Design Is Not Decoration: Theatre Thinks in Space, Light, and Sound
- glenn63work
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 16 hours ago
All ideas and wording are my own, with AI assistance used only for grammar and spelling and proofreading.
Design Is Interpretive
Design is often discussed in managerial terms: budgets, schedules, technical constraints, interdepartmental coordination. We talk about how it supports a director’s vision—how it solves problems, meets deadlines, and delivers a coherent aesthetic. That language has its place...
It is not how I experience design.
Designers do not simply execute pre-existing ideas—they actively shape meaning. Each discipline—set, lighting, costume, sound, and increasingly, video and mapping —operates as another thinking presence in the room, responding to the text, the director’s inquiry, the actors’ choices, and the evolving rhythms of rehearsal. Design does not sit downstream from interpretation; it is one of its primary engines.
Design thinks.
This understanding formed early. Before training as an actor, I studied set design for two years. I never intended to become a designer, but that period permanently rewired how I understand theatre. I learned to read space as text, material as meaning, and structure as pressure. The set was not background—it behaved like another character: sometimes resistant, sometimes generous, always active.
This sensibility eventually bled into my thinking about other design elements—costume, light, sound. Design shapes how an audience understands a moment — even before a word is spoken. It shapes how tension accumulates. It shapes how emotional beats land—or refuse to land. It adds layers of subtext, clarifies relationships, and amplifies stakes through physical and sensory means. It is analytical and imaginative at once, translating ideas from the page into material, spatial, auditory, and visual form.
Design turns the process of creating theatre into a laboratory where meaning is tested, stressed, argued with, and refined—beyond text and actor.
“Design does not simply decorate—it thinks, questions, and argues before a word is spoken.”
This belief is not theoretical. Forty years in rehearsal rooms, production meetings, and technical rehearsals have shown me that a production’s success—or failure—is determined long before an audience arrives. It depends on how seriously design is invited to think alongside all the creative elements of a play.
Theatre Does Not Exist on the Page
A play is a proposition, not a finished object. Theatre comes alive only when that proposition is translated into space, time, rhythm, and action. Design is central to that translation. It applies weight before a word is spoken. It defines relationships. It tells the audience how to read the world before language confirms—or contradicts—it.
"Light is never decorative. It is an actor, a mood, a witness. It can provoke or respond, never simply illuminate.” Jennifer Tipton
Film offers a resolved image; theatre does not. Theatre remains openly constructed.
Audiences are always aware—consciously or not—that what they are watching is being made in front of them, in real time, by real bodies in real space. That awareness is not a flaw. It is theatre’s power.
I was reminded of this while directing House by Francis Italiano at the Perth International Fringe Festival. One character, living with mental health challenges, compulsively wrote letters and lists, pinning them to his refrigerator. The text was developed collaboratively with the people it portrayed, making these behaviours central to its emotional truth. In film, the solution would have been literal: the fridge, the notes, a complete visual. In theatre, we made a different choice. The man lived inside his refrigerator, physically surrounded by his lists. Design did not illustrate behaviour—it embodied it.
The metaphor was experiential.
The audience did not observe his inner life—they entered it.
In my production of Howard Barker’s Victory, a single costume choice carried the argument of the scene. As Devonshire confronted King Charles II, the actress wore her illegitimate, unborn child visibly on the outside of her body.
It was not realism. It was interpretation.
The costume refused privacy and made consequence unavoidable. The child—unacknowledged, politically inconvenient—was already present, already demanding recognition. Power, neglect, and responsibility were no longer abstract; they were carried in space and form.
Nothing needed emphasis. The design did the thinking. Costume was not illustrating history or character—it was exposing what the text could only suggest.
That is what design does when it is allowed to speak.
“Theatre thrives in the space between suggestion and perception—between what is shown and what is felt.”
In my production of Exile by Francis Italiano, design began with the site itself. The Fremantle Arts Centre—once an asylum for people deemed mentally and physically unfit—was not a backdrop, but a thinking partner.
The promenade performance moved through the building and its courtyard, each space operating as both metaphor and reality. The courtyard and its trees were wrapped in white cloth, reduced to a clinical landscape, with a single hospital bed at its centre. Care and confinement occupied the same ground. S the audience moved through the building they were constantly confronted by creative instillations - visual and sonic.
Inside, a small gallery that had once been the dining room—marked by histories of violence, rape, and murder—was transformed into a room of toilets. The choice was not decorative. It gave physical form to the filth beneath institutional order, to what the building had absorbed and concealed.
The audience, dressed in white coats, became part of the design. Projections landed on their bodies as the action passed through the space in traverse. Meaning did not remain in front of them; it moved across and through them.
At the end of the play, the audience sat in a park facing the rear wall of the building. Across it appeared a single projected crack, slowly splitting the structure apart. The building did not survive the play intact.
Design did not frame Exile. It authored it.
Every choice—space, light, sound, costume—offers a proposition rather than an answer. A tilted table, a shaft of light, a recurring sound, or a jacket slipping from a shoulder signals intention without explanation. The audience completes the image, filling gaps with their own experience. Meaning is not delivered whole; it is assembled in the act of watching.
Interpretation as a Playground
Interpretation is the playground of theatre-making—the space between what the text says and what it can mean. Directors and designers operate here not as problem-solvers, but as co-investigators. Interpretation comes before solutions. In my practice, this begins with a strong brief. A director’s responsibility is to articulate a clear and rigorous inquiry from the outset: the central questions of the play, the pressures operating within it, and the territory we are entering. This brief is not a concept or visual idea. It is a declaration of intent.
"Every element of the stage is alive; it responds to the actor’s rhythm and the story’s pulse.” Ariane Mnouchkine & Théâtre du Soleil
Early in the process, I meet designers multiple times before any concepts are proposed. These conversations circle the text—its contradictions, resistances, ambiguities, provocations—without narrowing possibility. Once the brief is clear, I step back.
Designers, like writers, need autonomy to generate, discard, and refine ideas. Models, sketches, lighting experiments, and sound tests then enter the room as postulations—things to argue with. Interpretation is genuinely co-authored—not managed. It is a playground where ideas collide, grow, and become part of the story itself.
Faithfulness to Text and Playwright Intent
Some plays are precise—even prescriptive. Beckett’s Rough for Theatre II includes meticulous instructions for lighting, positioning, and rhythm. Following them is not restriction; it is dialogue. Playwrights like Beckett write through design. Light, space, duration, and arrangement are narrative devices embedded in the text. To treat these instructions as optional is to misunderstand where the storytelling happens.
This is true of writers often labeled “difficult” or “conceptual.” In Waiting for Godot, An Inspector Calls, and Blasted, space carries moral pressure, light structures time, and environments embody psychological and political states. Design is not an addition—it is a continuation of the playwright’s argument.
Faithfulness is attention, not obedience.
It requires directors and designers to read closely, argue honestly with the text, and respond with clarity.
“Following a playwright’s directions is not limitation—it is an invitation to engage with how the play thinks.”
Design Carrying Narrative Weight
All design choices carry narrative weight. There is no neutral decision. How a shadow falls, how a costume restricts movement, how sound lingers or cuts off—each choice proposes meaning. Design does not merely support action. It generates it.
"Theatre is a conversation between movement, space, and story. Puppets, costumes, and objects do not just exist; they speak.” Julie Taymor with Michael Curry
In my production of Romeo and Juliet, set in 1970s Bombay, the environment was constructed almost entirely from metal scaffolding. This was not illustrative; it was argumentative. The scaffolding suggested a city under construction—unstable, provisional, volatile—mirroring the social and emotional pressures in the play. Actors had to negotiate this terrain physically. Their bodies absorbed the metaphor.
"The designer is not an illustrator. Design is an actor on stage, with its own timing, gesture, and presence.” Robert Wilson with Santo Loquasto
Props are narrative. They are instruments of storytelling. I often invite actors to choose personal props—a wallet, a handkerchief, a coffee cup. These objects accumulate behaviour. In my 2026 production of Romeo and Juliet, actors selected their own guns. Tybalt chose a flashy weapon; Mercutio selected something plain. These choices immediately shaped posture, gesture, and presence. Character was embedded physically, not explained intellectually.
“Props are the tactile echoes of character and story—they carry meaning as much as dialogue.”
Costume can guide discovery. Jackets that restrict, frocks that swirl, shoes that destabilise—these are provocations, not aesthetic flourishes. Many actors wait for permission to explore this, which can limit discovery. In my training, we were required to own stock items for rehearsal: dress shoes, character shoes, even a cape. Costume locates characters under pressure—social, emotional, physical. It can confine and liberate simultaneously. At its best, it listens first and responds with intelligence.
When Design Thinks: Collaboration as Creation
There is a rare joy in finding a designer with whom a director truly works. It is not about ease or agreement—it is about shared appetite: the willingness to think rigorously, risk disagreement, and let ideas be challenged rather than defended.
“When alignment exists, silence becomes productive. Disagreement sharpens. Responsibility for meaning is no longer yours alone.”
I experienced this most clearly with the late set and costume designer Kerry Reid in Adelaide. Kerry was also an actor, and her dual practice shaped every aspect of our collaboration. Design decisions became dramaturgical acts—choices carrying meaning and consequence. Any early sketches of thoughts and ideas I would give to Kerry as part of a briefing were never meant to be literal solutions. Kerry took them on board for their intent, not depiction.
"Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there.” Rumi
Her responses—models, lighting experiments, costumes—were often entirely different from what I imagined, and invariably more precise.
“The original impulse remained, but it had been tested, interrogated, and transformed into theatrical intelligence.”
Even provisional design elements in rehearsal—stand-in shoes, jackets, hats, or set pieces—begin to generate behaviour. They shift weight, restrict or release movement, and provoke choices text alone cannot create. A vivid example: an actor arrived wearing a jacket far too large. No instruction was given. Instantly, the excess fabric reshaped their physical life: gestures softened, posture shifted, movement became more cautious. Vulnerability and self-protection appeared in the body before a word was spoken.
“The jacket did not illustrate character—it provoked it.”
Lighting and sound have their own voices. In Prayer to an Iron God, lighting designer Joe Mercurio showed how shadows could provoke actor behaviour. In The Visitor, cellist Julia Kent’s live music and soundscape conveyed narrative and emotional truth without dialogue.
“Sound, light, and costume are co-authors of the story—giving voice to what the text leaves unsaid.”
While directing Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp, it was the first time I had engaged with projection mapping to such an extent. The cast stepped into what appeared to be an empty stage—and suddenly they were surrounded by illusions that responded to the text.
Unlike traditional video, which can create atmosphere or suggest location, projection mapping interacts with the set and the actors in real time. It doesn’t simply provide a backdrop; it defines surfaces, shapes movement, and becomes part of the physical world the performers inhabit. Initially, the technology felt unfamiliar, but the collaboration itself was familiar: we started with the same exploratory conversations we have with any designer—about story, character, rhythm, and the choices the actors needed to make. The mapping became another thinking presence onstage, guiding performance, shaping how the audience read the space, and reinforcing the story before a word was spoken. Ultimately, despite the new medium, the principles of working closely with designers—trust, dialogue, and creative autonomy—remained exactly the same as with any other production.
This shared language between director, designer, and actor creates trust. Briefs become invitations, notes become provocations. When designers pursue what is necessary, rather than what is expected, momentum builds, risk becomes sustainable, and the work gains density.
Audiences may never know why a production feels coherent, alive, or unsettling. But those qualities emerge from artists thinking rigorously, arguing honestly, and trusting one another enough to let the work lead.
Design will not resonate with everyone—and it should not try. Like direction, design must choose. Consensus leads to vagueness; hesitation stops clarity. A strong brief allows design to push, question, and sharpen. Theatre does not need agreement—it needs commitment.
"The clarity of intentional design choices lies in the ability to communicate purpose and functionality through every element, creating a seamless experience that resonates with users.”
Conclusion
When design is treated as decoration, it arrives after the thinking is done—asked to smooth edges and beautify decisions it did not help to make. But design does not wait quietly.
It presses.
It insists.
It thinks.
Space argues before a word is spoken. Light decides what may be seen and what must remain hidden. Sound bends time, unsettles rhythm, alters breath. These are not effects layered onto meaning; they are acts of meaning themselves.
To work this way requires courage. A Director must willingly invite uncertainty. Designers must accept authorship. Actors must listen beyond the text. The rehearsal room must allow space, light, and sound to speak while the play is still undecided.
When design is kept at the margins, theatre becomes illustrative—safe, legible, and forgettable. When it is allowed to think alongside us, theatre becomes charged, unstable, alive. A living, collaborative art form in which design is not decoration, but dialogue—argument and imagination made material.
Over decades of practice, I have learned that clarity of intent, generosity of process, and the courage to commit matter more than resources or spectacle. Theatre succeeds when responsibility for meaning is shared.
That is where its enduring power lives.
That is where its enchantment begins.
"Design is not just about aesthetics; it is about creating meaning through collaborative thinking....." Peter Brook with Sally Jacobs
Reading
Every theatre artist will benefit from reading...
The Empty Space by Peter Brook. A foundational theory book on what theatre is — emphasizing presence, action, and space rather than text alone.
The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition — Anne Bogart & Tina Landau. Not strictly design text but invaluable for understanding space and time as creative elements in performance.
Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography — Jane Collins & Andrew Nisbet. An anthology of critical essays on space, perception, and design practice featuring voices from Appia to contemporary theorists — excellent for deeper conceptual grounding
Event‑Space: Theatre Architecture and the Historical Avant‑Garde — Dorita Hannah. Explores how performance space has been conceptually reshaped by avant‑garde practices — useful for thinking about theatre beyond proscenium.
Between the Lines: A Philosophy of Theatre — Michael Y. Bennett. A contemporary philosophical treatment of theatre that examines theatre as an art form — including the metaphysics of space, empty stage “spaces,” and how theatrical properties emerge from performance rather than text
The Poetics of Space — Gaston Bachelard. Though not a theatre book per se, this phenomenological classic examines how place and spatial experience shape imagination and perception — conceptually useful for thinking about theatrical environments and how audiences inhabit them.
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