---
tags: DramaSix, names, brokenOut
title: Adolphe Appia
---
### Adolphe Appia (1862-1928)

#### Where
- Born in Switzerland

#### When
- Modern European theater
- 19th c. - 20th c. Biggest influence during 20th c.

#### Contributions
- Designer, scenographer, lighting designer
- Particularly fascinated by the [Gesamtkunstwerk](/OiCmAMt5TLydUVRUjE8A0A), Richard Wagner's operas, and fixing the limitations of contemporary stagecraft.
- Focused his work on the actor's body in movement, space, and
- Implemented ideas in the Festspielhaus at Hellerau
- "In 'Retour a la musique" (1906), Appia criticized the passivity of the public which allowed a work of art to be placed "in front of us, outside of us . . . it is there, we are here, always distinct.' He blamed this passivity ("anaesthesia") in part on the theatres, 'ugly and built contrary to good sense." In 1908, Appia wrote: 'In our modern theatres, the places meant for the public are as dis- tinct as possible from the space where the action takes place; and perfection seems to us attained at Bayreuth: there, the proscenium frame is no more than an immense key- hole (pardon me!) through which we indiscretely surprise mysteries which are not meant for us"[^1]

[^1]: Tallon, Mary Elizabeth. ["Appia's Theatre at Hellerau."](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3206737) Theatre Journal 36, no. 4 (1984): 495-504. Accessed February 20, 2020. doi:10.2307/3206737.