Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011 - 31

peRfORMAnce DesiGn

Arias with a Twist

Apollo (left) and Desire Under the Elms (right)

forced the world to re-examine or revise its hard-to-budge assumptions.
Of course, they couldn't manufacture out of whole cloth a new cultural
re-imagining of U.S. theatre, so part of their journey meant coming to
an agreement about what it means for today's U.S. designers to create
socio-politically committed work at the shifting edges of new artistic
possibilities. What does it mean to be a risk-taking performance maker
in the U.S. today? Considering the predominantly text-based works that
define the American theatre, can we find works that hew closer to this
new magpie philosophy called "performance design"? To quote again
from the numerous e-mails swapped among the curators: "Design is becoming more site-specific, [more oriented toward] performance spaces
over large scenic treatments which seem gratuitous, another form of Wall
Street's conspicuous consumption and frankly are not affordable. Even in
the commercial theatre, heavy spectacles are failing. There is a generational shift that is happening. The basic structure of musicals and other
forms are changing to reflect the audience's appreciation for complex
performance modalities. The country is focused on large shifts-demographically, politically, culturally, and socially."
To greater magnify those "large shifts," From the Edge purposefully
concentrates on fewer U.S. productions. Unlike previous American national exhibits, which had been behemoth affairs, From the Edge wears its
impish unconventionality on its sleeve. Bloodgood's pavilion is an arrestingly iconic structure-a disheveled old garage space in a grubby section

of a city in Nowheresville, USA. With its brick walls, concrete floor, metal
trusses, and industrial lighting, the mode is beat-up realist. As you approach it from the entrance of Prague's National Gallery, the first thing you
are confronted with is a huge graffiti of President Barack Obama's face
prominently painted on one side. Then you see a playful inflatable sculpture by performance artist Pat Oleszko jutting out on the roof's edge-a
fanged dinosaur-type monster engorging the figure of Uncle Sam entitled
"WarUSaurus." Susan Tsu sums it all up perfectly: "From the Edge not
only refers to the brave and dangerous edge of creation but also refers to
our country on edge."
Many visitors to From the Edge have since expressed a desire to visit
the very workspaces and performing venues in the U.S. where the original
creation had taken place. That impulse speaks directly to the romantic
lyricism that throbs beneath Bloodgood's conception of a performinggarage pavilion. If John Conklin's recreation of a designer's studio, which
was the USA entry for the 1987 Prague Quadrennial, captured the messy
processes of design, Bloodgood's pavilion emblematizes the very site and
mind-space of a rowdy, anxious, and fecund re-imagining-the chrysalis
of a new American theatre struggling to reinvent itself despite the long
shadows cast by the commercial theatre and the still-living experiments
of the 1960s avant-garde. In fact, Bloodgood took direct inspiration in
the example of the Performing Garage in New York, which serves as the
headquarters and workspace of the Wooster Group.
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2011

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011