JO: . . . you got on the Federal Theatre, how you became involved in it, and why out in Roslyn. BE: Oh, well, I was--I had come from Alabama and gone to a dramatic school here in New York which no longer exists, called the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts. And on the faculty there were several people in the theatre. The person who taught stage design was a man named Dr. Milton Smith, who was the head of drama at Columbia University, and he taught there. Also a man who taught and directed was a man named Charles Hopkins, who I got to know at that time. And it was Charles Hopkins who had been--I don't know exactly what his title was. I think he was certainly, not New York City, but I think this area of New York State, head of the New York State Federal Theatre. I think they had been up in White Plains or some place before. But Hoppie, years before, had had a theatre in Roslyn which was called the Theatre of the Four Seasons, and he was very fond of that theatre. So he somehow moved the whole setup back to Roslyn, which was a charming little theatre, which is now the Public Library of Roslyn, I believe, that they took out the stage. And next to it was a beautiful 18th century farmhouse tithe middle of a park with a lake. He liked that and so that sort of became his seat at the time. And so he asked me to come out and design scenery there. That's how it was, really, through Charles Hopkins. JO: He had been up at White Plains though before? BE: Yes. And he was actually a very famous producer and director in his day. He had done a big hit play called Mrs. Moonlight. He had done most of A. A. Milne's productions in this country in the twenties before the Depression. And he also had been a very wealthy man in real estate inherited from his father, but I think had lost most of that money, millions, during the Depression because he had built a theatre up on 49th Street called the Punch and Judy Theatre, where he did a rather famous production of Treasure Island and he owned it. I know I've talked to actors who have spoken about the days when they worked with Charles Hopkins when he was awry affluent producer, that he backed his own plays. And Leo G. Carroll, who was a famous character actor, said that, "He paid me a tremendous amount of money to play a little tiny bit part, he said because if the person who came in read that line wrong, the whole play would be no good. So he said he was willing to pay me my salary just to do that one little part. But anyway, it was through Charles Hopkins that I got out to Roslyn. Then after Hoppie left, Louis Simon came and I think Hoppie went to Chicago. I think so. I saw him several times afterwards but he died not too many years later. JO: And then after Louis Simon or someone, Prologue to Glory, I gather, was the last play that was done out there. BE: No, Prologue to Glory was done in New York as part of the New York City Federal Theatre because it was about Abraham Lincoln and the boy that played the lead in it had been in Roslyn with us, a very close friend of mine named Erford Gage, who was killed in the war. He had gone to Hollywood with Pare Lorentz to do some film out there. And then he went into the Army and the next thing I heard from his wife was that he was killed in the Philippines. That's why I know about Prologue to Glory because I came in and saw it because Erford was a friend. JO: That was my assumption. I knew that he was in it. So I assumed it was out in Roslyn because he was in it. BE: It was the New York City Federal Theatre, not Roslyn. JO: Well, that explains it. I knew he was in the lead and I assumed it was out in Roslyn because of that. BE: Right. JO: From descriptions of him, he was a very talented actor. BE: He was a very talented actor and I'm sure would have done very well, had he not been killed. He was also a very charming person and a very close friend. I just went to see his wife yesterday. She's in the hospital, just had a heart attack so it's kind of a coincidence that you mentioned Erford's name. JO: Who were some of the other principal actors out there, do you remember? I mean, from your Point of view. BE: Well, Erford, I thought, was one of the most talented. I'm trying to think but I don't know quite what you mean. We had some wonderful old character people who had been on the New York stage for years. Rose Morison, who I'm sure if you looked up would say she'd done quite a few things. And she was a superb actress. And there were several others. I must say that my memory-- JO: How did the younger people get along with the older character actors? BE: Wonderfully, wonderfully, the talented ones that is. The untalented ones don't get along with anybody. Oh, I shouldn't say that. Some of them are very sweet, but I mean I noticed that whenever there was any little friction or trouble, it was always the least talented thinking they should have been cast in the largest part, you know. Hoppie ran into that problem and so did Louis. JO: How was the spirit of the group as a whole? I noticed in these playbills that you were not only designing, but you also played minor parts in some of the plays, Coriolanus and� BE: Well, there were so many people needed in the cast until--that was when Hoppie was directing. He would say, "Well, won't you do that part? We need somebody to do it." I think I was actually a messenger in Coriolanus, but the actor that we had doing it was a very nice fellow named Milton Hall who always stumbled each time that he made his entrance. And so Hoppie became exasperated and said, "Won't you do it." And I sort of laughed and said, "I'm not an actor." But I did it. Then I got out of it later and someone else did it. John Randolph, I believe, replaced me. He's done rather well lately. I'm not sure but I think he did at one point. JO: He was in Federal Theatre. I think he was out in Roslyn for a while. BE: He was in Roslyn, yes. I think John moved in as that messenger rushing in. JO: I have a list here of, as far as I can make it out, plays that were done at Roslyn. And I also gather that you designed all of them. Were you, for each play that would come out, or were there other designers? RP: Yes, I did: No More Peace I didn't really design. I think it gives me credit where it should have said that it was the first thing that was done out there. Hallie Flanagan was very fond of the play and asked Hoppie to do it, and in truth I did sort of an adaptation of a set that I believe had been done up at Hallie Flanagan's or up in Vassar or someplace up there. I redrew it all and changed the colors and did various things to it, but it really is not--I know it was based on something else because Hoppie wanted to do it the same way. And just what changes I made from the original, I think. I had a photograph or something: I have no recollection except that I do know that it was something of an adaptation and I did make some changes, but used the basic idea of just sort of constructing the set, which seems Very art deco now, doesn't it? I haven't seen these photographs in years. There's Erford, Charlie Beurre, Tugwell Muller. Do you remember who put all this� Frank Daly's out on the Coast. I wonder if they didn't give some program about who did the original set. Maybe not. JO: I didn't see anything. BE: But I do remember that, that it was an adaptation of--these reviews all of them became when we were invited to came into the theatre down on 38th Street or whatever it was. What was the name? It was named after the famous actress. Maxine Elliott. And we did a repertory for an unlimited engagement of the Charles Hopkins production. JO: Did many of the productions you were involved in tour either upstate or--I know that Playboy of the Western World- BE: Playboy of the Western World toured. That's the only one I remember. Now that was after Louis had taken over. But I don't remember any of those other plays touring except that we came to the Maxine Elliott Theatre as a guest of New York City at the instigation of Hallie Flanagan because she happened to like the repertory we had out there. And I think we got very good reviews. I've forgotten but it seems to me. JO: Yes, they're good reviews. BE: As I. remember them, Brooks Atkinson and all of than were very, quite good reviews. I remember one review--when you were speaking of Erford Gage--I've forgotten which play it was. He always got a great kick out of it. It said, "Erford Gage wearing a very bad wig." He wasn't wearing a wig at all. JO: Do you know how Hopkins went about choosing plays? What was the principle of selecting and why he would do--? BE: Well, as I said, No More Peace was at the request of Hallie Flanagan. I don't think Hoppie liked it very much. I thought it was rather of a bore and rather obvious sort of� it was an anti-war play which was good, but it seemed to me that it was awfully obvious sort of symbolism, you know, with Hitler appearing and all of that so I didn't. . .. Well, Hoppie was a very literate man. He was a graduate of Yale and through his whole years was in the theatre. I think he chose plays� he was terribly fond of Bernard Shaw and Pygmalion hadn't been done in this country in, I don't know, since it was first done I don't think. I think it was the first revival of Pygmalion in this country and you know what happened to it after that. JO: This is Pygmalion here and there's a reference in here of lights having been done by Feder and I wondered how that came about. BE: Oh, these are some terrible photographs. When we moved into the Maxine Elliott Theatre, Abe was the lighting man for the Federal Theatre. And all the lights were set up there in the Maxine Elliott by Abe Feder where they had done many productions. So Abe relit them with the equipment he had set up and that's why it says "Lighting by Abe Feder." I didn't do much lighting in those days anyway. Hoppie did most of the lighting. I think I did the lighting after he left. But years ago directors quite often did their own lighting. Guthrie McClintic did his own lighting and Charles Hopkins did his own lighting, all the old directors quite far back. And so Hoppie lit his own productions, but when it came to town because Abe was ensconced there and also he was very good and became a close friend of ours--I still see Abe, based on those days in the Maxine Elliott. JO: What were the limits of the Roslyn Theatre? BE: Well, the stage was very tiny. I don't think the stage was more than 20 feet deep. There was no off-stage space at all. It really was a stage made at the end of some hall, but it had a lot of charm for a little theatre, terribly tiny. I must say these photographs� (laugh) There never was money. JO: That's another question I have. Did you have problems with--I've heard stories, oh, from Howard Bay talking about taking bed ticking and having to dye it and paint it. BE: Yes, we had certain money problems. We had to stay within a certain budget. As I remember, we had to� the worst handicap, however, wasn't so much the limitation of the money as it was that the methods that we had to--we had to get three bids on everything because it was sort of the Army way, the Government way. To just buy one, you wanted a certain piece of cloth, you had to go and get a bid on the equivalent. So you'd have three bids. I found many ways to get around that, but still there had to be some sort of� three different companies had to bid on everything. And that was terribly time-consuming and ridiculous. It was red tape that really was not very conducive to-- JO: I've got a fair number of comic stories because of that (laugh) whole problem taped. Did you have a stage crew out there and had they been there? Were they relief? And how helpful they were? BE: Yes, I think, yes, a lot of them were on relief. I never knew who was on relief and who wasn't. I know that I was one of--you were allowed to have four or five people who were not on relief. JO: Ten percent. BE: And I was one of that group, not that I shouldn't have been on relief. I don't mean it that way (laugh) but it just so happened that I didn't go through the rigmarole of going on relief because I didn't have to to get out there and work. It was a marvelous setup because they had a very fine man. I wonder if his name is in here. I'm glad to see this program. The builder, he was a superb stage carpenter, and he had worked on many productions in New York. I don't know if it gives him credit or not. It probably does somewhere. It's probably on the back there. JO: No, it's usually an advertisement on the backs. BE: I noticed one of these programs gave credit to the staff, one program did. Here they are back here. See, on the back? Yes, Teddy Grey. His name was Alfred Grey, that was the name. We called him Teddy. Alfred Grey was the had carpenter and very good he was. I was just laughing at these terrible sets. They look much worse than they looked. Of course, this photography is so terrible. [Louis Simon joins the interview] LS: Well, I told Mr. O'Connor I'd give him--on the Birds, I know I have Stella's color prints. BE: Oh, those color prints, yes. I didn't know these were made up. Who did this, Grace Vail? Who did all this? LS: I imagine [Mogens] Petrie did it. BE: Somebody because none of these, are not my drawings. They must be the stage manager's. LS: Oh, those must have been the stage manager's, but I think getting the books together was probably Petrie. RE: It was his job. I didn't� yes. JO: Here's the set for Coriolanus. BE: Coriolanus, yes. Well, we didn't do it like that. LS: Okay, Well, I'll leave you, And I told them if there was a call for you to buzz you in here. BE: Oh, thank you very much, Louis. I appreciate that. Jay Velie who played in that. Jay's still around. Jay's 88 years old now. Actually, it was quite a good production as I remember. JO: It got very good reviews. BE: And there again, Hoppie read that and liked it because--and I think--it was the first time in 100 years or the first time Coriolanus had ever been performed in New York, It's been performed many times since. Well, not many, but it has been performed. But there wasn't much Shakespeare of any kind before. JO: Were you pressed for time? How was--would the plays be in rehearsal or a while? BE: Yes, we were always pressed for time, I guess mainly because Hoppie liked to get things on. He didn't like these sort of delays. Some of the productions in New York rehearsed for years. There was something called Sing for Your Supper I think that it was rehearsed for two years, I believe. So we really sort of rolled it out. JO: There is, I mean, these plays came on pretty rapidly. They'd play for a month and be after--it seemed that from unit to unit or theatre to theatre was a very big difference, that Sing for Your Supper was a scandal and James Light's productions for the Federal Theatre were in rehearsal unduly long. BE: Jimmy Light's things, yes. I used to know him. He'd done same of the O'Neill things way back. JO: I take it when you went on the Federal Theatre, it took a long time to get things on. BE: Yes, there was a good bit of that going on, particularly in New York City it seemed because I remember Erford when he transferred in the Lincoln thing, Prologue to Glory was that the name of it� he would tell tales of bureaucratic red tape delaying things. Well, we ran into a lot of it out in Roslyn even, except both with Charlie Hopkins and with Louis, they sort of kind of overruled and cut through it all. But the people who sort of ran the business end of it were forever throwing monkey wrenches in about "This is not according to the rules." And we'd say, "Well, to hell with the rules. We're here to get something on, to get it done." And you could kind of get around them if you handled it right. But I could see that in a city like New York-- JO: When you were out in Roslyn, was there a sense of competition with New York City? New York City reviewers didn't usually come out to Roslyn and I wondered. BE: In those days, the New York City reviewers would not review outside of New York City, which is, I think, a rule they should have stuck to. I mean, I really don't think the critics today should go traipsing down to reviewing things in Washington that are going to be done later in New York. It's all right if they go into Minneapolis to review the season there at Stratford. But I mean they will now rush out of town at the drop of a hat to review something that in a few months they're going to have to re-review in New York. And if they didn't like it out of town, they'll have to not like it if it gets to New York or vice versa, you know, which seems silly to me. But Brooks Atkinson came out to see� he was a friend of Louis'--came out to see most of ours and came out to see a lot of our productions. But he never would review them because that was against the policy. Of course, he reviewed them when they came to town. JO: Did you have a sense of competition with those in town then, that they were doing something, you were doing something? Was there that kind of rivalry? BE: I don't remember feeling rivalry. We were out there and we were kind of grouped to ourselves, and we liked it out there. It was interesting while it lasted. It was a marvelous experience for the young and we were all very young. JO: Did you have a sense of being---someone said Federal Theatre--of a national theatre or anything like that? Or was it pretty much self contained, this particular unit? In other words, did you have a sense of plays being put on in North Carolina or Chicago or Los Angeles? BE: Well, we were aware of it, yes. We were aware of it for the simple reason that quite often certain people would come to us who had been down with this Federal Theatre in North Carolina or who had been in Chicago. You know that made us quite aware of what was going on all over the country, in other parts, but not--except by the hearsay or what we read, of course. But I don't know too much about it. JO: In New York City there were fairly frequent problems with labor difficulties, Workers' Alliance, Communist Party. Did you feel that out in Roslyn? BE: No, we had none of that in Roslyn to speak of. We had a couple of people were who sort of oriented that way, but we never paid much attention to it. It was kind of all the thing in those days. It was kind of--I never felt there was any sort of witch-hunt that was ridiculous. I mean, these people were all� you could either agree with than or disagree with them, but I didn't feel they were going to try to bomb us out or anything of that nature. And having known most of that, and known the history since, and some who later got in trouble in Hollywood and in New York with the Un-American Activities Committee= when I think about it, it's a storm in a teacup, and they were not conspirators. They just happened to, you know, they belonged to part of that whole era. It was a product of the Depression. I mean, you'll find the members of the Group Theatre, that group, you'll find most all of than had militant ideas. But it seemed harmless enough to me at the time. I didn't agree with than always or I did on certain occasions. JO: Were you conscious of the politics within New York City or- BE: Oh, yes. I was conscious of it because I--half the time when I worked in Roslyn I stayed in New York and commuted on that Long Island Railroad. Then in the summertime I would move out there, which was pleasant. Then by the time it got winter, we used to take the train back. And I was quite aware of what was going on and the fights and the wrangles in that area. But even so, as I said, I got to know almost all those people on both those sides. And from where I stand at this point and even years later, I mean the right-wingers were the ones that really were in the wrong. I mean, they were making the issues. It didn't matter to me that--what's his name, the man who wrote The Cradle Will Rock? Marc Blitzstein was sort of waving a red flag, but he was a very talented man and a very charming man. And I found myself much more sympathetic with than and yet I never felt sympathetic with Communism as such, I mean not as an ally of Russia or anything of that sort. But I just thought they made more sense than the others, and I think in retrospect they did. JO: Did you ever have a sense of--because in New York they did have problems with Ethiopia, the Living Newspaper, and Cradle Will Rock. Was there any of that kind of problem, let's say No More Peace or Coriolanus? Were there any controversial productions out in Roslyn? BE: Well, I don't guess they were very controversial. Of course, No More Peace was, but I mean it was put in such a way that by that time Hitler wasn't very popular. So how controversial was that? Coriolanus was done with a certain eye to the political connotations that you might read into Shakespeare as much as you can. You know, they're sort of geared that way. I mean, Hoppie saw it as a political argument of a sort, although he was certainly an apolitical man. He was not extremist on any direction. JO: How would you go about designing plays with him for the Federal Theatre? Did he leave the designs up to you or did he have things in mind? You mentioned that he did the lighting primarily. BE: Yes. JO: And that some of the sets, while you explained that No More Peace--it struck me, I guess, when I was looking at these, at No More Peace and Coriolanus, that those sets and the more realistic sets of Pygmalion or- BE: Of course, these are dreadful photographs. I remember the photographer. The scenery didn't look quite this bad. We had an old Federal Theatre photographer who, I remember, he sort of would--all these lights, these flashbulbs, these lights and so on--he sort of would put the� it was one of those old cameras with the black thing over it. He had a toupee and each time he came out from under, his toupee came off with the black hood. And we'd all get these pictures and sort of, well, there we were. Because they're so flat and there's not one sign of any shadow or light or anything there. His technique was, even at that time, 30 years behind the times. But so were most all theatrical photographers except for people like Florence Van Dam, the Van Dams, who---today their photographs look quite good. Although I was looking at same not long ago and even they have gotten a little strange. JO: How would you go about doing a set design? BE: Well, I don't know that the technique's any different today, just talk to the director and sort of play around with ground plans and sketches and drawings. JO: Was there much difference between Louis Simon and Charles Hopkins as far as what they expected a designer to do, their sense of the production? BE: Yes, they were different. It's very hard to say in what way. Louis I think took a little more, I wouldn't say interest, but he participated a little more in the technical end of the theatre than Hoppie did because I think Louis had been involved more in the technical end of the theatre than Hoppie had. After all, he was a gentleman producer and director and sort of in the Winthrop Ames tradition. And I don't think Hoppie had ever--he learned how to light because he had to, you know, but as far as how a flat was made or how this changed, he sort of never worried about that where Louis was much more interested in the technical aspects, I believe. I think that's a primary difference. Other than that, I don't think so much difference. JO: How about costumes? Were you in charge of costume design also? BE: Yes. JO: And was their shop out at Roslyn or would all that stuff be made in the city? BE: CO, no, we had a shop out there. We had an old wardrobe mistress named Sadie somebody---I guess her name's in there somewhere--and rather charming women who were on relief who were mainly seamstresses and they had had very little background in working in costume shops. But some of them turned out to be quite good in retrospect and they were terribly nice. JO: And how much detail would you work with them? BE: Well, the same as usual I did a drawing of all the costumes except we didn't make any men's costumes. We had no tailoring department, and I think most of our men's costumes were rented in Brooks or Eve's here in town. So that meant just coming in town and picking them out and sending them out. It was the women's clothes: that's all we had was a department for making women's clothes except in the case of Coriolanus. That kind of costume for just period suits and hats and they all came from costume companies, rentals. JO: Did you reuse materials? Were you conscious of that kind of savings? BE: No, I don't remember ever reusing anything, but I must have somewhere if I needed it, but it was not necessary. JO: Not a policy of- BE: No, most of the clothes were kept intact because, as I said, later on we came to New York and the productions were all hanging up in a storehouse in the attic out there in that old house we had that was part of the theatre. So there was no attempt made in that time� JO: I have a good photograph of that ...... I guess the most successful ones when Louis was there--well, they were all rather pleasant. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a very pleasant evening. (Looks at photographs) Well, that was done when Hoppie was there. That was called A Moral Entertainment. That was by Richard Maibaum. JO: That too seems to be very different in design than� BE: What? JO: Moral Entertainment than this. What would you consider influences or models in design? BE: I don't know. I guess we were all experimenting when we were young, just experimenting with different methods of doing plays. JO: By it being a national theatre, Federal Theatre, and you were sure of� in some sense free from commercial concerns, did you feel freer to experiment with design and try things or not? BE: Well, I don't know that you felt much freer than you do today. It's just that--no, I just think--there again, talking with Hoppie, we decided we'd like to not do it, there were many different scenes, different scenes of this play. It was a new play, not very good, not bad. And we just decided to do it this way because it had many different scenes. In fact, with just simple changes of this basic set, we could make it work. This is the only photograph you have of this, I guess. JO: Yes. BE: Because it had many different phases. JO: Oh, I see. No, that's the only one. BE: I remember there were some great I'd forgotten all about it until you showed it to me. And this was, I think, the church scene. Then this one moved away and others went up there. There was a love scene that took place up in the upper attic. I think these windows were removed. I remember it changed. Different elements came in and out of that. It was a unit basic sort of set. This was obviously taken during a dress rehearsal, wasn't it? The steps are still sitting there. JO: I assume most of the shots are rehearsal shots. RE: I know that old photographer. JO: Did you feel that Federal Theatre gave you good training, caning out of school? RE: Well, I thought it was invaluable training for me because what it did, Because the route that most people take, as young as I was at that time � I don� t know what they do now: It� s the same thing� is that you worked in summer theatres where you built and painted your own scenery with a couple of kids from college or so forth. Whereas here it actually was run as the Broadway theatre is run, in a sense. I had to make paint elevations which the head scenic painters, you see, who had to execute drawings, and so it really was wonderful experience because I did all the drafting which they built from. And the paint elevations they used was exactly the system in the legitimate, you know, professional theatre. And I think that was invaluable experience overseeing the translation of your drawings and your color sketches that someone else was executing. It's not the same as if you were sort of in there with your own paintbrush doing it. And I made models for them to work by. I think that was invaluable. JO: And did you have more control over shop then than now? RE: No, I would say it's the same. It's the same. I mean, you had a little less control out of the Federal Theatre, I think, because a lot of the people had been doing that work for many, many years and there I was, 19 or 20: I can't remember. I can count it up, but somewhere around there, kind of a young whippersnapper. And therefore I remember a certain resistance, although I never had any from the head carpenter. He was terrific: nor did I have any really from the--I remember one very interesting, a couple of interesting happenings. We had a painter who came to work on the project who lived near Roslyn. He had been retired, he and his wife, and he was a very charming man. His name was Joe Fizia. He had been, in his day, the most famous scenic painter in New York City. That was before there were designers as such. This was back in the 1890's, 1905, 1915. The director or the producer would sort of go to the scenic artist and say, "I need a drawing roam like this with a center door or a door over here." And he would make out things and he would then just make the flat to be made and he would paint it. You've seen photographs of all those sets. And Joe had done all this for Southern and Marlowe, and if you look at old programs dating from the nineties right up until about 1918, you will find that most all the famous productions with the great stars were painted by Joe Fizia. And he was 70 something at that time and he was a skillful painter. But sometimes the colors didn't quite fit with what I had in mind and I remember on Playboy Of the Western World particularly, which I merely wanted sort of the old whitewashed Irish stone cottage inside with the hood whitewashed. I went away, I guess I was out shopping, doing something on the costumes, I don't know where, And I came back and walked in. Joe had gone home and I was absolutely horrified because instead of being just the old--I'd given him paint elevations and so forth but instead of being the old whitewashed walls, some of the plaster had cracked away in one place and there was brick in there, with grass growing out of the cracks of the brick. Flawlessly painted but if you had tried to say, "I want to get a set that looks about 1900," you couldn't have had a better example. So it took a great deal of sort of diplomacy and trying to talk to Joe and saying that that was beautiful but it wasn't what I wanted and still trying to stay friends because I was terribly fond of him and admired him in many ways because of his tremendous skill� There was another set, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, for instance, where we were doing a room we painted in a hotel in Paris, the Ritz, Ibelieve. And in one day he was able to do all that painting in the room and did it beautifully. And I said to please keep it in muted grays and whites and so forth, which he did and did it beautifully. And I couldn't believe the skill, freehand, perfect precision even at the time. Then another time on Nine Pine Street I had done a sketch of elm trees outside the rather impressionistic grays with bits of snow. And Joe, I think, didn't approve of that impressionistic sketch that I had given him. So all of a sudden there was snow and the most violent purple shadows. It was all that, too, you know. And you just sort of said, "Oh, well." But we were good friends in spite of I felt that I, being much younger, had--but I was always having a problem with trying to ease Joe into colors that were, I felt, a little more suited to what my concept of the theatre should be rather than--it was kind of an old realism 1900's which isn't real at all, of course. But his skill was extraordinary. JO: It seems to me here were a number of major designers came out of the Federal

Theatre. BE: I guess more than we know. I know Howard, of course, but I-- JO: Sam Leve. BE: Sam. JO: And then there was Feder as� BE: I haven't seen all the list. Well, Abe, of course. JO: George Izenour was on the West Coast. BE: And I guess Orson Welles was not a designer so much but certainly a theatre person. His early starts, he had played--he was known before that, but he wasn't able to do his own productions until the Federal Theatre. JO: That leads to another question I wanted to ask, especially since you lived in New York. Did you see much New York Federal Theatre, for instance Living Newspapers? BE: Yes, I think I saw all of it, as I remember. I saw Dr. Faustus --I believe it was Federal Theatre� which Orson directed and played in, which Abe lit. And Horse Eats Hat, I believe, plus Prologue to Glory plus One-Third of a Nation. I guess I saw them all. JO: What did you think of the set of One-Third of a Nation? BE: I liked it tremendously at the time. It seems to hold up very well in photographs today. JO: I mean, just in photographs it looks like a very impressive-- BE: Yee, and I think it must have been and certainly--you said it put Howard on the map. That's where he got his real, his first start, was with One-Third of a Nation. JO: How about the other Living Newspapers that used the scrim? Do you remember any of those: Triple-A Plowed Under with the projections or Injunction Granted? BE: Oh, yes, I do remember the Living Newspaper, those. I remember not liking them 'very much. (Laugh) � not very fond of projections, but that's very vague. I remember liking the others. I didn't think the scenery for Prologue to Glory was very good. JO: Do you know who designed that? I'd like to go back and check on that. * BE: I'm trying to think now. I'd know the name if it was mentioned. JO: Throckmorton? BE: It wasn't Cleon Throckmorton. No, I knew Cleon Throckmorton. JO: I guess he did quite a bit of that New York City stuff. BE: It wasn't Throckmorton. It was someone else who was... JO: I might find it in the reviews. But I guess the point I want to ask you is to follow up about the training, but particularly, I guess, partly because of the Depression and the Federal Theatre providing a regular job, whether that was unusual training. You seem to say no: it would have happened anyway. BE: Did I say that? I didn't necessarily mean to say that. I don't know that� certainly at that time the opportunity was invaluable and I think it would be today, if you could keep the bureaucratic red tape out of it and the sort of the Washington strings. You've got to have a little freedom although there was a lot of freedom. But I think it was mainly because the heads of departments were very strong. But I don't know who could have handled New York City at that time with the turmoil, the Depression, and the whole� you know. I mean, there were political things, much worse than anywhere else. Certainly in Roslyn we didn't get involved in that to any great extent. But it must have been horrendous in New York from all I've heard. But you had a strong man like Orson and very young, but he held the line and made- JO: It seems clear where there was a director that� BE: A real tower, someone with a direct sense of what they wanted. And it certainly was wonderful experience for everyone working with Orson Welles in those productions and young actors learned a lot, did classics which were done very little at that time. There were no Stratfords, there were no any other theatre. You know, they only had New York and a few theatres in a few other places but none to speak of. JO: The theatre in Roslyn, because it was the state theatre, as I understand it would tour on occasion to Buffalo and Rochester and Albany. Do you remember that at all? Would you have to go along to watch the sets? PE: I never went on any of the trips. I was always working on the next one coming up, I think. I didn't go on any of the trips. The only trip I went on: I think we did once but it's probably not listed. Hoppie felt one Christmas that we should do a miracle play. So we had a truck which we devised that the side would let down to create a stage. And we did Isaac, it was about Isaac. I've forgotten the exact title. JO: Was it Abraham and Isaac? BE: Yes, the old miracle plays and we did that and Erford was playing in it and other people. All I remember is that I think I went up to the Bronx with it. We'd open up on the streets anywhere and give a miracle play at Christmastime. I think a terrible rain and we had a stuffed lamb and the rain washed the lamb down the gutter. It was all sort of a disaster, but it played around and I think was received very well. But that's not listed here. LS: Now can I eavesdrop? BE: Yes, cone on in and sit around and talk. That's all we're doing is trying to remember. JO: There was other caravan or that kind of park theatre in the Federal Theatre. BE: I think so. Well, this was one of those: I was just saying it's not listed. Right before you came Hoppie wanted to do a miracle play in a truck, which we toured all the environs of New York and the side let down. LS: Oh, on the upper tier there? Syracuse and Rochester? BE: Well, we played the Bronx, all over. We let down the side of the truck which became the stage, part of the stage, the truck plus the side. And we put on Abraham and Isaac, the miracle play for Christmas, I think it was. And the rains washed the lamb away and we had all sorts of trouble. Mr. O'Connor was asking me if I had gone on any of the tours. I don't remember going to Philadelphia. I think I was working on another production. I never went, I don't think there was any money allotted for anybody to go- LS: That wasn't in the cast. BE: --that wasn't in the cast. I think that was it. LS: I think Danny [Dan Malloy] went. BE: When he was the director, that he could get it going. But I wasn't needed to go. I didn't go, I never went on those tours. But I was working on other productions at the time. LS: Yes. JO: When you had to get the bids on various things, would they go to Mr. Simon and Mr. Hopkins or did they have to go to a WPA official, when you'd have bids for the equipment? BE: I was saying that one of the handicaps I remember which drove everyone mad was for the slightest little piece of cloth you had to get three comparative bids, which drove everyone up the wall. And I've forgotten, there was somebody named Wallace out there. Didn't he have to run that department of checking whether there were three bids and then it went to Mogens Petrie? I don't know, it was--I never followed it through. IS: And then of course if you had, for instance if Mr. Edwards wanted a particular chair, a Victorian chair of a certain design, which you couldn't get three bids on, then there was a great deal of paper work to get an exemption from those three-bid things so that you could get exactly the thing that you wanted. BE: The sources were not that great. We had two or three "prop" houses in New York, but you'd find the chair you wanted in one only, so how--a lot of the time, I must say, I did just go to the others and say, "I'll take that chair," something I thought might cost us some more money so that I'd get the lower price, which was the one I wanted. But that took time and was ridiculous. We had ways of getting around it. I've forgotten, the exemptions or something on occasions. LS: You had to have a pretty valid excuse like I did with the pinball machine for what was it, Time of Your Life, or one of the Saroyan plays. And of course pinball machines were outlawed in New York City. LaGuardia thought they were an evil influence on the youth. BE: Oh, yes. He closed the burlesque houses, too. LS: Yes. BE: He should be around to see the massage parlors. JP: There's one downstairs. BE: It also seems to me that the guy that had another way of facilitating it was that long, lanky man who went out in a car. What was his name? Why don't I just get all this stuff and send it? In his job he had to go out with the list and get duplicate bids for other places after the fact, you understand, which was another way of covering up that you had three bids. Because I think that as long as the director, you or someone approved, you didn't necessarily have to take the cheapest bid. I believe you could finagle it a little. But of course you couldn't play that too long. If you went on just taking the most expensive, I'm sure someone in Washington might have run across it, or wherever they checked it out. But it seems to me we quite often did get the other two bids sometimes afterwards, when you were in a rush. JO: One last question. A number of people who did design for Federal Theatre and were in theatre went west, went to Hollywood and worked there. You stayed in New York. Was there a particular reason for that? (Interruption) Were you tempted to go to Hollywood or did you in fact go to Hollywood? BE: No, I never went to Hollywood at all at that period. I was more interested in designing for the theatre. That also seemed the door that seemed the most open at the time. It never occurred to me to go to Hollywood. Then after that it's only been the last 10 years I've been asked to go to Hollywood to do things. I do go to Hollywood and design films and that sort of thing, but it's always I'm from New York designing the film in Hollywood. JO: You've done some television work, too, haven't you? BE: Yes, I do a lot of television work. JO: And how is that different from the theatre? This is my own personal interest. BE: From the theatre? Well, it's more like movies. Television is much easier. Movies and television is much easier than the theatre. The theatre is the most difficult and demanding of all the designing, at least I think. I think to do it successfully, I should say. The restrictions are greater and also the� well, it's a design, there it is. Whereas movies, you know, the camera moves around and it's much more realistic. It's like building a house, movies-. Naturally I feel that same of the same matters of taste and understanding of what the subject matter is and creating the right place for that to take place is equally important in films and television as it is on the stage. But I think it's easier to achieve, I should say. Even though you know what you want it to be on the stage, you know the atmosphere you want, it's what you do to get that effect because you just have that little stage sitting up there. You can't have great vistas and shots around one of those. You know you have to give the impression of that in a most limited space. And I think that's why it's more difficult, one of the reasons there. JO: In Roslyn most of the stuff was a unit design. Was that because of the size of the stage that you had--I mean, like the Moral Entertainment? BE: Well, I don't think so particularly because-- JO: Or was it your inclination? BE: -we did, however bad, Pygmalion we did exactly as it was written. We did all those sets and there are a considerable number, changing them back of a little curtain. And there were two full sets in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Nine Pine Street was one set which underwent changes to denote passing of time. Loyalties, I think, had six sets or something. It was slightly unit, I must say it was, but it was shifted around. But it wasn't a unit set as such. Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines had two enormous sets, the dock and we had to shift to the Brevoort, the parlor in the Brevoort House. So I don't really think it was. It was kind of a style that we sort of decided to do it in. Coriolanus, like all Shakespeare, a unit set--there are so many different scenes. And today I think some form of unit set for Shakespeare is the best. It gives it a--I don't mean to make a pun, but it gives a unity to the whole production as a coherence that you certainly--the Shakespearean productions I've seen where they really tried to make the scenery different, all of than were terrible. You know, you don't want a sudden scene where it says so-and-so's house. If it were all different each time, I mean, it would somehow destroy the whole--not that I feel you have to go back to the Elizabethan stage necessarily but something within that framework I think is most effective to Shakespeare. JO: But the tremendous moving from scene to scene. RE: Right. It was written that way because of the Elizabethan stage and you can't be changing scenery. Something quick has to happen and your scene must go on. JO: When you were out at Roslyn, did you have a sense of wanting to come into the city, I mean, to design in the Maxine Elliott or the other theatres that the Federal Theatre had in the city? RE: No, I don't think so. I don't remember particularly. I don't remember any such envy. I don't know. Maybe I did and don't remember. I don't think so though. As I said, because most of them except for a few, I didn't think were in any way superior to Roslyn. I mean, I mentioned the ones I thought were the high marks of the Orson Welles productions. JO: Did you see Murder in the Cathedral? BE: Yes, I saw that, yes. I hate that play so--I don't hate it but it bores me to death. JO: There's very little except for some photos and the photos are remarkable There isn't much set, the stairs and that kind of thing. BE: I can't think who designed that. JO: Halsted Welles directed it. That's about all I know. BE: I'd forgotten he had directed it. Did he? JO: Yes. Tam Cracraft might have designed it. BE: It was Tam Cracraft. I kept trying to think and it was Cracraft. Nothing much ever happened to him after the Federal Theatre. He got quite a lot of publicity for that Becket thing, Murder in the Cathedral. But the rest of the things he did after that all seemed pretty ordinary and then somehow the name disappeared. I haven't thought about Tom Cracraft's name. I don't know whatever happened to him or if he's still alive. I don't think he's still alive. JO: I haven't been able to find out either way. BE: Well, I don't see--his name is not on the United Scenic Artists Local 829 roster, but he could have pulled out and retired or something. He's certainly not active any more, but I don't think he was very old at the time. JO: I don't know anything about him. I mean, there are two or three designers that are just names and that's all from Federal Theatre we haven't been able to track down. A number of others have died that were principal designers for Federal Theatre: Nat Karson. EE: Nat Karson's dead. He went on from that to--I saw his production which Orson Welles directed of Macbeth in Harlem which I liked very much, which Nat Karson designed. � Then he went on and for 20 years designed for Radio City Music Hall until he died or right before he died, right after the Federal Theatre. That was sort of the sum total and the end of his career. But the black Macbeth was very exciting. JO: There's one picture of a drop that has a skeleton background and must be very-- BE: Well, he had a lot of drawings for that production. They must be somewhere. The Library of Performing Arts may have them. JO: No, they don't. PE: But a lot of universities buy than up, you know. JO: That's what we're trying to find out. BE: I know a lot of my drawings are at Harvard and up at Binghamton. JO: Binghamton has a large-- BE: Binghamton has quite a few things of mine and Harvard has a few. Other than that, I don't know. Some others I don't know what happened to them. JO: How about your Federal Theatre designs? Do you still have any or would you still have any? BE: I still have some. Do you want them? JO: Yes, if you'd like to give them to us. BE: If I don't have to mail them until after the first of the year. JO: That's fine. BE: I have a couple of drawings from Coriolanus, maybe one or two. The others I think have all been destroyed or lost. I had a fire that burned up a lot of stuff of mine. But I know I ran across the other day a couple of old--one sketch from Coriolanus. The Playboy of the Western World design I gave to Frank Daly, who played in it, who's on the Coast, but he's moving back to New York. He has that. JO: Mr. Simon said he'd give me his address. Do you know when he's moving back? BE: No. But Louis has his address. He has the original drawing for Playboy. He always liked it and he was quite good in playing one of the small parts, the best thing he ever did. He wasn't very good--I won't say that: he's a friend of mine. I didn't think he was very good in Pygmalion or some of the other parts, but he was superb in that. And he always wanted it and I gave it to him one year, years later when I said I was going through those in my desk. But I don't know what happened to the other drawings except I saved this from Coriolanus. There may be a couple of Captain Jinks around, I'm not sure. Pygmalion I've seen and I had drawings for all of that. I don't know whatever happened to them. JO: In hindsight, what were some of the limitations? Or were there limitations to Federal Theatre? When it got stopped it was primarily politics. I think it was probably some kind of deal. But could there have been things that could have been different? I know you mentioned- BE: Haw do you mean that exactly? JO: Either specific things like- BE: You prefaced it by saying it had been stopped. Yes, it indeed was stopped by politics. JO: Everything from small things like the bids, three bids, the red tape. BE: Well, the red tape-but we managed to survive, even with the red tape. There's red tape in everything, but that seemed unnecessary to me and a little more so than ordinary. But that isn't what hurt the Federal Theatre. (End of interview)