Image Makers: Designers CHAPTI!R SCENERY, COSTUMES, MAKWP, MASKS, WIGS, AND HAIR Stage-designing should be addressed to [the] eye of the mind. There Is an outer eye that observes, and there Is an inner eye that sees.1 Robert Edmond Jane!, The Dramatic lmagina~·M DesignerS of theatriCal sets, esigners collaborate with directors {and playwrights) td -focus costumes, masks,- puppets, the audiep.ce's attention on the actor in the theatrical space. hair, and wigs r~a1ize tha 0 . They create three-dimensional environments for the actor and production in vfsual terms. make the play's world visible and inte"resting, Sometimes one person (the· They are visual artists scenographer) designs scenery, lighting, and costumes, But in ~ost in­ who transform space stances today, scenery, costumes, lights, and sound are de~igned by indi­ and materials into an vidual artists working in collaboration. Imaginative world for actors engaged in human action. THE SCENE DESIGNER Background The seen~ or set designer entered the American theatre more than 100 years ago. The designer's nineteenth-century forerunner was the resident scenic artist, who painted large pieces of scenery !or theatre managers. Scenery's main function in those days was to gl.ve the actor a painted backgroun~ and to Indicate place: a drawing room, garden, etc. Scenic ~ studio~ staffed with specialized artists were set up to· tum out scenery on \ demand. Many of these studios conducted a large mail-order business for 11 ~,.-" r d)> / standard backdrops and scenic pieces.· By the middle of the nineteenth '- '(_a; (1:_ • o'---- _;v- . "' q~ -tl"century, realism had come into the theatre, and the job of making the ~~··•}~ JP~V stage environment look lifelike became a challenge. vy- ..r tr By the late nineteenth century. theatre was dominated by a naturalistic 0 ·.J-"=' ar ~~q--'" • philosophy that insisted life could be explained by the forces of environ- ~~ . -w$1' ment, heredity, economics, society, and the psyche. This being the case, ~ ~. 0 -...: ~ ;Y · theatre had to present these forces as carefully and· effectively as possible. oC .F ; X</ v 253 Expressionistic Design The skeleton scene !n the 19ZZ New York production of German play­ wright Georg Kaiser's From. Mom to Midnight, designed by Lee 51- mon~on, ill an example of expres­ sionistic design and production style, which stressed Imaginative lighting {a'tree has been trans­ formed into a human skeleton}, symbolic decor on an ahnost empty stage, and the distortion of natural appearances. The actor Is dwarfed by the huge projection. Oedip!L9 the King, designed by JOsef Svoboda and directed by Miroslav Machacek at the National Theatre,'I?rague, ~ 1963. The setting was a vast fllght of stairs, starting in the orchestra pit and reaching almost out of slght. The stairs were punctuated by plat­ furms that thrust out from the stairs th~elves. The_actor playing Oedipus appears on a platform. At the end Oedipus was left alone. Vlrtually all the flat levels disappeared. He climbed an endless stair· case made of acousdcai!y "transparent" material (the orchestra was located beneath the risers), into sharp counterllghting. · 254 PART THREE • THEATR.E1S PRACTITIONERS ----~------------··-----~-- DESIGNERS Appia and Craig ! Adolphe Appla (1862-1928) and Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1'366) built a the theoretical foundations of modern expressionistic theatrical practice. For the J Swiss-born Appla, artistic unity was the bask goal of theatrical production. He disliked • the contradiction In the three-dimensional act?r performing before painted two- d!mensl•;mal scenery, and be advocated the replacement of flat settings with steps, ran:ps, and platforms. He thought the role of lighting was to fuse all visual elements Into a u(1ifted wh?le, His Music arid Stage Setting (I 899) and The Work of Living Art ( 1921) are early -~9ui-,c~ ?Q?ks fo~ modern stage~lightlng pi-a~tic"es . .. _Edward Eog.lli>'h tl>ootck•l I. Edward· Gordon Craig., Hamlet "Edward Gordol"l Craig's design models for the &mous setl:lnJ of Hamlet for the .1912 Mos~ ArtTh•ntre produalon. Craig daslgn!!d huge white screent to ba sufficiently mobUe that the seene to!lld be changld without closing the front c:urtaln. Unfortunately, the screens did ~ot funetion with the. efficiency he erw!sloned. CHAPTER ELEYEtl • IMAGB MAKERSl DESIGNERS 255 DESIGNERS ~ •~ Ming Cho Lee and John Lee Beatty Ming Cho Lee, born in Shanghai and educated at Occidental College and UCLA, de­ signed his first Broadway show, Eugene O'Neill's Moon for the Misbegotten, In 1962 • I Since then, he has designed scenery for Broadway,,pif Broadway, regional theatres, and •~ opera and dance compa~les. Speaking of his methods, Ming Cho Lee says, "I generally read the script once just to gei: an Impact from which I will try to form some kind of visual concept. , , I always design ,, for the total play and let the specifics fit If!. The total play de­ mands some kind of·expresslon through materials, and this Is something., al".ffiys first ask ·a dl· rector..•• And ~~n, 1 woUld 256 PART THREE 8 THEATRE'S PRACTITIONERS John Lee Beatty grem up In Palo Alto, California, and attended Bro'Nn University (R.I.) and the Yale University School ·of Drama, where he studied with designer Ming ':=ho lee. Beatty has designed more than \00 professional productions, including f Broadway's Ain't Misbehavin', Chicago, Footloose, Once upon a Mattress, An American ~ Daughter, The Heiress, The Last Night o(Bol/yhoo, and A Delicate Balance. Kno;v-n for de· ~ signs of poetic realism and playful theatrlca\ settings, Beatty says ofhls process: "My Jo~ as a designer is to design the scenery and to give a designer's point of view., .. Com· J lng up with the design Is what is hard. I normally do a group plan and a rough sketch first .... I usually show a fairly simple sketch to a director .... It's important to iet the director know it's a work In process."~ U enviro~ent (including ecanomic factors) really did govern people's lives, then it needed to be shown. as people ~ally experienced it The demands of realism called for the stage to look like actual places and rooms. The responsibility for creating this stage enVirorupent shifted from the scene painter to the set designer. Realism has been the dominant convention of the theatre in our time. However, many new and exciting movements in the modern theatre came about as reactfons to this direct representAtion of reality, which pretends that the stage is not a stage but CHAPTER ELEVEN • IMAGE MAKERS: DESIGNERS 257 .£.' Jo ·Mielzlner's original design for Death of a Sale.o;man, by Arthur M!l!er, BroadwaY, 1949. jo Mlefziner pioneered "selective realism" in sc~nlc de­ els (kitchen, sons' bedr9om, porch, and forestage). The sign. Of his type of design, Mielziner said, "If you elimi­ actors' movements with area lighting were the only nate nonessentials, you've got to b~ sure that the things scene-change devices. The large backdrop upstage you do put in are awfully good: They've got to be was painted to show tenement buildings looming over twice as good, because' they stand alone to make a com-- Willy Loman's house In the play's present time. When ment. , .. I got to feel that even rea!lstlc; plays didn't. lighted from the rear, the buildings washed out to be need realistic settings_l)ecessarily."l rePlaced with projections of trees with leaves, suggest· For Arthur Miller's Death af a Salesman ( 1949), lr:s: Willy's remembered past with its bright sunshi~ Mielziner cles!giled the salesman's house on several lev- and cheerful ambience. ~ someone's living. room and that the audience is really llot present in the dark audito­ rium. Leaders of many avarit-garde, or new, movements in stage design argued ih the early twentieth century that the stage living room and box set were themselVes un­ _natural. They set about pioneering other kinds of theatrical reality for the stage, with such names as expressionism, symbolism, and selected realism. Before the First World War in Europe, Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig became self-proclaimed prophets ~fa new movement in theatre design and lighting. They were concerned w:ith creating mood and atmosphere, opening up the stage for movement, and unifying visual ideas; they assaulted the illusion of stage realism and led the way to a rethinking of theatrical design. In his Music and Stage Setting, Appia called for theatrical art to be expressive. And today. in the same spirit, many _modern set designers have extended the traditional media of wood, canvas, and paint to in- 158 PART THREE B THEATRE'S PRACTITIONERS elude steel, plastlcs, pipes, ramps, platforms, steps, and computer­ ,• generat~d images to express the play's Imaginative world instead !tlf attempting to reproduce ·realistic details of time and place. Appfa and Craig influenced young American designers of the 1920s-Robert Edmond Jones, Lee Simonson, and Norma.n Bel Geddes-who dedicated themselves to bringing the "new stage­ craft" to Broadway. 'f!vo generations of American scene designers followed their lead. Prominent among them are Jo Mielziner, the designer of Death of a Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The King and f; Boris Aronson, the designer of Cabatet, Com- pany, and Pacific Overtures; Oliver Smith, designer of Brigadoon; gin ••••IO.AJ>d The Sound of Music,· and Plaza Suite; Min·g Cbo Lee, designer of Hair, for colored girls who have consid.eTed suicidejwhen the rain­ bow is enuf, and K2; and John Lee Beatty, designer of revivals of The Heiress and Chicago.