Theatre Design & Technology - May 1970 - 23

tention to the fact that there may be a
third theatre looming up on the horizon. In
fact, some of these productions may not
work. It is my opinion that they don't even
work in the theatre houses as they are
structured today. That is a serious and sobering possibility.
RICHARD THOMPSON: May I add to that?
I think that one of the things we have to
take into consideration is the architecture of
the theatre, and the fact that we are now
building some new Broadway theatres. Perhaps some influence can be made on their
design, which will allow the chance for projection. I think also that we must educate
the producers who are doing shows in terms
of what can be done and also what cannot
be done. Do not expect to do everyth i ng. I
think we can use the analogy of what happened when we started to use electronic
sound in the theatre. What happened when
the first sound system went in? We were
still tying speaker boxes to the balcony.
Now we have put two columns of rails
along the proscenium arch; and as new theatres are built, permanent sound systems
are being installed. This hopefully will come
too in the Broadway theatre. If we use the
analogy of what happened when people
started putting sound into the theatre, you
have the same problem. The first attempts
were very poor. You eventually wound up
with a technician who was a sound man. It
used to be just the electrician who turned
on an amplifier, or just the prop man who
made noises off stage. But now it has become a specific individual who runs the
sound. We can use the same parallel on
projections.
Now we also have to go back to the timetable, especially in the professional theatre.
If we go into the scenic houses, the designer has to have a space big enough
there to paint his drop. Suppose we had a
scene shop where he could do projections.
There would be a permanently mounted
screen, and by built-in towers and a calibrated grid he could adjust this room to the
particular physical requirements of the theatre he was going into. He could use the
room in experimental situations for whatever theatre it was he was designing for.
He could tryout his lenses, his distortions,
and everything right there. So when the
show was ready to go, just as he would
have to draw a grid to paint drops, so he
would have to do the same kind of thinking
on his projections. Then, when he loaded
into the Broadway house, it would be just
a matter of matching numbers to what was
tried out in the shop originally. In other
words, I think he could ease the time problem.
Now, a fellow on our panel, Ted Jones
from Indiana University, has for the last
few years been involved in the planning of
a new opera house out there. I know that
he has a serious interest in projections.

THEATER DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

I'm wondering how much influence your
use of projections in the theatre has had
on the design of backstage facilities or, for
that matter, on the front of the house?
TED JONES: It certainly has had some infl uence, although we really did not put in
anything we did not want for something
else as well. We put in light bridges and
we put in towers, but they were as much
for creating good accessible lighting positions in general as they were for projections. It turns out that tower locations are
very good for projections too, because you
need to have good access to the machine.
Many times you want an operator to be
right there. For front-of-house projection,
we did provide a small projection booth
that cuts in on a gO-degree angle to the
proscenium opening; but there again that
is something we might use for other things
as well. For instance, we have envisioned
a TV camera there if we do broadcasting
from the theatre.
RICHARD THOMPSON: Thank you. A few
moments ago, Jim Santandrea was talking
about the total environment (which is a
phrase in common usage now), about surrounding people with projections, creating a
new and more total atmosphere than we may
have experienced in the theatre before. Now
Ralph Alswang has been working for a
number of years in what we call multimedia, using combinations of projections,
still and motion pictures, in combination
with live action. Would you care to comment on your experience in this area?
RALPH ALSWANG: In recent years I have
been trying to define what I have been trying to do, especially in terms of mixed and
multi-media. I would like to try to define
it, because I think that finally I have discovered what I myself have been trying to
do, magnificently unsuccessfully! But it has
been different! I think it all has something
to do with the difference of the two artstheatre on the one hand, film and / or slides
on the other. I have had complete experience in doing a production using film and
live; I called it "living screen." I have, of
course, been very aware of what's been
going on in Prague. And I must add Astarte,
because I think it is the most successful
venture that we have all seen, and we can
learn a lot from it. I'd like to suggest that
mixed media is the use of slides and film
in a totally new environment in the theatre.
That is, there is no conventional scenery;
there IS no mixture, in my opinion, of the
use of theatre techniques as we know themtwo-dimensional, three-dimensional scenery
with actors and film.

are stuck with an actor on stage, in an environment which is empty. The real purpose
of the "living screen" is that it seeks to
dispel th e differences between film and
scenery for the audience. After all, who
made the law that a projection is something
that must be on a cyclorama? I have never
seen it put on another plane; but why isn't
the use of projection in the theatre threedimensional, or two-dimensional? Who says
it has to hit something like lenticular screens
painted white? I don't know why somebody
rules that a slide is a thing up in the back
in the air. The Germans do it with those
huge boring cycs, in my opinion. I am saying that there is a third way. And in this
third way lies a new art. I haven't come up
with it myself; but the third way, it seems
to me, is that there is architecture in the
surfaces that we are using for projection.
Obviously, that architecture is the floor, the
ceiling, the sides, the front, the back, and
through the actor; it is not necessarily a
cyc.
Now there is nothing wrong with the machinery to project slides The machinery is
improving-but we have no art. We know'
nothing about surfaces; no one is suggesti ng that maybe if you put down a black carpet, your ambiant light would be less. How
many people put down a black carpet on
the stage floor? That is not engineering;
that is part of the art-but where is the
three-dimensional art? Astarte is sensational. Why is it sensational? For only one reason. It is saying that screen architecture is
not a fixed thing.
.that, in fact, it is threeand two-dimensional. They move the screen
in Astarte. It pulsates. This I find enormously exciting.
Also, I wish we had ways to use painted
translucents. Why aren't we making cross
fades between stage elements and slide
projections? We are not. Astarte is the only
instance I have seen of three-dimensional
screens in the theatre. That is shocking.
To get back to the "living screen"-the
audience does not know when the sl ide projector is off or on, because in fact it is
totally wrapped into the scenery as we know
it. Of course the man who takes the scrim
projects an image onto it, and the actors
come out of it. We know it is a trick that

I think that all of you who have seen the
Prague experiments know that it is a black
velour environment. There are screens which
are Brechtian in nature, and we project the
film and put an actor in front of it; when
the screen goes out and disappears and we

MAY, 1970

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