Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1974 - 17

TEN YEARS OF AMERICAN SCENE DESIGN
GENE CHESLEY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

Someone has said that any damn fool can collect
facts. It seemed appropriate to do just that and
attempt to contact American scenic designers who
responded to a survey by Saturday Review of
Literature in 1964. The original feature article, "An
SR Survey of Stage Desig n" appeared in the
December 12, 1964, issue of Saturday Review and is
well worth the time it might take to search it out in a
local library. In the feature article Henry Hewes
writes briefly about evaluating design on the stage,
and the rest of the article commends two books to SR
readers which "cause interest in the world of the
scene designer." 1 The most intriguing part of the
article is a chart which lists, according to age, thirty
American designers beginning with Herman Rosse
(born January 1, 1887) and ending with Ming Cho
Lee (born October 3, 1930). Each designer lists a
favorite work from among his own designs and three
favorite designs by others. The choices read like a
history of American stage design. The most frequently mentioned was Winterset designed by Jo
Mielziner in 1935. The next most popular choice was
Lute Song designed by Robert Edmond Jones, and
though not by an American designer, the design for
L'Ecole des Femmes, by Christian Berard, was the
third ranking design.
The purpose of the current survey was to compare
the 1964 list with an updated and expanded 1974
version to determine how choices have changed in a
period of ten years. For a variety of reasons, not all
the designers contacted responded to the new
survey. Some set the questionnaire aside, some lost
it and some are much too busy to respond to
questions by an obscure writer with a whim and an
academic point of view. The survey in 1974 was
further complicated by the fact that designers are
scattered throughout the United States and some are
working abroad. Finding them in their New York
studios is not as easy this year as it might have been
in 1964.
The old Saturday Review of Literature was noted
for guiding readers to the best writing of the day. It
is appropriate then, in the follow-up of the 1964
article to suggest two new books which are of
particular interest now, as Henry Hewes did December 12, 1964. Stage Design by Howard Bay (Drama
Book Specialists, 1974) is advertised by the publishers as "irreverent" and they should be commended
for such an accurate description. The few valued
books on stage design by designers have tended
either toward the personal memoir format or to
monumental works attempting to include all the

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

A PROJECT REPORT

visual arts of the theatre between two covers. The
new work by Howard Bay is neither of those. Mr.
Bay blasts away at a variety of cherished pri nci pies
which have been in need of revision for some time.
He does so with considerable authority, unique style
and visuals which are fresh and carefully selected.
Though one might tire of the personal tone after a
few exhausting chapters, the book should be required of all theatre artists. It is bound to change them.
In contrast to Mr. Bay's work, a quiet book,
Design for the Stage - First Steps, by Darwin Reid
Payne of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
(see book review on P. 31 Ed.), modestly attempts to
deal with a few first principles of stage design in an
honestly academic manner. The book succeeds in
generating a good deal of respect for the 'Jack-of-alltheatre-trades. Mr. Payne's book is notable for the
way in which it brings together a variety of
previously published comments on stage design by. a
range of artists from Gordon Craig to Sean Kenny.
Both new books also carry interesting observations
on the changes in scenic design in the past ten years.
The opinions of Mr. Bay and Mr. Payne are now
recorded in print, and Donald Oenslager's new book,
Stage Design - Four Centuries of Scenic Invention,
published by Viking Press, was due for release on
November 1, 1974. Many practicing designers, however, ar.e not disposed to write about design theory,
much less about their own work. The 1974 survey,
incomplete compared to the 1964 list, does at least
succeed in obtaining responses from a few designers
who have never written about the status of American
scene design. The new survey also records some
comments from designers who should be heard from
more often.
Since eight of the designers from the 1964 list are
no longer living,2 eight younger designers were
contacted, but only two of those responded to the
survey. Fourteen of the twenty-two contacted for the
1964 list returned questionnaires. It might warm the
hearts of the U.S.I.T.T. Board of Directors to know
that all five designers listed in the Saturday Review
article who are Institute members as of 1973-74
responded promptly to the mai led survey. 3
The new questionnaire asked if the designers
would keep their 1964 choice or change it both for
their own favorite work and for that of other
designers. They were also asked to name a favorite
American theatre they like, or would like, to work in.
The final question asked for a response to changes
observed in scenic design over the past decade. The

DECEMBER. 1974

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