02 2014 60 (II) The Prague School in a Semiotic Perspective Freddie Rokem Mimetic and non-Mimetic Aspects of Space in the Theatre: Some Reflections Following Jindřich Honzl’s “Dynamics of the Sign in the Theater” What are the relations between the building or the site where a performance takes place and the ictional space of a speciic performance? Are these two spatial entities – the build- ing (or the site) and the ictional space – mutually inter-dependent and does the building inform or become a part of (or ‘included’ within) a speciic theatre performance? Can we claim that the semiotic features of the stage and the auditorium as an architectural entity in some way prescribe or even determine what can be shown on a particular kind of stage? And inally, how do these semiotic systems interact during a speciic theatre performance; what is their inluence on the communication between the actors and the spectators? In what follows I will present a few preliminary suggestions how to confront these issues. he focus of my presentation is the diicult-to-deine borderline between the building (or site) where the performance event takes place and its mimetic dimensions, through which the scenography or scenery as well as the acting and all the other elements of a particular production create a speciic ictional world, determined by plot, characters and circum- stances. he basic issue I want to raise here, which hopefully summarizes all the questions I have posed in the opening paragraphs is how and to what extent the semiotic coding of the stage and the auditorium, which initially may seem to be a neutral, non-mimetic fea- ture of such an event are connected to the ictional, mimetic aspects of a theatrical event, even determining what kind of action and characters can appear in such a space. Jindřich Honzl’s seminal essay on the “Dynamics of the Sign in the heater” from 1940 provides a good starting point to explore these issues. According to Honzl,