Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998 - 34

TONY WALTON

Robert Israel
Robert Israel and I agreed that, unfortunately, our schools
stifle the natural creativity of children. He talked of seeing
a film about seven- to twelve-year-olds dealing with their
psychological worlds through make-believe. They had creative imagination, they had imaginary friends. He was
stunned by their creativity. Israel sees creativity in all of us
but it's smothered by the "devious methods by which we
rationalize our behavior." Blaming an "encyclopedia of the
mind" to rationalize and put things in order, he wonders
how in education we can "reinstall a sense of play now that
our students are overlaid with the rules of the academic
civilization." Israel sees creativity as a celebration of the
possibility of using fantasy to work through the ambivalence and ambiguity of the world.

.----..,Peter Maradudin
Not surprisingly, as a lighting designer, Peter Maradudin faces
problems unlike those of set or costume designers. So much
of his work is done in the theatre that he must "be creative on
demand." Some days when it's hard to be inspired, he envies
people who don't have to come up with creative solutions on
the spot.
When he first starts thinking about a play, Maradudin's
ideas come from "almost any source." His "juices start to
flow" from reading the script, or the title, or things directors
or designers say, or the space of the stage, or a color, or the
style of the play, or a moment in the play. "Each show comes
from a different place." For Maradudin, defining creativity is
impossible because "it comes in so many shapes and sizes."
He does thinks it is possible to guide students to access
inspiration. They can learn a methodology. There are techniques such as developing a series of questions to ask one's
self. If all else fails, "you put something up to react to." Then,
at least, you see what works or doesn't and move on.

John Conklin
The differences between a primary creator and an interpretive creator are important distinctions for John
Conklin. His examples focused on designing Wagnerian
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operas, especially Tristan. "Our stimulus comes from the
exterior. We're feeding off Wagner's energy." Conklin does
not believe, however, in a sort of Platonic ideal in Wagner
that only need be discovered ... It doesn't exist as an objective thing." We need, in some sense, to re-write, re-create
Tristan. Wagner created out of his emotional life, designers, creating once removed, must plunge into Wagner's
mind and psyche, into "an energy field, get electrified."
You get inside it and it gets inside you, you become a part
of it. Doing this, "something comes out using your own
knowledge, feeling, psyche. It creates in you another
Tristan. Ababy Tristan."
The impermanence of theatre is important to
Conklin's ideas of creativity. "A great thing about creating
in the theatre is that it (a production) goes away. You can
operate in the moment." Conklin describes photos of his
shows as "dead," he doesn't like to look at them. He wants
to create using "a fresh slate."
BelieVing it is possible to teach creativity, Conklin says
that teachers help students find a vocabulary of images.
Students study things like the history of art to increase their
vocabularies. Noting that some writers and painters, and
not necessarily primitives, have limited backgrounds and
experiences, he wondered if it is possible to be a theatrical
designer without a broad background and a vocabulary of
images.
According to Conklin, a teacher helps students discover how to crystallize emotions and objectify personal
feelings. In this, the teacher is "like being an analyst." For
Conklin, everyone is creative, although not in equal
amounts. Self censoring is a problem which is bad enough
when we are not aware of what we are doing, but far worse
when we know what we are doing. Sometimes students
know too much. For example, Conklin says that costume
and lighting design students often turn in set projects more
creative than those of set designers, possibly because they
are not concerned with technical limitations.
Several times Conklin returned to the idea of the creator as interpreter and collaborator. "Design is a parasitic
art-like a vampire sucking energy out of pieces and then
biting-or pouring blood all over the audience. You're
also sucking blood from your collaborators. It's an odd
event, collaborating and designing for the theatre."

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1998