Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1984 - 23

)a\ id Shon', Gold \ !edal CO,llIl11e designs for The Com Is Green and Treasure Island (Great Brilain),

heatrically; simple; child-like; eleganty period; figures painted over news)aper clippings and bank notes: problbly the greatest range presented in any
;ingle exhibit. The designers responsible
'or all that theatricality were Eduardo
'\rrocha, Julio Castano Brenes, Euse)io Gonzales, Rogelio Diaz Cuesta,
:::arlos Veguilla, Jesus Ruiz, Armando
VIorales, Leandro Soto, and Maria
::Iena Molinet.
The nine costume designers repre;ented three generations, with the eldest
Jeing sixty-four, the youngest, twenty;even, and the bulk, in their forties.
fhe catalog notes the establishment of
he ational School of Arts after the
'evolution and credits it with providing
mpetus to the younger generation.
While bemoaning the perennial lack
Jf resources, Cubans apparently abanloned "transcendental realism" for
nore contemporary ways and personal
ayles ranging from "voluptuous forms
md baroque colours [0 acute and deep
'ationalism," coupled with an "increasngly conscious awareness of the rich1ess of our cultural legacy." The entries

at PQ75 from Cuba were na'ive, simplistic, and bold without being rich.
What a change has taken place! And
how sad that we can't just whoosh over
from Miami to see it all for ourselves.
East Germany: The most challenging exhibit by far was this blend of
slides and videotapes that dared you to
stop wandering about, to sit down, and
to watch the work of designers in action.
Of course, this is how a designer's work
is best displayed-in motion, with
changes in light, color, ambiance. It
put the unified concepts of the scenic,
costume, and lighting designers together, three-dimensionally in time.
At first, my American "got-to-keepmoving"-ness would not let me participate, but finally my feet gave out and I
decided to let myself "cheat" just a bit.
And I have never been so well rewarded
for slack discipline. What treasures
Henning Schaller created for A MidSllllllller ighr's Drealll, Reinhardt Zimmermann and Eleonore Kleiber concocted for Peler Crillles, and HansJoachim Schlieker and ltItta Harnisch
nightmared for Macbeth. No other

country began to show its work so fully
or effectively. Our work does nol stop
with the rendering, no matter how lovingly, or with the drawing, no matter
how precise; our work exists only fleetingly and only as part of a collaboration
with a director and actors. This exhibit
proved it, once more.
Denmark: DejiI vu! An environment of white! Performers dressed in
white! Color machines and projections
modulating to music-taped and live!
1967 finally made it to Copenhagen! If
they had also passed out dope, I might
have been able to cope!
USSR: Once I got through the embarrassingly ostentatious monumentality of royal drapes and the biggest gold
tassels I've ever seen, I found a fresh
and relevant exhibit, full of vitality and
accessibility missing from their previous exhibitions. The younger generation had found its voice, and it is an
energetic lyric one with a lighter touch
than I expected.
It is impossible to mention all the
Soviet designers, but I found the following costume designs most remark-

UStTT /Spring 1984/Theatre Design & Technology

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