Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1966 - 18

The opera decided upon was Die Kluge; or The King
and the Clever Girl, a recent work by the contemporary
German composer Carl Orff, who has taken one of
Grimm's fairy tales and written the libretto and music for
what he calls "an extension of the theatre in song." He
has given the barest of stage directions, and a plot that
suggests either the simplest of symbolic treatments or
techniques that can be extended beyond the limitations of
the stage and theatre. It was decided to use this work as
the basis for the experiment, to employ multiple screens
in order to explore beyond the boundaries of the stage,
and to test for themselves the acceptance of such a concept. Perhaps it was also a step towards an experiment
involving what might be called "fragmentation of images."
Multiple screens can be used to "fragment" the total
concept in such a way as to let each observer integrate
the idea for himself, drawing on his own life experiences
and involving himself emotionally in the action. James
Joyce, Picasso and others have had great success with
similar "fragmentation" in other media.

deep snow in cake make-up and mediaeval costumes,
created a stir for anyone there to watch. Interior filming
was done late at night on the set while it was still under
construction, and many black-and-white stills were taken
of the cast, to be made into slides. In this production the
female lead was doubled, which meant the duplication of
much filming and graphic work. 225 slides were used and
approximately 400 feet of film in three sequences. There
were 650 cues altogether. The instruments used were
three 4 KW Strand Pattern 152 projectors with 4" objective lenses, two 500 watt 35mm Xenon projectors
with 2" lenses, and one 1500 watt Xenon movie projector with a 5/8" lens. There were seven operators and
three stage managers.

A decision had to be made at the start on how to approach the problem. Should one assemble material in the
form of images, to an agreed concept, and then devise
the techniques for showing them (such as the number,
size and positioning of screens and projectors); or should
one decide on the physical elements first, then evolve
the material around them) The latter method was chosen
because of the short time available for planning and the
lack of experience in this medium. We felt it would be
better to work within certain physical limitations by setting
a boundary on conditions for the experiment.
The first step then was to build a model of the set,
which was conceived by Schafer, incorporating five screens.
Throughout January 1966 a series of meetings was held
to thrash out the visual scenario of the production. Three
movie sequences were to be produced for projection onto
the larger of the screens and several hundred slides were
made up for projection, often simultaneously, on all five
screens.
The images were used for different purposes: sometimes
simply to establish a mood and in some places to establish or extend the set. They were used to project the
actors' thoughts, as in the "riddle" scene. The audience
could see the King's lecherous desires towards the peasant's daughter on the screen, while his person on stage
maintained a pompous exterior. They were used to obtain
a reaction from the actors, as with one of the vagabond
scenes, where the three tramps react to images of themselves on "Wanted" posters, flashed onto different screens.
One movie sequence served as a "flash-back" during the
first scene in the opera, when the peasant was in prison,
recounting the events that led to his sorry state. Other
sequences were used to carry forward the action, sequences which would otherwise have been extremely
tedious if performed on stage. For instance the score lent
itself beautifully to one sequence where we saw a don·
keyman stumbling off dejectedly into the distant countryside after being humiliated by the king on stage, and to
another sequence where we saw a procession, followed
by the rejected queen, traversing snowy slopes.
The stage of the Macmillan Theatre became an engineering workshop. The bridge, a massive steel structure to be
suspended just behind the proscenium arch, was adapted
to take four projectors and operators, and positions were
worked out for the two back projectors and their operators high above the cyc upstage. Filming on location provided a diverting, though exhausting, interlude. Sites were
chosen in the coldest and most exposed Toronto park,
where members of the cast, drunkenly stumbl ing through

l!!WJ

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1966