created sets within very personal directives.

Russians have always had a sense of theater. It was in Russia where Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes were born, revealing to us the scenography of Shéhérazade, whose influence lasted more than ten years on theatrical decoration.

After the October Revolution "October Revolution (1917)"), Russian theater reached great development. Meyerhold's State Theater is one of the most audacious mise en scène laboratories in Soviet Russia. Nor should we forget Stanislavsky's Kamerny Theatre, the Habima and the achievements achieved by Tairov.

Around 1920, an anti-naturalistic and re-theatricalized theater developed in Germany, in which the word gave way to non-verbal communication. The expressionist staging is indebted to Max Reinhardt, he was the set designer and stage director in Germany, famous for his constructive skill and for his surprising use of light on volumes, very given to the opulence and luxury of the presentation.

Oskar Kokoschka presented his work The Burning Bush in 1917. Arnold Schonberg writes The Happy Hand and Vasily Kandinsky The Yellow Sonority. They work on spirituality, longing for the immaterial, it is configured directly on the scene, in images, words and sounds without being previously articulated in a dramatic-literary structure.

The set reduced to its schematic lines as recommended by Appia and Fuchs, was a trend among some who considered that the scenery excessively held the viewer's attention and hindered the scene to the detriment of the actor. In the Russian avant-garde theater, the classical stage set is rejected by a large number of stage directors under the impetus of Meyerhold. French theater is represented at this time by Jacques Copeau, creator of the Vieux Colombier theater school, where the great set designer André Barsaq worked. Georges Pitoeff, achieved a unitary and suggestive atmosphere with the union between scenography and stage direction.

Opera and ballet have had great set designers which has allowed for the best inventions that have been made in scenography, the Teatro la Scala in Milan and Covent Garden are examples of them. Mention must be made of Franco Zefirelli, Lila De Nobili, Eugene Berman, Pino Casarini and Wieland Wagner.

Bertolt Brecht, in his activity as a stage director, developed a scenographic theory - scenography is the science of finding a space that suits each theatrical text. Starting with Brecht, it was considered decadent to give too much importance to scenography and spectacular staging.[8]​ For Brecht, reality must be recognizable in theater, its essence must be made transparent. What happens on stage must be recognizable as something that has been done (in the sense of not something spontaneous or natural). And it is precisely this pointing out the difference between the reality of theater, on the one hand, and the reality that theater tries to reflect, on the other, is an act of alienation. For epic theater, this alienation is precisely a constituent principle in which an object, phenomenon or fact that is close, familiar or known becomes alien to the point that surprises and, through that surprise, makes its knowledge possible. For Brecht, the degree to which a theater spectator empathically feels what is happening on stage is a direct function of the actor's degree of empathy and identification with his character. In other words, if more or less emotional involvement of the viewer is desired, this can be regulated intrinsically, in the actor-character relationship. And just like the acting technique, the scenography must also make its means transparent. For example, light sources must be visible. On the other hand, for Brecht it was very important that everything that was on the stage had a direct relationship with the scenes and their future. His "epic theater" did not allow the scenery to include superfluous objects or objects not directly related to the script.[13]​.