gordon craig's design for "hamlet" in 1911 was groundbreaking in its cubist influence. craig defined space with simple flats: monochrome canvases stretched on wooden frames, which were hinged together to be self-supporting. though the construction of these flats was not original, its application to shakespeare was completely new. the flats could be aligned in many configurations and provided a technique of simulating architectural or abstract lithic structures out of supplies and methods common to any theater in europe or the americas.