Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007 - 56

regard and others; not only were set, costumes, and lighting represented,
but designers ranged in venue from universities, commercial stages, nonproﬁt theatre, and site-speciﬁc presentation, from traditional and alternative
locations revealing a vast range of approaches from designers of various
ethnicities. It also presented designs through a plurality of media.
Plurality, however, does not lead easily toward unity or rapid legibility. Its multiplicity asks time and requires interpretation, consideration, and the spectator's formation of connections. All of these demands
militate against rapid assessment, either of the exhibition itself or of its
many featured designs, each of which can be given relatively little space
to reveal itself. The exhibits that won as well as those that housed design
winners shared an emphasis on legibility and visibility. Winning designers
and designs were given space, revealed process, or offered a range of a
designer's work. Their home exhibitions were often contained, uniﬁed
and limited through multiple means, making them and the work within
them more readily comprehensible. Stylistic preference and the quality of
the work certainly played some role, but shared qualities of exhibition of
the winning designs suggests that the simple need to evaluate thousands of
designs quickly prompted the jury to a signiﬁcant degree toward its particular choices. For those countries for which awards are the top priority,
the lesson seems clear.
The victory of the Russian exhibition, although not a unanimous
choice by the jury, nonetheless raises questions about the purposes of the
PQ exhibits and what kinds of reading strategies might be necessary to interpret them in the future. It may also indicate a change in how countries
will need to conceptualize representing their work at the PQ, that is if they
hope to win the Golden Triga. In contrast to the conventional retrospective approach, which jury president Serroni calls "nostalgic," the Russian
exhibit functioned as a "provocative" installation lauded for its "beautiful
synthesis between the theme and its expression."2 Serroni, in fact, suggests
that presenting an overview of work or expression of national sentiment
is passé, while a more conceptual, thematically uniﬁed approach is the
wave of the future. Such a method of exposition engages the very talents
that designers have developed as their presentations take on many of the
attributes of set design. It also allows viewers to absorb the design "spirit"
of a country in a way akin to how one receives art in all its complexity and
suggestiveness. Exhibit as installation or conceptual singularity, however,
also raises a number of questions.
At the far end of the spectrum of unity of theme, the tendency to
emphasize design of the exhibit gives way to the utter neglect-or negation-of designs for stage performances. Some countries mounted installations, artworks or environments that did not refer to work beyond them.
Arnold Aronson noted in the forum on PQ's future that such a choice
may suggest weariness of some exhibitors with more traditional exhibition
methods. For others, it reﬂected a philosophical decision. The Czechs,
for example, provided a large, circular structure with interactive components that recalled nineteenth-century fairs, complete with puppet show,
mysteries, and fortune-telling mirror with hands that applied make-up to
the observer/actor. Designed by the Brothers Forman as a conscious alternative to retrospective, which, according to Mateˇj Forman, represents
a "conservatism [that] is very unnatural when I think of theatre," they
attempted to create "a personal encounter where visitors must slowly realize for themselves where these people come from."3 Severely limiting
the number or nature of designs requires from the viewer a similar kind

of intuition of the country and kind of work done there. Such a demand
can be extremely rewarding, as with the Russian example, or fraught
with impenetrable obscurities. Scholar Vlasta Gallerová, who has written on the work of Czech scenographer Jaroslav Malina, for example,
believed that the Czech exhibit, created with the purpose "to amuse,"
instead expressed "resounding misunderstanding."4 Students at the forum on PQ's future were passionate in their belief that an abandonment
of some degree of retrospective left them pedagogically short-changed.
Their desire, one said in a near plea, was to see as much work from a
country as possible since limiting it too far or presenting an installation gave little to no sense of that country's designs, developments, and
tendencies.
How might this desire for plurality, this "view from below" and the
values it expresses be reconciled with Serroni's praise of the Russian
exhibit because its "choice of models is homogenous and balanced"?5
Those familiar with theatre scholarship will recognize echoes of the
history/theory (performance studies) divide that emerged about twenty
years ago when it seemed that the value to be gained from retrospective, narrative, or "objective" presentations of research was irreconcilable with the contingency, subjectivity, "mini-narratives," and stress on
interpretation that new viewpoints advocated. As with that split, it may
take a new generation of exhibitors, perhaps the vocal one at the forum
on PQ's future, to synthesize these apparently contradictory demands.
Or it may be that since the PQ has been shortened to twelve days and
the awards ceremony moved early in the exhibition to accommodate
attendees who leave early, conceptual and simpliﬁed exhibits and the
designs within them will continue to reap the majority of awards. In
the meantime, what might be most valued or easily interpreted by PQ
award judges may not be most useful or appreciated by PQ exhibit visitors. From another point of view, perhaps these polarities reveal and
rehearse-and indicate exhibitors' and jurors' choice of value within-the competing demands of art and education. ❖
Dennis C. Beck is assistant professor of theatre in the School of
Theatre and Dance at James Madison University. He has worked
professionally as a lighting designer, director, and actor and is
widely published in such journals as Theatre Journal and Theatre
Survey. He is currently working on a book about Czech alternative
theatre, 1968-1989.

NOTES
1. Randy Gener, "Interview: Russia Nabs the Golden Triga at PQ2007,"
PQ Today, 20 June 2007, p. 2.
2. Ibid.
3. Marketa Donícˇkova, "Theatre is Stationary and Live Art: An Interview
with Mateˇj Forman," PQ Today, 19 June 2007, p. 2. Mateˇj and
Petr Forman are ﬁlm director Milosˇ Forman's sons. They operate
a theatre boat on the Czech Vltava River and recently designed and
co-directed with their father at Prague's National Theatre the 1960s
Czech studio theatre musical Dobrˇe Placená Procházka (A Walk
Worthwhile).
4. Vlasta Gallerová, "PQ Jako Jedno Velké Divadlo," Lidové Noviny, 21
June 2007, sec. Kulturní Premiéry, p. 5.
5. Gener, "Interview," p. 2.
THEATRE
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TECHNOLOGY

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