Origin and Basic Ideals
In the 19th century and early 20th century Realism was the most prized style in theatrical design. This was due to the creation of the box set, and the work of directors who were known for going out of heir way to secure as much detail and historical accuracy for their sets, such as David Belasco, who once put an entire working restaurant on stage for a production of The Governor's Lady. In the early 1900s European designers Adolph Appia and Edward Gordon Craig began to rebel against the realistic set designs of the time and started creating more abstract environments that were characterized by a breaking up of the two-dimensionality of a space by adding levels and platforms, as well as a more dramatic use of light. Their ideas were initially controversially and criticized as being too bold for the theatre community, but eventually they gained traction and their collected theories were labeled "New Stagecraft."
Across the Ocean
Robert Edmond Jones learned of New Stagecraft while he was studying at Harvard, and after leaving the university he went to Europe to study it in action. It is he who is credited with bringing the ideas of New Stagecraft to the mainstream American theatre. He was equally as frustrated with the constraints of realism as Appia and Craig, and he spoke extensively in his lectures about the laziness of American theatre and how unexciting he found realism. In his lectures he once described American realism as "usually a record of life at a low pitch and ebb viewed in the sunless light of day." Though he was quick to follow this up by saying that he had no personal problem with realism, he just found it "So easy, so lazy, so timid" to use for every situation when something more dynamic or visceral could be created.