This dissertation is based on some twenty analyses of productions in which Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss was responsible for the set and costume designs. Its purpose is to identify their contribution to the various potential readings of the productions analysed. The production analyses are based on the perspective of the observer/receiver, who, through a hermeneutic process, attempts to understand what is communicated by the visual components of the production. In addition, scenic models, costume sketches and interviews with the designer are analysed to determine how the designs are conceived and generated to serve as significant elements of the production. Further, the analyses are formulated to account for their aesthetic, sociopolitical and cultural contexts, according to a Wittgenstein-influenced conceptual model of the essential elements of both formation and reception of meaning.

In a separate section, I review the designer’s primary influences, especially those of cubism and the purist ideal, as represented by De Stijl and the Bauhaus, which can be traced through much of her work. Throughout, her set designs are characterised by a sparse simplicity and architectural proportions, though these qualities manifest themselves in a wide variety of forms; she has produced both highly realistic and purely abstract designs. Her aesthetic creed can be summarized as a search for maximum simplification and optimum use of the stage space, but with a minimum of means.

Her costume designs are generated by the belief that everything on the stage should have a function, both in the creation of a particular historical period and as components of the symbolic dimension of a production. The costumes and their colours are designed to support the metaphorical and psychological connotations which a spectator might formulate in response to a production. In the final chapter I review certain biographical data relevant to the thesis concerning stage and costume design, and to her status as a set designer. I also discuss her role as a creator of opinion in the cultural arena, and her active involvement in improving the status of the set designer within the theatrical profession.

Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss’ contribution to the ongoing changes within the wider European theatre is evident in the attached production list, which shows that a third of her productions have taken place on stages outside Sweden. Furthermore, she has been responsible for the design of some thirty guest performances of Dramaten and the Residenztheater in Munich with Ingmar Bergman as director.