Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1986 - 66

SCENOGRAPHY IETHICS continued from page 62 ...
design must assume an active role, challenging the given,
questioning the known, and proposing new value. This proposed value always has a sense of crisis and uncertainty about
it, and active design creates an environment in which this new
value can be evaluated.

chemistic an. You can transform life. Theatre has a bigger
moral and social innuence than the movies. '0

The transformation of experience in design is a conscious
ethical choice between alternatives. On its highest level it
erves the function of moral discrimination.
And so the issue of the ethics design is framed. It stands
before us as a challenge and the emergence of the scenographic theory has sharpened the issue. The stakes are high
Proposition 6: That vast shiftings of population, both geographically (through migrations, exiles, disfor the profession of theatrical design. We
N THE U.S., THE must meet the issue because the issue will
placements) and \'enically (through revolutions, mass education, equalization of opTERM "SCENOG· not go away. Our failure to confront the
ponunity), have destroyed the stabilized
RAPHY" IS OFTEN issue will mean that the theatre will cease
social character of individuals and brought
JUST A NEW to exist as a moral force. I don't mean that
the problem of identity, personal and colLABEL PASTED the theatre will disappear. It will simply
lective, into prominence as a theme of conONTO
THE SAME become a quaint species of handcraft. It
temporary cultural forms."
OLD PRODUCT. will become insigni ficant and irrelevant to
The search for identity is the search for
contemporary life.
life, and the function of the theatre is the presentation of the
Unfortunately, we cannot meet the issue by organizing a
living of life, the search for identity. Unfortunately, it is im- crusade. In a simpler time a crusade might have been the
possible to create life unless we have life. The quality of our answer. A clarion call to "Save The Theatre" would make
lives as designers-our beliefs, values, expectations-deter- us feel better. It would give us an organization to join, meetmine the quality of our designs. If, as Robert Edmond Jones ings to go to, dues to pay, and probably a newsletter. But
noted in the Harvard lectures, we have unwittingly allowed
that won't work because the "Theatre" doesn't exist. Buildourselves to become part of the debasing, cheapening process ings exist, plays exist, and people exist. Out of those eleof American life, then our work will cease to hold the pub- ments it is possible to fashion the ephemeral, transitory,
lic's attention. And this is not the fault of movies, radio or theatrical moment. But the only element in the above that
television. Our theatre will not be destroyed by hostile out- is absolutely essential for the creation of that moment is the
side influences. It will rot away from within.'s Life-com- people.
mitment, choice, moral decision-in design will create life
The search for identity that is the prominent theme of
in the theatre.
contemporary art and the root of our ethical concern must
begin on this individual level. The designer accepting the
Proposition 7: That ours is an epoch of excavations-arethical
impact of his work is really on his personal search for
chaeological, psychoanalytical, philological-which keep
identity-his discovery of what it is that he has to say. Picasemptying into contemporary culture the tombs of all the ages
of man.
so once noted about the work of Cezanne that, "what forces
Absorbing the nood of past an, an in our time continuour interest is Cezanne's anxiety-that's Cezanne's lesson
ally reconstitutes itself as a theatre of revivals. Styles of
... -that is the actual drama of man. The rest is sham."
earlier periods, far and near, from the funerary carvings of
True anxiety-not the momentary concern that we all have
the Aztecs to the realism of Courbet, are reawakened as
over unpaid bills and personal relationships-is a philosophexperience and as slogans by contemporary paintings and
ical inquiry into the nature of art and the act of creation."
sculpture.
How is it that we create theatre? And how good is it for us
Modern an is at one with radical politics and with psychoand
for our audiences? This anxious inquiry begins inside
therapy in its fascination with the abyss of lost forms and
ourselves,
not in our identification with a movement. Movepowers. Like other significant modes of present-day action
ments only offer a collective, surrogate identity and, thereand research, its explorations periodically lead it to the verge
fore, obviate the necessity for personal inquiry and moral
of changing into something else. Thus modern an often
choice. If, heaven help us, our identification is with some
crosses over into non-an and adopts anti-an attitudes. Besides augmenting consciousness, this negative strain acts as a
dimly perceived, yet heart-rending vision of "The Theatre
lightning rod to diven from society and individuals more
Eternal," then we are further de-personalized. Robert Edperilous temptations to self surrender-totalitarian politics,
mond Jones, in spinning out his vision of this theatre in The
drugs, mysticism. The reawakening of forms seems to have
DraJlloric IJlloginorion in 1941, exhorted young designers to
a profound function in a culture of change."
"Get the personal yOIl out of your work. Who cares about
A culture of change demands a transformation of experi- YOIl?"" Forty-three years later the answer to that question
ence through art. Design is the process of the transforma- has to be that yOIl care about yOIl. The time has passed when
tion of experience. All experience, past and present, is avail- you could hide in a collective identity. The time has also
able to the designer. But the designer has an editorial re- passed when you could hide behind the slick, facile manipusponsibility, not just a reportorial one. The documentation lation of the surface of design. The time has come when
of experience in the theatre is never enough. Documentation you must actually influence the form and the content of the
theatre. And you must influence it out of a sense of moral
only shows things as they are and,
responsibility for the images that stream forth from it. The
... the theatre is never realistic, never depicts the things as
time
has come for yOIl to put the yOIl back into your work.
they are. It's a symbolic an, and it's a medium to change
If
you
leave it out there just isn't very much there.
0
the things, to transform them into the sublime. It's an al-

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Spring )9X6

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