Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1989 - 28

managements? For "time" we can also read "money" and
that isn't only down to the management. Many designers
will ruefully agree with a marvelous description by one
researcher of design methodology as "the performance of a
very complicated act of faith."
Rehearsals and design development have been excellently recorded in some of the few books dealing with
specific productions - Jim Hiley's account of the ational's GalileoJ is a fine example of what can be achieved,
clearly placing the design in the production and performance context. A completely contrasting view is offered
in Arthur Miller's fascinating Salesman in Bei;ing4, which
emerges as a reflection on the whole business of making
theatre juSt as much as a description of his work directing
his own play in China.
There are, of course, practical considerations. A photograph can document an object, a costume, a set, or the very
essence of the production - but not all at once. In all probability one photograph would be needed for each of these
tasks. Film is a far more selective recorder than the human
eye. The range of contrast is smaller on even the most
flexible stock, black-and-white, which also happens to be
the most archivally permanent. In color, Kodachrome is
considered most permanent, but it is slow. It is not balanced for tungsten light, thereby requiring a filter, and
then requires a tripod to expose it, which creates problems
if mobility is needed. Another approach would be to make
the original exposure on a faster, tungsten-balanced stock,
and then to duplicate it on to Kodachrome, resulting in a
gain in contrast at the expense of some loss of quality.
The question of contrast means that all slide film must
be accurately exposed; underexpose and the results are too

WHO SAID YOU COULDN'T
REINVENT THE WHEEL?
~'r~~ ~~':K'

stage rigging
equipment with Nylatron
sheaves offer you:
E

dark, overexpose and the image is burned out, a white blur
where an actor should be. The range of contrast available
from stage lighting far exceeds that which can be comfortably recorded on any slide film, so we must expose once
for costumes, then for the set, and perhaps again for some
"atmosphere," and all this regularly to record the whole
show. 0 wonder any theatre photographer in search of
straightforward front-of-house shots will shy away from
all that extra work. He would need at least six arms and a
unique sense of coordination, not to mention an army of
assistants to load the film. We shouldn't really blame him
or even the Press Office. They are only doing the best they
can, with a quite different aim to proper recording. Press
shots can, however, provide a less objective, more engaged
view that all the reference can't, and respond maybe to the
visual success of the production in some measurable way.
This is an optimistic thought, but possible with the best
photographers, and we have many of them.
The Model Books developed by Brecht, using photographers to record his productions, may point to some possibili ties for development. The original aim was to provide
a clear record in order to maintain the production in repertoire over many years. It was not Brecht's long-term intention to "freeze" the production - this would have been
against his declared view of the world as "changeable and
the people in it changing; every situation was only a starting point for a new and better solution."s Perhaps the most
important lesson to be drawn from Brecht's format was
that the company itself must be responsible for its own
documentation. If we rely even on the newly housed Theatre Museum, which is having to move its reference collection to a further site to enable it to be truly available,

OLAF SOOT ASSOCIATES Pc.
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Olaf Soot execu ed the designs for the stages at the John F Kennedy
Center in Washington. DC and was in\olved in major projects at the
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in ew York City. Empire State
Theater in Albany. Y Indiana University \usical Arts Cen er in Bloom·
ington. I . Centro Civico Coquivacoa in Venezuela and many others. His
early designs of the lifting system for the chandeliers at the \etropol·
itan Opera House and of the movable acoustical ceiling at the Juilliard
School of f\\usic in BV York City mployed single failure proof principles
because audience safety was deemed paramount. Twenty years later
these designs are still functioning smoothly.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1989