Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1983 - 14

William Dudley's sraging of Lark Rise, 1978, showing Ihe minimal scenery and Ihe Ihorough mixing
of audience and aClOrs: "Slreel Ihealre indoors. "

medieval plays (The Passion, 1977) and
dramalizalions of English rural, peasam
life in Ihe 1880s (Lark Rise, 1978), bOlh
of which employed relatively elemel1lary
setting and SlrO\'e 10 eliminale Ihe
separalion of aClors and audience by
weavi ng Ihe aCl ion among slandi ng
speclators. BUI \york at Ihe Nalional
Theatre has also included a considerably
larger scale produclion in Ihe Olivier
theatre, Don Quixote (1982), by Keilh
Dewhur I, e\'en Ihough the chief
scenographic elemem here is imply a
huge raked pial form \\'ilh hinged porlions Ihat can creale \\'alls, and a red
clolh in a greal arc behind it.
~Iore elaborale have been Dudley'
operas, like The Tales oj HoJJl/lann al
CO\'em Garden ( 1980) or I he I'on hcoming Ring cycle to be done al Bayreulh
ilself in 1983. Dudley approached Ihe
former as if il were a \\'orld crealed b~
Poe, Hugo, or Fellini, very mysleriou5
and grand, a mixlure of griminess and
Ihe fanlastic: "1l \\'as very enjoyable Ie
do. :\Ie almy mOSl romal1lic, complete·
Iy t he opposite of Royal Court
sparenes ." Dudley's plans for Ring
were still evolving but he imended [0 e.\·
pi ore the lyrical qualities wilhin the
\\'ork ralher lhan Ihe polilical or
ideological:
Wagner's real gifl is thaI of a
nineleemh-cemury Romamic. II
bring OUI Ihe land cape painler in
me. I \\'anl 10 do ju lice 10 Wagner' lyric c\plOralion of nature,
not \\ ilh a rainled scene bUl \'er\'
phYsically. Ihree dimensionally,
using Ihe dynamism of nineleenthcenturv English painling.
To be continlled in TD& T Fall, 1983.

William Dudley's sel for Don Quixote, 1982.

me was slighlly romamic, kicked al Ihe
lraces a bil, and \\'anled 10 do grander
Ihings ... wanted 10 consider each show
on its merils, nOl according 10 a formula." Consequelllly a good deal of his
subsequenl work, while retaining the
slripped dO\\"ll, bare approach, \\'anled
Ihe scenery Ihat remai ned "10 ha \'e
.lrong echoes, be romanlic, \'ery
humane, nOl harsh."
He speaks of his approach as nOl
ha\'ing changed from Ihal of a landscape
painler, e\-en if il is a menIal landscape
Ihal i~ ill\ohed:
12

Theatre Design &

Technolog~/USITT

llhink of slage design as the landscape in which human beings find
Ihemseives-melllal or physical.
The leXl may nOl tell me \\'hal Ihe
characler are like bUl I \'isualize
the nalure of the world Ihe. e charaClers inhabil.
His recenl \\'ork ha been of t\\·o
son. Produclions at Ihe
alional
Thealre hm-e included \\'hal he calls "indoor Slreel Ihealre," chiefly in lhe National'~ small. flC\ible sludio Ihealre, Ihe
COllcsloc-adaplations 01" lhe York

Spring 1983

Jarka Burian, aUlhor of The Scenogra
phy oj Josej Svoboda, has written fre
quemly for TD& T His new book 01
Svoboda and Wagner will be publishel
Ihis fall by Wesleyan niversilY Press
Research for Ihis article was supportel
in part by a Fulbrighl-Hays researcl
gran I in aid from Ihe U.S.-U.K. Educa
tional Commission.
NOTES
1 .-'\ useful sun ey of such programs and school
Illay be found in \\'illiam Forre leI'. "Design Train
ing in England'" Thealre erafls. 1-1. No.5 (OCI
19,0).92-95.

2 Unless otherll ise indicated. all quotes are fron
per,onal inten iell s I had II ith the respecli\ e de
signers in the period Januarv-\Iarch 19 2.

Peter Brook. quotecl in Jennifer \lcl'av
. 'Scenes of Spectacular Success'" SUI/dar Telt
~raph .\Iagll~ine (22 No\, 1981). p. 26.

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