Stage technology

The tenth entry is a mudança de cenário, and the noun an English reader recognises here is the one to handle with care. O cenário is what stands built and painted on the stage, and « the scenery » does name that: the flats, the backcloth, the staircase that leads nowhere. But « scenery » keeps a second life in English that cenário never took, and it is much the commoner of the two. Out of a train window or in a holiday brochure, « the scenery » is the landscape itself — « the scenery is magnificent » — and no theatre is anywhere in sight. The two lives meet in a phrase that every speaker owns. « A change of scenery » is a week away, a new desk, anything but the same four walls; it is never what happens between two acts. For that the trade says « a scene change » or « a set change », and the words stay indoors. So A mudança de cenário acontece no escuro is « the scene change happens in the dark », whereas « a change of scenery in the dark » would describe somebody quietly leaving town.