p^J 'L S8B66 A = A = - ^ =^ :a m = 33 — = O 4 = 1 ^ & 1 = 1 = ^= < 5 m 4 m ^^^ 1 — —i ^^^ -<: 8 AMERICAN STAGE DESIGNS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES American Stage Designs I New York "-Bourgeois galleries X919 AMERICAN STAGE DESIGNS AN ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE OF THE MODELS, DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS EXHIBITED AT THE BOURGEOIS GALLERIES IN NEW YORK - - APRIL 5th TO 26th, 1919 WITH ARTICLES BY MAXWELL ARMFIELD, MICHAEL C CARR, NORMAN-BEL GEDDES, C RAYMOND JOHNSON, ROBERT EDMOND JONES, ROLLO PETERS, IRVING PICHEL, HERMANN ROSSE, LEE SIMONSON, J. BLANDING SLOAN, JOSEPH URBAN, JOHN WENGER, AND KENNETH MACGOWAN. NEW YORK Published by THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE I 9 I 9 EXHIBITION COMMITEE HELEN FREEMAN KENNETH MACGOWAN SHELDON CHENEY Acting in conjunction with MR. STEPHAN BOURGEOIS S8B6fc The Exhibition of American Stage Designs at the Bourgeois Galleries PREFATORY NOTE It was more than a year ago that a few people interested in the so-called "new movement in the theatre" met in New York to formulate plans for an exhibition of models, sketches and photo- graphs of stage settings. They felt that it would be of interest to the public, and of service to the artists concerned, to show com- prehensively the progress of modern stagecraft in this country. Af- ter many delays their plans have matured in the exhibition, of stage designs being held at the Bourgeois Galleries during April. Most of the earlier stagecraft exhibitions in America had been devoted largely to the European revolutionaries — to Craig, Ap- pia, Bakst and the Germans — with only a few anaemic imitations to show that Americans were interested ; or else the shows were one-man affairs. But by the middle of last season, with Rollo Peters, John Wenger, Lee Simonson, and Maxwell Armfield meriting recognition with the three pioneers in New York, and with the names of Sam Hume, Raymond Johnson, Hermann Rosse and Norman-Bel Geddes coming insistently out of the West, the time seemed ripe for showing graphically and collec- tively what had been accomplished. The present exhibition includes, without serious exception, designs by every artist who has contributed either extensively or with noteworthy talent to the current of the new staging in America. In conne6lion with the exhibition it was suggested that each artist prepare a brief statement, outlining his attitude toward the stage or his belief about the future of theatre art. These state- ments, together with Kenneth Macgowan's interpretative essay, occupy the following thirty pages, and are appearing both in the official exhibition catalogue and in TJieatre Arts Magazine. The committee which has arranged the exhibition is composed of Helen Freeman, Kenneth Macgowan and Sheldon Cheney. Two of the original members, Lee Simonson and H. K. Moderwell, re- signed when they were called away from New York last summer. The committee has consulted continually with Mr. Stephan Bour- geois, and it has had occasional meetings with those stage designers who are resident in New York. With this aid it has prepared an exhibition which is probably as representative and as complete as is possible when an art is young. S. C. 739341 The New Path of the Theatre By Kenneth Macgowan Are we to emerge from the war into a new theatre? Are we to harvest in the playhouse, as we are harvesting in other fields of art, the rich seedings of Europe many years neglefted ? Will we find ourselves in that theatre of beauty and expressiveness to- wards which Russia and Germany and in less degree France and England were moving in 19 14? One thing is certain : if we go anywhere, we shall go far. If we take steps to reorganize our theatrical machine, to make it sen- sitive and yet strong, self-reliant and self-expressive, we can create theatrical art of a rare fulness. For we build upon a full and alive past. We build upon a past that is only yesterday and yet — by the intervention of the war — has taken on many of the rounded and summed-up quahties of tradition. More, we are building on an international past in the theatre, even as we are building towards an international future in affairs of state. Behind the modern art of stage produ6lion loom two immense figures of theory — Gordon Craig and Adolphe Appia. Craig, an Englishman writing in English, gave us the great outlines of in- spiration, filled in with the brilliant and provocative art of his pencil. Appia, an Italian-Swiss writing in French, supplied an abstra6l philosophy and a concrete method. Two nations — Ger- many and Russia — took up the task of realizing these ideas and prescriptions. Through state and city theatres, through group playhouses, where study, experiment and thoughtful ac- complishment were not im.possible, modern theatrical art rounded from theories into — produ6lions. From Germany rose the fame of Max Reinhardt, obscuring for us the splendid work of a dozen other producers like Schlenter, Linnebach, Hagemann. From Russia came the ballet of Bakst obscuring only less completely the theatre of Stanislawski. In Ireland, the Abbey theatre opened its eyes to the vision. Barker saw in London, and minor men and playhouses in the English provinces. Rouche, of the Theatre des Arts, showed Paris that which made him director of the Opera for the fated fall of 19 14. And in France occurred that most remarkable birth of a literally new theatre, the Vieux Colombier of the critic-player Jacques Copeau. At this point, the Great War wrote "finis". Russia under the Soviets has re- opened the scroll. America under the Shuberts may yet write upon it. Without the theories, progress for them or progress for us would have been impossible. Without their accomplishment, progress for us would be only a thing to dream of For under the Shuberts — which is only an impolite and impolitic way of saying under the Broadway system of piecemeal produ6lion — America could never study, experiment and accomplish as the old world did in those German and Russian producing theatres where groups of artists worked constantly together. Fortunately that work has been done for us. Of course we need more ex- periment, and we need and are getting the theatres where that is possible ; yet, now that we have models to work from, even our Broadway system can reproduce and to some extent develop the types of produ6lion given us by the recent and international past before the war. It had even begun to do so while Europe fought. Indeed, America is at the point where criticism should begin to take the place of indiscriminate enthusiasm. The exhibition of sketches and models at the Bourgeois Galleries in New York and the essays by native stage artists to which this is, in a cer- tain sense, an introduction, demonstrate how far things have already moved. We need not fear to injure our cause by criti- cism. We are more likely now to kill it with kindness. There was a time when the faintest buds of the footlights had to be nour- ished with applause. We hailed much extremely bad work. Per- haps it was because we craved excitation and the bizarre, as relief from drab emotions. Perhaps it was because we knew that even from such beginnings the good art could spring — certainly better and more easily than from the old. It was thus that we applauded much work of the worst Washington Square Players sort. The old was so bad that we accepted an even worse ver- sion of the new. Now we must criticize. We must appreciate the potentialities of the stage. That was what the old school didn't do. And that is what some of the new schools also are failing to do when they cling to the old the- atricalism, to the old arbitrary four walls of canvas, the forced marriage of pretence and extravagance. We have fought realism. We have berated Belasco. But our fight should go further back — and further forward. Realism can emerge into the expressive- ness of the new art. Behind realism lies the greater enemy, the enemy that realism and its Forty-fourth Street high priest fought with us, — yes, before us. That enemy is theatricalism. It is the dead-alive theatre of the last century, where the meagre ma- terials of side walls, wings, and backdrop, were accepted as can- vasses for the smearing of bad color and worse perspe6live into a "play-aftory" pretence at a marvelous reality. The thing was never life. It was never poetry. It was never emotion. It was a routine rule-of-thumb fake. And in America it still lives. Two men set themselves to demolish this thing. They were Otto Brahms and David Belasco. They produced a6luality. Ad- mirers of the Berlin producer called it naturalism. And it was this light that Reinhardt and Stanislawski first followed. These men made a6lual rooms and plausible exteriors. A great mass of engineering mechanism, new lights, new stages, new skies, were invented in the process of getting rid of the old fake, and putting realism in its place. The two-dimensional perspeftive of the easel painter was banished from the three-dimensional thea- tre. The footlights and the borderlights of the pi6lure-frame stage were left to the pidlure gallery in all their blank staring glare. yEsthetics, like life, do not comt. in water-tight compartments. There is evolution. Now it is quite possible to argue that the old theatricalism was always striving to be real, and that hard, intelligent work pushed it over into naturalism. Certainly natur- alism, as Reinhardt and Stanislawski pradliced it, drifted over into the high expressiveness of the new art. There was a time when Reinhardt produced A Midsummer Night s Dream in a forest ot real papier-mache trees. Stanislawski made a Gorki of utter and gutter reality. But they had only to try to add beauty and meaning to their productions in order to be forced, like all the great artists of the world, into a refinement, a sele6lion and an interpretation which is best expressed through the rather awkward term abstraflion. The old theatre of theatricalism had tried to reach a vivid and pifturesque reality through certain rule-of-thumb abstra6lions which cribbed, cabined, confined and defeated the purpose. The newer theatre tries to reach beauty and meaning, to win to a vivid expressiveness of the play, through spiritual abstraftions. In the old days stretched can- vas, painted with piftures of leaves and branches, tried to look like a forest. In the days of realism, aftual, modelled, three- dimensional forms of trees did indeed look not unlike an infe- rior sort of forest. In the third period, however, that same canvas of the old days, treated frankly as cloth, and either hung in loose tree-like shapes or painted with symbols of nature and draped like the curtain it adlually is, becomes an abstraction of a forest, full of all the suggestive beauty of which the artist in colors, shapes and lights is capable. In spite of the natural process of development from realism to this art of abstra6lion, there is such an essential break with the stiff and limited art of the past, that there has come a promise of as great a break with the physical theatre itself This is the place, however, for only a hint at the reconstru6lion of stage and auditorium which may make a theatre as different from the present hall and niched platform as that theatre was different from the open-air cockpit of the Elizabethans and the amphi- theatre of the Greeks. The evolution which kept those utterly different theatres still The Theatre, and which brings the modern art of produ6lion out of the theatricals of Garrick and Kean, also brings compromises and "sportings back." These must not confuse us. As we gain a single definite conception of the new art, we must begin to see the falsities that have crept into it. We must see and recognize, for example, the limitations of Bakst and much of the Russian method. We must note that this artist has been content with the old mechanics and methods of theatricalism. He has taken the great canvas drop and the open side wings, and he has simply sublimated them with color. He still paints perspedlives on the drop, but he flings out columns and stairs and vistas with such verve, and colors them with such spe6lacular geniu^ that they take on a spiritual life that triumphs over technical limitations. Bakst is a glorious compromise. And there are many compromises that must be met and, per- haps, accepted. Banishing perspe6live utterly only ties us down to a setting no larger in its appearance than the a6lual stage. Should we then compromise by the use of set-pieces showing distant silhouettes of cities and mountains against the sky, so distant in fa6l as to defeat the difficulties in perspe6live? Or will we find a more consistent solution in symbolic representation, which turns the whole aftual stage into a place without physical hmitations? Similarly, shall we attempt the blue ether of the sky by that remarkable combination, eleflric light and plaster dome, or shall we turn the sky, too, into a symbolic and decora- tive thing — canvas daubed and speckled with pleasing hues? Besides falsities that should be banned and compromises that may be accepted, there are many varieties of style and method possible in the new art. One artist — Joseph Urban, for instance — may practice an enriched and meaningful realism in Le Prophctc, a decorative method in Don Giova?mi, and an abso- lute abstra6lion in the "realistic" Nj'u, or he may run from realism to abstraftion and symbolism in a single opera such as St. Elizabeth. We may have our preferences. I am personally all for the abstraction. But we must recognize the breadth of the new movement and we must see that the essential test is the effefl of the particular produ6lion on the expressiveness of the play itself But behind all such conflicts and compromises and differences of method, there remain a few basic ideas and basic methods, without which we cannot have the beauty and the expressive- ness of the modern stage art. They are simplification, sugges- tion, and synthesis. Simplification is the test in almost all great art. Simplification of effefl always ; simplification of means generally. On the stage, simplification of both effe6l and means are essential, because the scenery is not the only thing to be seen. Stage archite6lure is not archite6lure alone, or stage pi6lure merely stage picture. The setting is the medium for the a6lor. And it is essential that he shall be properly seen. It is essential that he shall be prop- erly set off by his background and properly fused in it. He must mean more because of the setting, not less. The case against the old setting, both the theatrical setting and the Be- lasco setting, is that either its garishness or its detail tends to hide the a6lor. On the stage we must have simplification for art's sake. But we must have it even more for the sake of the a6lor — and therefore of the play. The complement to simplification is suggestion. Simplify as much as you please; you only make it the more possible to suggest a wealth of spiritual and aesthetic qualities. A single Saracenic arch can do more than a half dozen to summon the passionate background of Spanish Don Juan. One candle- stick can carry the whole spirit of the baroque La Tosca. On the basis of simplication, the artist can build up by suggestion a host of efTe6ls that crude and elaborate reprodu6lion would only thrust between the audience and the a6tor and the play. The artist can suggest either the naturalistic or the abstra6l, either reality or an idea and an emotion. Finally, the quality above all in modern stage produ6lion is synthesis. For modern stage art, in spite of all the easel artists who may care to pra6lice the painting of scenery, is a complex and rhythmic fusion of setting, lights, a6lors and play. There must be consistency in each of these, consistency of a single kind or consistency that has the quality of progression in it. And there must be such consistency among them all. Half the portrait, half the landscape, cannot be in Whistler's style and the other half in Zuloaga's. The creation of a mood expres- sive of the play is, after all, the final purpose in produ6lion. It can no more be a jumble of odds and ends than can the play itself. The achievement of this synthesized suggestion of a play's simple, essential qualities has been sought by the great theorists in very different ways. Gordon Craig would get it mainly by design, backed by color. Adolphe Appia fuses his drama in light. Jacques Copeau, whose beliefs and whose work must take a high place in the record of theatrical progress, achieves the play through restri6lion of means and the re-creation of every ele- ment from the theatre building to the a6lor at each produ6lion. I think a single scene of a play produced by two Americans — and a modern, realistic play, at that — can be taken as an ex- ample of the working out of the three fundamentals in a fused whole. It is the opening scene of a failure produced by Arthur Hopkins a few years ago. The Dcvir s Garden. The opening of the play showed a postal clerk hauled up for examination on charges in the room of a member of that bureaucracy, the British general post office. The setting was shallow, perhaps ten feet deep. At each end was a door set in a square wall. The wall be- tween was without opening, and its only decoration was a buff- toned map. Three chairs and one desk. And some adlors. Simplification. But that simple room fairly breathed bureaucracy, the thing that was about to grip the clerk. Its walls were a dull gray; its door casings, map frame, narrow wainscoating and furniture were black — the same gray and black of the morning clothes of the officials. These tones and these people made a well-composed harmonious pi6lure, but it was a pi6lure instin6l with formality. The colors, the proportions, the map — all simple suggestions of the reality that ruled the whole great invisible building be- hind. For synthesis, there was not only the consistency of this gray and black duotone and its restrained lighting. There was the handling of furniture and people — the stage dire6lion. The desk and chairs were precisely and formally square with the square walls. The people entered from the end doors, moved squarely and formally up to each other, face to face, precise. It was a machine, the machine of government property. That scene, as designed by Robert E.. Jones and dire6led by Arthur Hopkins, was a perfe6l piece of realism, and a perfe6l piece of abstrac- tion besides. It showed the possibilities of the new art for the drama of to-day as well as for the colorful and imaginative sort of play for which so many of us are hoping and for which alone so many imagine the new stage art is fitted. America has its artists, it even has a producer or two, that see this exa6ling yet catholic new art aright. It is beginning to have an audience, and it must cultivate critics. We are through with imitation. Europe has taught us ; we must now pra6lice and create. We are past the Craig period when theories and rather extravagant sketches had their justification in the inspiration they gave. Now is the time for pra6licality, revolutionary prac- ticality, and for accomplishment and triumph. The Necessary Illusion By Lee Simonson The illusion of being not at the play but in the domain of the play itself, is the essential illusion which the theatre must give. Without it no vicarious experience is possible, that purgation of our emotions, more often romantic than tragic, which is the ul- timate and permanent satisfa6lion that any dramatic spe6lacle bestows. I find myself a designer of scenery, because, even as a spe6lator, the forms in which the players move, and the very light they move through, are as essential in maintaining this fundamental illusion of the theatre as their impersonations or the words of the play itself Bernhardt declaiming Hecuba in front of potted palms, remains, for me, simply Bernhardt declaiming, however beautifully. At any of the traditional performances of Wagner's Ring, I have merely listened to a score, for I was at the dreariest corner of the Palisades. At any moment the sign "Choice Lots for Sale" might gleam through the tree trunks, and the clang of a hidden trolley drown the dirge of the Rhine Maidens. Never for a moment was I where the musi6 bade me be — at the beginning of the world watching Gods decree their doom and shape the des- tiny of men. Let Melisande wander under the unrelenting glare of eleflric light, against huge chromolithographs of an American pubhc park in the year 1850, and her cry "Je ne suis pas he- reuse" is the ludicrous bleat of a silly child, and the cadences of Debussy the merest gibberish. But let me see her, as I did more recently, among the cavernous rooms and the gaunt ter- races of a king's dwelling, as visibly strange and as foreboding as Copeau made it, and her terror becomes mine and her cry the voice of my most inarticulate sorrow. Stating it as a doctrine, one might say that quality of a back- ground determines one's emotional rea6lion to anything that happens in front of it. As such it may seem hyper-aesthetic; yet it is a do6lrine we acknowledge daily by the importance we at- tach to creating appropriate backgrounds everywhere — parks and gardens to idle in, houses to live in, churches to worship in, tombs to lie in. And we try, however fitfully or unsuccessfully, to give them some design or some beauty relevant to the experi- ence they are supposed to shelter. And yet this same public that will save their lovemaking for the prettiest lane, or forget guide books, rapt, in the nave of an alien cathedral, will, once within the theatre, accept the most cherished love scenes and romantic deaths, amid surroundings they would not consider worth printing on a pi6lure postcard, or which would outrage them at the funeral of a friend. To destroy this strange dualism, this indifference to visual beauty that the theatre seems to breed in most aflors and pro- ducers, as well as in their speftators, is, I think, the fundamental problem of the scene designer. For the present danger is that the so-called "modern scenery" will be accepted, but never craved — that it will remain a luxurious extra, a dressing-up of the play, and applauded as another tradition of the theatre, and in the end matter no more than whether the costumes of the chorus of Listen Lucy are green with black spangles or pink with yellow plumes. The Mission of the Stage Setting By John Wenger The scenic setting has a distin6l mission in theatrical life — and but one mission. That is so to express the purpose, the spirit, the symbolism of the play as to enhance and intensify its character. At a local theatre recently the audience gave vent to pro- longed applause as the curtain rose, revealing the stage setting. Apparently complimentary to the scenic designer ; and so it was — before the a6lion of the play began. As soon as the business of the story commenced and the psychology of the drama entered into the consciousnesses of the auditors, they felt vaguely uncomfortable. Most of them were unable to analyze their irritation. The student of stagecraft sensed the trouble immediately. The setting didn't belong. It clashed. As a work apart it was exquisitely done, and merited the applause it received. As the background for the drama which it was intended to serve, it failed. So to harmonize with the play, so to correspond with, and in- tensify, if possible, the underlying motif expressed by it, so to merge itself with the spirit and purpose of the play that it calls forth of itself no recognition beyond the subconscious apprecia- tion of its absorption into the play itself — that is the purpose of the stage setting. The theatre of yesterday demanded — and still demands, for the modern playhouse is a lone gladiator battling against the host of hoary though hard-dying discouragers of change — that the stage setting represent realism. It insisted upon realism because it had little, if any, respeft for the thought processes of the average audience. What's the set, a barn-door? Then where are the nails? How in the name of Thespis will the audience recognize the set as a barn-door un- less you paint in the nails, the hinges and the door-latch? Thus reasoned the theatre owner of yesteryear. He also insisted upon drabs. A dull gray or a muddy brown were his favorite colors. They were the only pra6lical tones to use. Else how could one distinguish the a6lors? "Tone down your colors," the stage designer was warned, with the result that the freshly installed setting resembled a choice se6lion of Canar- sie real estate after the February thaw\ It was toned down, all right. It was so toned down that it toned, down the spirits of the audience, the receipts in the box office, and the spark of ambi- tion still faintly discernible in the hearts of the few visionaries who dreamed of the day when life on the stage might express itself in the materials nature offers. For nature is not drab. Nature is gorgeous in color, and color on the stage is one of the three essentials which the mind de- mands. The other two are a6lion and sound. Give the setting all the brilliance the motif of the play, or opera, demands. No fear that the players won't be seen. They move. The moving objefl is always more conspicuous than the background, no matter how skilfully the colors blend. Then there is contrasting color. Harmonious contrasts add vigor and beauty to the stage pi6lure. The background should contain movement. Life is not static. It is fluid. The stage setting should tend towards that elusive- ness in Hfe found in the rainbow, in the play of shifting lights and shadows. Imbue the stage setting with poetry. Give it an imaginative quality. Let it absorb within it a fluidity, an elusiveness that stimulates the mind. The stage setting that stifles individual in- terpretation by driving nails into the barn-door is a failure, in that it fails to preserve the essential illusion of the theatre. Artificiality and Reality in the Future Theatre By Hermann Rosse If the plastic arts mean anything they mean an artificial reality, an interpretation of life in another medium in an attempt to clarify life itself A predi6lion as to the future of the plastic arts of the theatre, to me, resolves itself into an application of this crucial test: do they, or do they not, help our cosmic understanding? Beauty of form helps us in this way, and that supreme beauty which comes with geometrical perfe6lion, be it in plane or solid. And so does beauty of color even more readily, as its appeal is so much more easily understood. Part of the appeal of the theatre is stru6lional reality, and part is art for art's sake, illusion. Where we find the modern theatre lacking is in the poverty of stru6lional beauty in auditorium and stage, and in the overemphasizing of the technical side of the purely artistic beauty of the scene. There are plays now — and it is safe to predi6l that there will be more soon — for which the pure stru6lional beauty of unadorned building will be very suffi- cient, will in fact be the only entirely right method of mounting. Nearly all plays of a meditative, analytical nature, all plays of words, could thus be a6led on a beautifully finished platform. The dynamic play, as the dionysian ballet, no doubt will gain in power through being assisted by sympathetic scenery and cos- tuming emphasizing its mood. Making its appeal through mo- tion, through rhythm, anything which will emphasize our illusion of motion in the right tempo will be beneficial to the total im- pression on the spectator. Here now opens up a vista of thought altogether fascinating in the multiplicity of its possibilities. Some ballet designers have added to the motion of the adtors and the rhythm of the music a static representation of dynamic emotion on the backcloths. In tl;iese attempts, however, there still is a little of the same in- congruity of the realistic perspeflive setting of twenty-five years ago. Only the stylistic rendering saves them artistically. The next move in the development of this type of play is the abandoning of the static parts of the stage-pi6lure ; and the de- velopment of moving scenery. That the abandoning of these static elements means ultimately the elimination of the stage floor and the consequent disappearance of the a6lor, does not greatly worry us. This will simply eliminate one fa6lor of ex- pression, which is too likely to be influenced by chance emo- tions. Our present knowledge of technique seems to lead us to suppose that the purely dynamic play will bring us back again to the pi6lure-frame proscenium. In fact, a crude prototype of it may be seen in the animated cartoons in the moving-piclure theatres. From a purely aesthetic view point the effe6l of this develop- ing of the background at the expense of the a6lor will remake the dynamic play. Imagine beyond the proscenium a void in which planes and bodies will develop themselves in limitless graduation of color and shape in one great rhythm with the coordinating music — two dimensional patterns in kaleidoscopic succession, and these fascinating patterns formed by the inter- se6lion of solids, darts of color across a sombre background, lines, planes, or solids, and symbols of man and surrounding nature, all emphasizing the mood of the music ! The wholly ac- torless theatre with its tendency toward the two-dimensional visible art and the abstra6l in music will be the triumph of the artificial, the decorative, the stylistic. To me the coming of this type of theatre is so certain that it interests me almost more to speculate on the nature of the thea- tre that will supplant it, for we must admit that the dynamic theatre would have to be symbolic to reach the pitch of perfec- tion adequate really to move us. It would have to depend on the depth of meaning we attach to our symbolism, for the completeness of its appeal. But symbolism may be as univer- sally known as that of the Christian Church, and yet it remains se6larian and hence in itself carries its death warrant. We modern people of an old race have visions as much as the people of Gothic France and Coptic Rome, and yet we differ. We have lost the dualistic belief of good and evil. To us there is but one truth, and that is balance — or compromise, if you hke. Our a6lions are resultants of conflifting tendencies. We hope at the same time for the attainment of our ideals and the greater ideal — which will destroy our attainments in its effort toward self-realization. We see the inevitableness of a theatre, wholly a6lorless, with shapes and colors and forms in an abstra6l way bridging our con- scious experience with the infinite, and at the same time we feel the certain approach of a newer, more vital art replacing our conventions. We struggle for our ideals, not because we believe the millennium will arrive with their accomplishment, but be- cause we know their fulfilment to be indispensable as a link in the chain of human development. The decline of the stylistic stage will be coincident with its canonization. That which will always conquer art is reality, life itself In the theatre of to-day two tendencies are very evident — one toward a rare and precious artificiality, and one toward a new and vital realism. The first tendency will probably work itself out in the a6lorless theatre. The second tendency will probably lead by the way of a slow development of the purely construfhive stage and the oratory platform to a new type of churchlike theatre, with refleftive domes, beautiful materials, beautiful people — to a revitalizing of art by a complete reversal from the artificial to the living real. If we are going to stay true to the spirit of the time, both of these tendencies will de- velop side by side until reality carries the day — or will time as- sert itself still further and will the result be a compromise? If I Must By RoLLo Peters How un-simple we have become, we of the "commercial" and "art" theatres, with our exquisite differences and separations. And how many treatises, attacks and counter-attacks are hurled by the one party against the other. The division is futile, and and worse than futile. For there is no "old theatre", nor is there a "modern stage" — there is simply the Theatre, for you, for me, for the other fellow. Though it appear different to each of us, let us not try to con- vert the other to our vision of the Theatre. Let us cease in our small, sure ways from "regenerating the stage". It was never meant that beauty become the common fare. Then let us go our separate ways, without rancor or declamation. There is plenty of room for us surely — musical-comedians, poets, trage- dians and business men — in this Theatre of ours. As for me — I pledge my allegiance to no nation, no party, no principle, but to that complexity which is the vulgar, the holy Theatre. I throw myself into its complexities to master them — or turn butcher; to learn the endless lesson of the Theatre. In order that they may come to know the Theatre, I advise all a61;ors to turn painters, and all painters to turn actors — (only the playwrights must keep to their cells) — for no matter how bad an a6lor he may make, the painter will come back to his drawings with renewed hfe, with a sense of the relation that the a6lor bears to the scene. The a6lor will weave into his words the color of the scene and of the light ; there will be a mysterious and penetrating relation between his movements and the flowing melody of stru6lural line. Let us forget our differences, we of the Theatre. Let us enjoy them. Byzantine tlirone scene hy Maxwell Arnifield. Drop designed for use with a black cyclorania. For a pro- iluction by Ruth St. Denis. Design by Michael Caimichael Carr for the first scene of the opera Iphigenia in Tauris. Design by Rollo Peters for The Bonds of Interest. For a production by The Theatre t".uild. mmmm m/a^m Design by Joseph I'rban for the church scene of Faust. For tlie Metropolitan Opera House production. Model by Lee Sininnson for tlie palace interior scene of tlie opera J [^liigciiia in Taiiris. l**>:^*?Av». ;.■^:f:::tr.»«^^J||<^ Design by John Wenger for the setting of The Lost Pleiad. Design bv Raymond Johnson for the setting of The King of the Jeivs. For the Chicago Little Theatre. m!W: M^-umm ■ Design by Hermann Rosse for a movable stage set- ting. "La Serva Padrone Pergolese." Setting by Willy Pogany for Le Coq d'Or. For the Metropolitan t)pera House iiroJuction. ■)%'' TUSBBUm Design by Washington production. Robert Edmond Jones for a scene in For the Theatre du X'ieux Colombier Setting by Sam Hume for Doctor Faustus. Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit. For the Setting by Irving Picliel for Bushido. For the Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit. Design by Robert Kilmoml Jijnes for the scene at the gypsies' house in Rcdempiion {The Liiing Corf'se). For Arthur Hopkins' ])ro(luction. ^f .1 k ■I Design l)y Norman- Bel Geddes for the final scene of Pelleas and Melisande. Design by T. Blanding Sloan for Scene One of Such is Life Design by Heniiann Rosse for a drop curtain setting. Fashions in the Theatre By Robert Edmond Jones Workers in the theatre have always faced and will always face the same proble?n: the problem of making a drama live before an audience. To create an impression of livingness in the presence of spec- tators, to recall life to them — that is the necessary thing. There are numberless manners of working and there is no real quar- rel with any of them. Realism, simplification, stylization, are fashions in the theatre all of which can carry energy in the hands of artists. The new direflor will adopt any fashion, any convention, so long as it is a living one. He may come to use masks on his stage, for example, having observed that his a6lors projefl essential emotion by their movements and attitudes much more freshly and significantly than by the changes in the ex- pression of their faces. He may apply the bird's-eye view of life, made familiar by the motion pi6lure and the aeroplane, to new visualizations of the mass-soul in mass grouping and move- ment. He may discover through the study of crystallography un- suspe6led relations between spacing in the theatre and present-day processes of thought. He may find a new dramatic form spring- ing out of community drama expressed through the rhythms of polyphonic prose. He may see the classic unities of space and time across the modern conceptions of curved space and curved time. No method of working will be too daring or too dire6l for him to adopt — always with the supreme desire to make a thing on the stage which will live and will draw the life of the audience promptly into its own larger life. The Future of Stage Art By Michael Carmichael Carr In the flux of a dramatic world the one thing certain is that the stage arts will develop, a little behind, but always in relation to the evolution of art in general. Beyond this all is surmise ; and one is sorely tempted to make sail for the Hesperides and write a prophecy on the Future of Stage Art in the category of "what it should be" rather than flounder in attempting the difficult pas- sage of "what it may be". Though a prophet is without honor in his own country, the people have always believed in prophecy. They are never thrilled by it. Artists are invariably thrilled though they rarely believe. Pessimistic prophets are always religious and threaten- ing. Optimistic ones are somewhat artistic, and their artistic futures are uniformly golden. For centuries past, a rain of ar- tistic millenniums has fallen from the gold-filled mouths of prophets to fertilize the slow evolution of art — but the smoke goes up the chimney just the same ! Since life began there have existed poets, playwrights, dan- cers, a6lors, sculptors, musicians, and painters. Though no law expressly forbids their cooperation to produce drama, an inertia or political-financial-religious hiatus prevents their working to- gether — sometimes it seems a managerial policy, sometimes a foolish public, and on rare occasions a professional jealousy. Herein lies the golden opportunity for a fame-enamored alchem- ist who is neither artist nor politician. Out of a pother of ex- periment with new movements, little theatres, and the like, there has arisen a lot of bad work, artistically, and, as heretofore, it has not failed to draw gibes and abuse from those whose sense of the beautiful has ossified. But there never was an artistic effort, as widespread as the present interest in the theatre and as deep as the feeling of the new theatre artists, that did not in- augurate much good along with the gibes and the ragged work. Honi soit qui mal y petise. The apparently cynical remarks of Gordon Craig anent amateur artists in little theatres, when boiled down, really mean that new theatres are significant, not because they are little, certainly not because they are large, but in just proportion to the vitality of the artist group they contain. What every artist of the theatre should have is a theatre of his own — a theatre in which, be he ever so insouciant, he may try his theories as to permanent sets or refle6ted light or proscenium doors, and — who knows? — in the end, may perhaps find that dreams come true. But, speaking in the Hght of what may be, if he have the time to dream and the chance to build models of his dream, he will be happy. When the trois coups have sounded and the curtain has parted, speculation vanishes, and we are confronted by the stage as it is; so it is no easy matter to turn from decorative generalities to the consideration of a particular set, for one design neither illustrates a principle nor proves a rule. And speaking of prin- ciples, it will be remembered that after years of experiment and theory, Gordon Craig v/as summed up by London critics as "the man who didn't believe in footlights"! Personally, and at the risk of being put down as an advocate of pearl-handled dimmers or gold-tasseled lashlines, I crave to see develop on the stage a more significant form modified by a more significant or, better, most significant color. Shades o{ les Synibolistes ! I hope this does not presage to the reader a gloomy mysticism overlying alike Maeterlinck and our own corn-fed American type of play; for, even as the Romanesque castle, so our office furniture from Michigan has a distin6live shape ; and as between these purely material forms and the spiritual mood of the dramatist there stands but the a6lor and the stage artist, I long to see the latter wielding his power with as varied a change of dress and as mul- tiple expression of countenance as the former. Now that artists are entering the theatre, the burdens may be more equally shared. Generally speaking, an a6lor has suc- ceeded in giving a good performance of Shakespeare only in spite of the scenery. With an artist behind the scenes, the a6lor should gain, as he would not only carry a lighter load but find new support, new harmonies, and fresh enthusiasm born of the common effort to a definite end. This is made more certain by the fa6l that painting has passed the peak of naturalism and drawn nearer to the other form arts. With the machine technology so much a part of our civiliza- tion, there is little danger that the sets of the future will become as simplified as has pure painting. Mechanics will always play its part in the technical side of production, but it will be what the small compa6l gas engine is to the ponderous steam engine of thirty years ago. The traditional Transformation Scene has about disappeared with topheavy steam engines ; and, where the dynamo and dimmer have banished gas, we shall see arise sets that are clear and simple in line, weighty in mass, and convinc- ing in their suppression of detail. For it is not alone with form and colored light that the stage artist is concerned. Everything that is visible from the auditorium should come under his eye before the audience passes the foyer. One might well digress here to talk of the decoration of proscenium arches, but, keep- ing modestly inside the footlights one may logically presume that, as the form and lighting of scenes has received so much attention recently, new shapes for the stage and varied textures will soon follow. That the underlying principles of design hold true on the stage is axiomatic, so "to be or not to be design" we may leave to the amateur embroiderers of crazy-quilt drama, and proceed among the shades of meaning where the tragic decisions must be made. The efforts of the future, therefore, lie in the ways and means of producing the exa6l nuance of feeling out of the all-too-ephem- eral stuff of which stage beauty is made. For the immediate future let us hope that managers may discover that artists and craftsmen will work as cheaply as, and more faithfully than, con- tracting companies, and that through this knowledge artists may enter the theatre in increasing numbers and there find a cooper- ative spirit. Scene and Adion By Irving Pichel I REGARD a play as an a6lion taking place primarily in the minds and hearts and souls of a group of chara6lers. In so far as it is a great play, it has a6lion of this type more abundantly than out- ward physical at^tion. In the same degree, it depends upon or is independent of outward forms, connotative of a specific time and place. A true digest of human emotion and experience is not confined within scenic walls or canvas vistas. As long as we have our present stage, we must, I suppose, clothe every play in forms of a sort. But, in the case of the play the a6lion of which we do not see with our eyes, I seek, in the setting, forms which connote as little as possible, because I want to be free to see the humanity of the charaflers, stripped of Romanesque or Gothic or Renaissance or sky-scraper implica- tions. Very few plays, however, are so written. The great classics of Greece, of Elizabethan England, of Japan — of any great litera- ture, for that matter, — might best be viewed from the side of a prize-fighting ring, from all sides and at every moment visible. I am not sure. But that they should be given what they do not absolutely need of scenery or decoration is to place an obscuring screen before them, even in the case of scenery that claims to be "an unobtrusive background". The man must stand up clear against sky only, or perhaps multiplied by mirrors, or backed by more human beings — the audience on the other side of the ring. The only implications must be human. For the rest, each play prescribes its own world — a world of facilities to give the a6lor scope for the agility and exuberance needed for the translation of the manuscript into "a6lion", or a world of connotative forms, telling us of the country, period, richness or poverty of the characters, and the quality of im- agination that calls forth the play. As a producer, I look upon a play as having begun in the turbulence of a writer's mind. By means of pen, ink, and paper, and later, through a<5lors, scenery, lights, sound-waves, this cre- ation of imagination must be drawn through a material welter to issue again, — a turbulence of the spe6lator's mind. If I could bridge across this material pit, and translate from the mind of poet to spe6lator his fable of poem or dream — an unimagin- able osmotic theatre — I should be happy. Scenery stands by way of a footpath we must walk upon when we wish to fly. But we are learning to fly. Soon we may be able to in the theatre. Until then we remain down in the world, instead of looking across at each other through an interspace of air. And, in the same measure as each play walks, we walk scenically. 1 cannot conceive of having a style of scenery all my own, — it belongs to the play, comes out of the demands of the play, grows as the play grows in rehearsal. Finally, after some two weeks of re- hearsal, I am able to give the stage carpenter certain meas- urements. The scene is set and painted standing. Afterwards, very often, I ask somebody to make a sketch of the scene in colors, or I content myself with an unsatisfaftory photograph. And I find that it looks nothing like my stage setting, which vibrated with light and color and the humanity of the chara6lers in the play. The New Stage Designing By C. Raymond Johnson The success of the new stage designing is to a certain extent dependent upon the play. The modern successful play is usually trash, as far as true art is concerned, so of what profit is a new motive in the background ? Well, it serves as an example of something better. It helps the play along, and is more bearable to look at. Above all, it is more in relation to the a6lion, and comes nearer to reality, being farther from realism. For me the new movement means a striving for complete unity in the theatre: a new form of expression. We are trying to make the theatre an art, with a form that is of the theatre and not pieces of something else. I feel that we are at the begin- ning of that art. What developments are made will be indeed interesting material for the history of a new art. I have a deep love for the theatre, but I fear it is one that gazes past the pra6lical to-day's theatre with its pettiness and bravado. I look forward to a much bigger thing. I confess there are certain streaks in me that revolt at being led, guided, or pushed, and it is this that is so discouraging in the thea- tre. Everything seems to pull away from one instead of with one. There is chaos, both in the material and in the spiritual aspe6l. I consider the entire theatre, including the building, of great importance. Our usual theatre is far from a thing by itself For instance, imagine how wonderful and beautiful an auditorium and proscenium could be in relation to the stage. In regard to stage decoration, my feeling is that the things we call " old stuff" are mere representation of detail and a sort of illustration to the play — any old thing to cover up the back wall of the stage, which is oftentimes better than the drop. The significance of dramatic qualities is lost, so far as background is concerned. I feel that the real art of stage decoration is an expression full of mystery and joyousness, and aims at setting the point of entrance into the new world where for an interval there is an illusion, and unconsciously we are lifted to that higher plane where we are moved by that which moves. Yes, I know, I dream of a sort of Utopia in the theatre — a place where there will be harmony, love, and serious work. I think of progress on the stage, and I see the scene a simple, or- derly massing, principally proje6led by light. Light to me offers the greatest possibilities of all the means on the stage. With it I hope to see great things accomplished. With it I hope to do something. I seriously believe we are only at the beginning of a great new day in the use of light ; and, when the dawn of that day appears, it will seem to be the glorious sun rising to light us on our path of pure joy in work, in creation, and in contempla- tion. The Theatre of the Future By Norman-Bel Geddes In the middle of the fourth century the theatre went to sleep simultaneously with the downfall of the Greek social system and the idealism of the Greeks. Ten years ago it rubbed its eyes. Since that time there have been indications that its slumber is not peaceful. Ten years hence it will be fully awake. The theatre, more than any other form of art, belongs to the majority of the people. A painter, sculptor, or poet can pro- duce his gem isolated from humanity. The archite6l and the dramatic dire6lor require company. Because of this necessity their two forms of art are destined to a more general apprecia- tion. At present we are under the misapprehension that great art is an enjoyment exclusively for the minority. Naturally those who most thoroughly understand anything are in the mi- nority, but that is no reason why the entire world cannot learn to enjoy and appreciate. Even a tiny candle held by one per- son will illuminate a crowd. So evolution constantly develops the unexpe6led possibilities of art as an integral part of the life of the people. More than through any other channel the artist in the theatre has dire6l intercourse with his audience. The extent of his power is beyond present-day comprehension. We have less conception of the possibilities in drama than geographers had of the world in the fourteenth century. There is no form of crea- tive expression which cannot be used to advantage in the theatre. Since it is an aggregate medium, it is destined to hold the pre- dominating position among the arts. Architeflure is the most enduring; dramatic produ6lion the most deUcate, depending almost entirely upon the sensitiveness of human fragility. Up to this time no effort has been made to develop a technique that builds permanently. We can record definitely the spirit of authors, composers, and designers, but not of the a6lor ; though cinema and phonograph are elemental, uncoordinated develop- ments toward such recordization. There is nothing odd in the fa6l that almost simultaneously artists in all parts of the world have turned their thoughts to- wards the theatre. There is nothing "new" in what they are giving to it. Art has always had its own little continent in the world of the theatre, though to popular opinion we are just dis- covering it with the same eclat that the Europeans "discovered" an America already inhabited. Discovery is only the awakening of human consciousness to a reality that always exists. Devel- opment in various forms of expression fluctuates, and it requires a crisis in the lives of the people to bring about an impetus. A great war has ceased. A veil is rising to disclose better things. I look forward to a more general interest in the lovelier things of life and a much more intimate acquaintance between artist and audience. Man's horizon has broadened so that he can ad- vance where he pleases. I am looking to America for the greatest increase in artistic interest. Here the old and the new are balanced relatively. No centuries of tradition bind free meditation. Appreciation has lain dormant under drowsy ignorance, but an unprejudiced freshness predominates. Drama will become more indigenous and intimate with the hearts of the people. We have made the eternal mistake of going somewhere else for our material instead of searching it out here. Theatrical managers have a lower opinion of American intelligence than is justifiable, though there have been plenty of reasons for their attitude. Just a word as to my own interest in the theatre. It was not a special attra6lion toward scenery that drew me into it. Under a sudden impetus I wrote a four-a6l play, first in pantomime and then in dialogue. With the consuming desire to visualize the written conception, I conco6led a crude little stage on which I slowly worked out variations of lighting, principal figure compo- sitions, costumes, and detailed properties. The effe6l showed me so many obstacles in adapting my own ideas to the me- chanics of the present type of stage, that my second effort went into the discovery of a new form of theatre stru6lure, which I developed until I was ready to send the main ideas through the Patent Office. It was that archite6lural endeavor which induced me to experiment with the lovely realities that such a stage could aftually accommodate, and it was the building of a second, elab- orate model stage that swung me with emphasis toward the creating of the setting of plays as a more immediate opportunity. There are plenty of reasons for discouragement in the present standard of theatrical produ6lions. Every form of expression periodically passes through a degenerate period, but the harder the pendulum swings one way, the more vigorous will be its push in the other dire6lion. At present there are many little theatres in the country working away at the difficult task of reaching the public in small scattered groups until larger organ- izations are ready to use their more adequate machinery. I pre- di<5l without a doubt an entire cutting away of the clumsy, tough weeds of the present theatrical system. It is the little green shoots almost hidden underneath and sometimes almost stifled that will become the beautiful, fresh growth of the future theatre. I feel positively that an altogether new form of production, writ- ing and a6ling will replace what we have. The Stage By Joseph Urban The stage brings us the greatest thoughts, the most beautiful phantasies and dreams, from many of the biggest thinkers, poets and artists of the world. We learn the things of life and beauty that we did not know, that we did not imagine existed. The theatre of the future must become : The carrier of the culture of its nation. The altar to which the best and greatest of a nation offer their energy and beauty, strength and knowledge. The institution which receives equally the gift of genius and the force of the workman. The shrine of beauty so democratic that every new cultural element coming, finds there cooperation. The future stage must be so big and general in its influence that the strength of its conviction goes out to the very frontier and knocks on the door of its neighbor. Who refuses this gift hurts himself and impoverishes his life. In our future Hfe the stage must have the same influence that the Christian church has had in the past. Fantasy? By J. Blanding Sloan We may only hope to put into the theatre (that least controllable of all mediums) things a little less abortive than itself. At present it is far too imperfefl, too material a thing for the artist to nur- ture his reveries in. It has too little to do with dreams. And dreams are such that they cannot be transformed into other tim- ber than that of which they are built. Let me then learn well the deficiencies of the theatre, so that in avoiding I may tend to eliminate them and to make the theatre a more work-worthy vehicle. I will not care to concern myself especially as to the future of it, if I may be allowed to play a little with the present discordant instrument and help to wear away its roughnesses. Nothing I could say concerning it would alter its poor form so much as the least of the compositions I may be able to play upon it. If I am fortunate and play my lay well enough to add a note for the future, those to come will make good use of it to build upon. But if I may play seer for a moment and speak my dream : When with the choice visions of minds gone and minds pres- ent we have built our theatre into an instrument of delicately controlled cadences ; when dreams are kept dreams there, and the artist shall finger the strings of it as the violinist in the cool twilight softly and half unconsciously plays to himself those of his compositions which lift away from all but dreams, there may be art in the theatre. Color and Light By Maxwell Armfield There has been much written about this aspe6l of the Syn- thetic method of dramatic produ6lion, and written well enough, yet we see little a6lual work that is satisfying. We find, for instance, that most young dire6lors seem to think they are doing something novel and "artistic" by showing some con- trast of orange and blue lights upon the scene. It is so easy to flood the stage with amber and then place a blue light behind a window ; moreover, at present it gives the audience a certain thrill. But what becomes of the a6lors? And what becomes of the play? And in three years or ten this sort of thing will no longer excite the audience, and then, what becomes of the dire6lor? Let us hope he will have begun to think for himself. A very safe rule for the direftor, old or young, is to begin at the praflical end in every case. There are three main ways in which color may be used on the stage, and these depend upon the material chosen for the vehicle. A nd they are not wisely mingled. The first rule of art is that any work must have unity within itself, and that unity must extend to every detail of the work. This law is transgressed, for instance, when a cubist painter sticks tram-car tickets and pieces of celluloid over his painting. It is transgressed by almost every stage-manager, including myself We all transgress it ; the unfortunate thing is that as a rule we are unconscious of the fa6l. Now, whether you are dealing with color as paint, or as silk, or as light, you necessarily arrange its varying quantity and and quality into a complete whole which is symmetrical and which you call Pattern. This Pattern may be achieved, as I say, in diverse ways : keep them diverse. Firstly : — The simplest art-forms are those in which natural objects, such as birds, are symbolized as abstra6l shapes, which we call Pattern, as a rule ; and they are often arranged in a repeating design. The Amerind potter will indicate a bird by a re6langle with a few straight lines radiating from two corners, perhaps, and a circle in the middle. This may be repeated at intervals round the pot and eventually copied by some modern designer short of ideas, as a "cunning" design. The Flemish stone-mason of the thirteenth century would car\,-e a rough statement of the a6lual outline of the bird, but he would still fill in this outline, very likely, with a diaper pattern having no resemblance to the bird's appearance beyond a vague impli- cation of feathers by a regular criss-cross. When Rodin carves a bird, the actual shape of the beast interests him far less than its relation to wind and rock, and their effect on it. This he would strive to indicate in a rhythm which would still rightly be called Pattern, but it would be something entirely different in aim from that of the Amerind potter. Not better, not more "like" anything, just a different symbol for saying a different thing. It is just the same with one's use of color on the stage. You may choose to use it as pattern, that is, as abstract shapes of different hues, harmoniously arranged; and this may and should express all sorts of things. In this case you will cover your actors with patterns and patterned costumes: pattern your back- ground and your properties: your music and your dance. Now there are several practical points which will occur to anyone in this connection if he will put aside all conventional ideas. First : it is useless to spend hours planning an expressive pat- tern, and then to print it on a thin material that will entirely cut it up and spoil each part by innumerable folds and pleatings. Therefore intelligence would intimate that when pattern is used in this sense as an expressive medium for color, the costume, etc., should be designed in flat masses unbroken by small folds; and cither of stiff material, heavy material, or laid on such a foundation. Second : it is also useless to design a costume to display a significant pattern if you then allow a series of deep and ragged black blotches, green blotches, orange blotches, magenta blotches — that is, the Lime-light Man — to run about irrelevantly over your possibly grey and yellow pattern. Intelligence murmurs that this result indicates the necessity of a perfectly flat hght for this kind of patterning. And we may also treat our pattern in other ways. For instance, we may take each person, object or portion of a scene as a mass of uniform color, approximately unbroken, and deal with each of these masses as parts of a pattern of which the entire stage is the whole. In this case it may be that it will be effective to modulate the light so that some parts of the stage are brighter than others, but so long as the color is to be constant and obtained by the varying materials of costume and scene we shall find that, as in the first case, colored light only confuses the issue. In this type of work our chief business will be to make each part as distinctly individual as possible : that is, to accentuate its local color, within the general scheme, of course. The third type being essentially the showing of the relations of things, will rely on subtle differences of light, especially, to produce its significant pattern. The various forces, such as wind, which unify pictorial representation, are mostly outside of the legitimate means of the theatre, so that we are thrown back upon the few we have; and of these, light is by far the most important as a unifying element. This is generally recognized, but what is not recognized is this, that all symbolic means and methods are useful only as tools ; they are not in that capacity either valuable or beautiful per se ; also that the representation of natural fa6l implies a recognition of all that that fa6l entails. You are under no obligation to use perspe6live in art, but if you choose to do so it must penetrate the whole of your design. There must be some intelligent and obvious cause for every effect. Producers are too fond of getting a cheap effect easily by turning colored lights on to the scene for no reason beyond the excuse that they are considered beauti- ful or effective, or "new". None of which reasons are valid. If colored or represented light of any kind be used as a medium in a scene, it will be found that the effect is rarely helped by the introduction either of colored materials in the costume or pat- terned goods. They may occasionally be of use, but as a rule neutral colors are much more valuable because they do not counteract the effect of the light. Gordon Craig has emphasized this very wisely. Though it appear easy, this third type of production is in fact very much the most difficult with which to obtain a really satis- factory result from an artistic point of view, and unless one can have a more of less permanent stage for experiment it is best to use the others. It also necessitates a very wide knowledge of facts and in- genuity to use them without degenerating into a mere copyist, quite apart from the necessity of very complex and expensive apparatus. It is essential, for instance, that the light be diffused and ubiquitous, if necessary, and (a fact often overlooked) graded in color as well as in depth. To attempt to work with the crude red, blue and yellow of the commercial stage is worse than noth- ing. Moonlight is not ultramarine blue. It varies with the varying of the moon as well as from a thousand other causes, as does sunlight. The feeling of vague revolt at the average production of an Ibsen play is due not only to the ugliness and absurdity of the scener\', but quite as much to the fact that one knows instinctively that the hot yellow glare pouring down out of a hard blue sky (outside the greenhouse in which the people are usually sealed) never shone on Norwegian fjord or mountam ledge. The cold northern sunshine is half the battle. There are many other considerations, of course, and this at- tempted classification of a few details merely touches the fringe of the subject; but I have found them personally to be of use in practical work, especially in avoiding the temptation to mix one's methods, the most fatal mistake of the age in art, perhaps. CATALOGUE I Galleries 1 and 2 DESIGNS AND PHOTOGRAPHS Maxwell Armfield: Three Dance Settings for Rufh St. Denis: 1. Byzantine Throne Scene: Design and Photograph 2. Javanese Scene : Design and Photograph 3. The Triumph of Democracy 4. Costumes for The Grassblade Xorman-Bel Geddes: 5. Three Designs for Papa 6. Four Designs for Pelleas and Melisande 7. Three Designs for King Lear 8. Two Costumes for King Lear 9. Two Costumes for The Faithful Sam Hume: 10. The Golden Doom 11. The Glittering Gate 12. Helena's Husband 13. The Tents of the Arabs 14. The Chinese Lantern 15. Helena's Husband 16. Abraham and Isaac C Raymond Johnson : 17. Deirdre of the Sorrows, Act H 18. The Philanderer, Act IV 19. Medea (Euripides) Roi?ERT Edmond Jones: 20. Redemption, The Gypsy House Scene 21 22 23 24 25 Three Designs for The Cenci Caliban by the Yellotv Sands Sabrina Figure of "Pestilence" for The Roll Call Figure of "Hate" for The Roll Call Harriet Klamroth : 26. Snow White, Prologue 27. Crops and Croppers, Act III VVii^LY Pogany: 28. Three Costume Designs for Sumurun 29. Costume Design : The Wind 30. Costume Design : Lucrezia Borgia RoLLo Peters: 31. Tannhauser, Acts I and III Z2. Four Designs for Hernani ZZ. Three Costumes for Hernani 34. His Widow's Husband 35. Madame Sand, Act IV Irving Pichel: 36. Bushido 37. The Romance of the Rose Hermann Rosse: 38. Group of Stage Designs Lkh Simon son : 39. The Garden of Susannah 40. The Magical City 41. Two Settings for Pierre Patelin 42. Overtones 43. St. Anthony I. Blanding Sloan: 44. Dregs 45. The Myth of the Mirror 46. Alice in Wonderland 47. Two Costumes for A Man Can Only Do His Best Joseph Urban : 48. Faust (Goethe) 49. Charfreitagssauber 50. St. Elizabeth, Act IV 51. Monna Fanna, Act I 5t2. L'Aniore dei Tre Re, Act III 53. Tristan and Isolde, Act III 54. Two Designs for Faust (Gounod) John Wenger: 55. A Christmas Pantomime 56. The Maid of France 57. Studio Scene 58. Petrushka, Act II 59. Petrushka. Act III 60. Setting: A Music Room 61. Efficiency 62. Russian 'Ballet Setting 63. Petrushka, Prologue 64. Setting: The Grotto 65. Setting for a Dunsany Play Gallery 3 MODELS North Wall J. Blanding Sloan. .Model for Pierrot in the Clear of the Moon WEvST Wall John Wenger Model for a Wood Scene Willy Pogany Model for Coq d'Or Robert Edmond Jones Model lor Strife: the Scene outside the Factory Wall Norman-Bel Geddes Model for The Shadoivx Waters Rollo Peters Model for Iphigenia in Tauris. Act I Harriet Klamroth Model for Iphigenia in Tauris, Act I Willy Pogany Model for Coq d'Or South Wall C. Raymond Johnson Model for a Poetic Play in the Spirit of The Bacchae John Wenger Model for a Ballet Setting Lee Simonson Model for Iphigenia in Tauris, Act I J. Blanding Sloan Model for Such Is Life East Wall C. Raymond Johnson. .Model: A Theme in Dramatic Rythms Lee Simonson Model for Carmen, Act IV Emilie Hapgood Model for The Ideal Husband (Adaptable Setting for Three Scenes) Michael Carmichael Carr Model for Iphigenic in Tauris, Act T riying' Stay Press, New York. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 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