Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 62

Letters
confinned/rom page 8

Stratford. Ontario. and the Seattle Rep and Roundabout. Her centrallocation within the maze was intentional because I believe she is a prime
exanlple of American theatre-her feet firmly planted in both mainstreanl and tlle most arant of arant-gardes, she is able to work successfully in dance, drama, spectacle. and opera. Marhlls speaks well of
Robert Israel, the next stop on the tour. but focuses only on the glitziest
work of Walton and Long. Admittedly. one could hardly ignore them. But
what of Walton's exquisite paintings for Tosca, or the remarkably spare
and powerhil set model and costumes for Inge's Picnic at the Roundabout? My own conversations with a wide range of international designers suggested that there was almost universal appreciation of Long's
rendering without regard for the degree of commercialization of the
work.
Marklls expresses more than once his discomfort with the presence
of operas (and, I suppose, dance though, despite its significant presence
in our exhibit, he never mentions it) and productions that were done
outside of the U. S. as well as the lack of "American" plays. Aside from
the fact that opera has tended to dominate the PQ (in 1991 tlle tlleme
was Design for Mozart, awhile back it was janacek)-in part because it
is a peIformance form that gives the designer a broad canvas, in part because it tends to be the linguajranca of international design-what is
the problem with opera? (For that matter. what is the problem with entertainment?) Why does tllis lessen tlle value of the work. The PQ is an
exhibition of stage design, not drama design. And why the demand for
provincialism? If one goes back over the past eight PQs, what becomes
clear is that the most successful (in terms of awards, aesthetics, spectator response, influence on subsequent PQs) exllibits have tended to be
"international" in scope, and multi-generic. In tllis year's Golden Triga
exhibit from Brazil, for example, half the designs were for non-Brazilian
works (Moliere, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Brecht, Dumas/Sartre, Beckett,
Bataille, etc.), several were for operas, and one-third were for productions outside Brazil, including the U. S. Should all these have been ignored, discounted, prollibited? Should Brazil give back its award? The
Gold Medal for scenic design was shared by four German designers. Of
the twenty productions for which designs were exl1ibited, only five were
for works by German autllOrs. (Fortunately, Marklls did not tell us what
the cultural iconography of Germany was supposed to be and whether he
found it in tlle remarkable German exllibit.)
Marklls' prOl~ncialism is peculiar. He poses the question, ''Where
are the examples of designs for American plays presented on American
stages?" One has to wonder at Markus' criteria since only certain plays
and certain stages seemed to meet his rigid standards. The above mentioned Picnic would seem to qualify. But does he exclude Tbe Medium
and Small Lives/Big Dreams because tlley are not "classics" or because
they are not conventional plays? We already know that he excludes operas, musicals, spectacle, and dance, so there goes Bridge ofDreams,
Tbe Minstrel SbolV (Donald Byrd'S piece is a searing look at America
and is based on an image that is, unfortunately, as American as one can
get), £1 Nuevo Mundo (is Ballet Hispanico not American?), Stages, Tbe
Voyage, and Crazy for You. (Beauty and tbe Beast, Gf~)IS and Dolls,
andA Christmas Carol already haVing been disposed of.) I suppose that
TrttJlles in the Soup doesn't count since that is an adaptation from
Goldoni; same for Schlemiel tbe First and Ofpbee both double
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whan1l1lies since they are adaptations and musical.
Utimately. what bothered me most was that ~Iarkus ignored hIlly
half tlle l. S. exllibit. The exterior walls of the exllibition space \rere covered \rith beautihll photographs from a uncoln Center exltibit entitled
"\e\r Performance in Found Space." This part of the exltibit was included not only because it showed the work of close to fifty bold and innovative theatre artists and companies including some of the most
original performance work done in the li. S. in recent years, but because
it directly addressed the theme of PQ 95-the search for theatre space.
But alas, none of the works from tllis part of the exllibit were "plays"
(well, some were, like Orestes, but I guess that didn't count because it is
an Anlerican adaptation of a Greek play and it wasn't done on a circular
orchestra but was presented on and in front of a deca)~ng pier along the
Hudson River on a beautiful summer evening). The "New Performance
in Found Space" exllibit contained enough images and icons of America
for a dissertation, let alone Mr. Marklls' search.
There were certainly criticisms to be made of the '. S. exllibitsome of the most cogent were made by the designers themselves-but in
order to analyze the exllibit you need to start with the exllibit itself. I \rish
that the excellent coverage of PQ 95 in TD& T included an article on the
. S. exllibit that C1iticized what was not there only after e\'a1uating and
tl')ing to understand what was there.
Arnold Aronson
['111: ArOIlSOllll'(fS exbibit prodllcerfor tbe C.S. E.rbibit. Ed.]

Tom Markus Replies:

I have two brief thoughts. First, I am elated to learn that something I
wrote evoked an intense response in a reader. I'm not often so successful, and I am entirely charmed by Arnold Aronson's bellicose defense of
the . S. Exhibit at PQ 95. I was one of the many who were solicited to
write a short article about PQ 95 for TD& T. In Prague, I suggested a subject and title to editor Dick Durst, and he endorsed both enthusiastically.
I then revisited the . S. Exhibit a second and a third time (yes, the outside as well as the inside, and once I even entered through the back
door) and then I analyzed why I felt about it the way I did. I selected from
my thoughts a single idea about the content of the exllibit that I felt nlight
be treated in a fe\" short paragraphs, and I tried very hard to write
clearly. Aronson' s response suggests I succeeded, and I anl thrilled to
have my \\Titing ralidated.
Second, I compliment Aronson for selecting the coment of tllis exhibit which did what an exl1ibit ought to do-it made me feel, it made me
think. Rather than the curators for the Enola Gay and Freud exllibits who
backed dOlm in the face of criticism, Aronson went forward \rith what he
believed in, and ltis letter confirms that he continues to stand by llis work
in the face of dissenting opinions. Bravo, Aronson. I hope he will join the
many who approve of my standing by my little article in which I wrote my
honest reactions to his work. And I hope this little flurry has been as entertaining for TD& T's readers as it has been for me.
Tom Markus

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