Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991 - 14

Cordelia.
The same darkness rhar lives in
Lear is in the comedies, roo. In the
ninereenrh cenrury, As You Like It
mighr have been filled with rabbirs
and cuckoos and Beerbohm rrees.
Thar's how they saw the play. Bur I
live in a differenr rime.
When I did As You Like It, rhe
coun was a phanrasmagorical, E. T.
A. Hoffmann, black, rococo coun
-the coun of a ryranr. A German
who wenr rhrough rhe lasr world
war upbraided me for purring Nazis
on rhe srage in rhe coun. There
were no Nazis on rhe srage, rhere
were no swasrikas. Bur rhe facr of
rhe marrer is rhar he saw Nazis
behind ir and rhar's exacrly whar I
was doing. I work our of my gurs
and I work our of my own pasr and
I see whar I see. Thar's why I love ro
do these plays.
Another of the great playwrights
encountered in your search has been
Chekhov. His works frequently are
elusive to directors.
These endless discussions abour
Chekhov. Is ir a comedy or isn'r ir a
comedy? Every rime I do Chekhov I
rhink abour my morher, who had
an incredible sense of humor. She
was able ro laugh in the middle of
funerals. She would squeeze my
hand whire bur she couldn'r help
laughing.
Is that the secret of Chekhov? The
contrast of the tragedy next to the
absurdity oflife?
Exacrly. My mother rhrew our a
posrcard from the carrle car thar was
raking her ro Auschwirz. And, by
some miracle, Igor ir. The posrcard
was in Hungarian bur rhere was a
line in French-a joke. Jusr a single
line. So I undersrand Chekhov.
Today, how can a director have an
interior understanding of that world
inhabited by Chekhov?
Anybody who has undergone
change and loss oughr ro be able ro
do those plays. Look, our sociery is
consranrly changing, dissolving in
fronr of our very eyes, so we should
be able ro undersrand Chekhov's
worldview. 3
Though nor as dramarically, Garland
Wrighr has also expressed his own
responses, in rerms of his roors, ro
Barrow when speaking abour his
producrion of K based on Kafka's The
Trial:
12

1991 WINTER

TD&T

With the Lion Company you didyour
exploration ofKafka, but it seems that
you had really been thinking about
that piece for a very long time prior to
that.
Ah, Kafka and me. I've rraced
my inreresr back ro when I was a
junior in college. Dr. Bernard
Hobgood, my reacher ar SMU, gave
me a copy of The Trial He said, "I
rhink you'll like rhis." I read i r,
rorally illirerare abour Kafka and
was asronished. You know, every
once in a while, one has an
epiphany where someone else is
rhinking your rhoughrs or vice
versa. I had a deep response ro rhe
book. The Trial became a sorr of
obsession and was always in my
head. Ir was abour eighr years larer
thar one day I said ar a Lion company meering, jusr whimsically,
"Lisren, if rwelve of you can sign up
and have rime ro work, let's do ir."
And in a way, my inreresr in
Kafka also has ro do wirh Texas. I
suppose because of where I grew up,
I'm fascinared by rhe surrealisrs. I
rend ro see rhar way. And Kafka, ro
me, caprures
rhe
inrerior
puzzlemenr, paranoia and absurdiry
of rhe rerrain one can perhaps see
inside one's own head bur can'r
verbalize or doesn'r wanr ro admir.
I grew up in Midland, a deserr
rown rhar you could see for a
hundred miles before you gor ro ir.
There were few rrees, lirrle grass. It
was rorally fabricared by some
companies who discovered a lor of
oil there and built a lirrle rown for
all of rheir execurives. And ir
seemed rorally wrong for irs rerrain.
Because ir couldn'r be green, people
painred rheir grass. And in rhe
middle of rhis deserr would be a
forry-srory building of marble; and
a house rhar had a painred-green
caliche gravel lawn along wirh a
1957 Chevy parked in fronr. This
was realiry ro me. So Kafka's world
wasn'r bizarre ro me-ir was like my
world. There's a grear line in a Len
Jenkin play where one of rhe
characrers says something like: "The
rrouble with this is, ir's acrually my
life." A lor of people from Texas
ralk abour rhe barrenness of rhe
rerrain, rhe lack of inrellecrual
srimularion or wharever-which
rends ro make one rerrear ro rhe
imaginarion. Yes, I rhink Texas
prepared me well ro embrace Kafka,

even rhough mosr people assume
his is a more urban kind of wricing"
ow, clearly I don'r rhink thar every play
need be examined in minure derail based
on our own psyche. Rarher, we should
suggesr ro our srudenrs-and allow
ourselves rhe opporruniry-ro open up
ro whar is acrually inside us as arrisric
collaborarors in developing a visual
sraremenr.
I think I have been grearly affecred by
rhe solirary power of the prairie landscape
I grew up wirh combined wirh rhe
rremendous scope of the mounrains-the
deep rhrill I remember rheir majesry
always broughr ro my breasr. I believe I
am always inreresred in rhe power and
srrengrh of a design because of rhis
response ro my physical rerrain as a child.
I rhink my complex and somerimes
perplexing color sense is also relared ro
rhis-from rhe exrremely derailed and
colorful designs of Narive American
elemenrs which were associared wirh
exciremenr and celebrarion in my world
ro rhe wide expanses of golden whear
fields drying in rhe fall ro silvery whirero rhe way a man's skin ages from years in
rhe fields and how ir is conrrasred ro rhe
sofr skin of the young child he cradles in
his arms ar nighr-from rhe majesry of
my grandfarher sirring cenrer of rhe
Supreme Coun in the coun chambers in
Helena, Monrana ro rhe vibranr pink and
orange sunser behind the grain elevarors
of my small homerown ser off by air
heavy wirh rhe grain dusr of anorher
harvesr.
I ask you ro look inro yourself and
find these cenrers ro widen and elaborare
your own work. Examine your design
work so rhar by srriving for emorional
meaning for ourselves and our work we
begin ro give ir a srronger visual meani~
for others.
W

Ann Hould-Ward is well known for her
Broadway designs for Inro rhe Woods and
Sunday in rhe Park wirh George, codesigned with Patricia Zipprodt. Her
costume designs have been seen in many
regional theatres, including the Guthrie
Theatre in Minneapolis.
Endnores
l. Arthur Banow, TIl( Dir((/ors \-Via (Nevv York: Thealre
Communications Group. Inc., 1988). Used with
permission.
2. Bartow 158.
3. Bartow 162.
4. Bartow 330.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991
