Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1986 - 21

Modern art is saturated with issues and ideologies that reflect
the technological, political, social, and cultural revolutions
of the past one hundred years. Regardless of the degree 10
which the individual artist is conscious of these issues, he in
fact responds 10 them in choosing among esthetic and technical alrernatives .... Thus, choices having 10 do wilh lIIelhod
in an become in praclice allil/ldes regarding Ihe jillure oj
lIIatl. Hence, art in our time cannot escape having a political
conrenr and moral implications.The theatrical designer, like the studio artist, is also faced
with choices of method in
the design process. The
whole history of theatrical
presentation techniques is
a vailable to him or her, as
are new techniques that the
designer might invent or
discover. If the designer's
choice results in a presentation that only re-states the
known, the design does not
advance the dialog concerningthefutureofhumanity. It
is, in effect, content less and
possesses no moral force.
Seen in this perspective,
the automatism involved in
the application of craft skills has been replaced by acts of
the mind occurring al Ihe very beginning oj the making oj
a IVork. Whether these acts be acts of the artist or of the
teacher, their effect is 10 remove art from the realm of habit,
manual dexterity, and traditional taste inro that of philosophy. In this new situation, art emerges from theory ....On
its profounder levels, modern art is acutely aware of itself as
a participanr in the conrest 10 affect the future, as one of the
powers engaged in giving form 10 the unknown.'·
That the theatre might actually affect the future, that it
might actually give form to the unknown, is a disturbing idea
for theatrical designers. Not disturbing because designers do
not believe that the theatre cannot achieve those lofty goals;
but disturbing because part of the responsibility for the
achievement of those goals now lies in the designer's choice
of method and in hi mind.

Proposition 2: That the politico-cultural drama has in our
cenrury assumed global dimension and that the artist now
works in an environmenr unbounded by time and place.
nder the unrelaxing pressure of political, social, and intellectual developmenr since World War [, local, regional and
national traditions have been steadily dissolving and are now
being absorbed into world-wide systems. The individual
artist, whether in Tokyo, New York, or Sao Paulo, is confronred by the activity of art everywhere, without the mediation of an inherited outlook or style. He is confronred, 100,
by the constanr unveiling, through anrhropological and archaeological research of the IOtality of human thought, belief, and accomplishmenr.
Thus the inrernationalization of art becomes a factor contributing to the estrangemenr of art from the artis!. The sum
of works of all times and places tands against him as an
entity with objectives and values of its own. In turn, since
becoming aware of the organized body of artworks as the
obstacle to his own aesthetic self-affirmation, the artist is

pushed toward anti-inrellectualism and willful dismissal of
the art of the pas!. II
Past and present theatrical production history, rather
than serving as documentation, now frequently assumes the
role and arbiter of taste. Past design solutions are seen as
benchmarks against which present solutions are judged.
Success is a function of historical accuracy or momentary
fad rather than a function of the truth of experience. "Life"
in the theatre is replaced by parades of historical research or
imitations of "in" solutions. Theatrical productions such as
this do not create living experience for the audience.
They, instead, enumerate
the references of past productions until everyoneaudience, performers, designers, directors-wishes
that they were in that the-

ES I G N

I N

THE PAS T

TENSE ISN'T

ARCHAEOLOGY.

atre, seeing that production
(which was obviously so
much better) instead of sitting in this theatre enduring
this production. Theatre in
the past tense isn't theatre.
Design in the past tense isn't
design-it is archaeology.

Proposition 3: That with the
weakening of traditional attitudes, assumptions, techniques,
and subjects, styles now originate in abstract ideas and ideabased art movements.
Esthetic programs have replaced regional masterpieces as
authority and as inspiration. "Every modern activity," said
Paul Valery, "is dominated and governed by lIIylhs in the
form of ideologies" [his italics]. The roots of contemporary
creation lie not in observation of nature nor in earlier works
of art but in theoretical inrerpretation of these. The new relation of art and ideas has imposed upon art the necessity
for a self-consciousness that has rendered skillful copying
obsolete. 11
Nowhere, except in the theatre, is the obsolete problem of
copying so widespread. This, as noted above, leads to the
"referential production." But something more insidious
happens here in the way we learn design. Designers are
taught to adopt or work in any style so that they can mesh
their design with the play. Three things are wrong with this
premise: One, the play is seen as an entity frozen in its own
time and approachable only through the visual tradition of
its time; two, style is viewed as just a peculiar way of drawing
rather than a way of viewing life; and three, there is an
implicit assumption that a "right" design solution exists.
Most often this "right" solution looks like the design for
the original production. Productions that result from this
approach have, at best, an obscure context and most often
are incomprehen ible to the contemporary audience. Someone has noted about theatrical design that it doesn't make
any difference what we do in the theatre so long as the audience can tell why we are doing it. What a note of despair!

"It doesn't //lake any difference what your idea is-just have
one. "
continued on page 62 ...
USITT Spring 19,6 Theatre ()(',ign &

Techl1olog~

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1986