Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991 - 43

Breaking Out of the Box
An Interview with
Jonathan Miller
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enain words inexorably arrach
themselves ro Jonarhan Miller
in introducrions: Renaissance
man, iconoclasr, cenrer of
controversy. Most recently, Miller served
as anisric direcror of rhe Old Vic Theatre
in London. But he has also pracriced
medicine as a neuropathologisr; achieved
fame in the comedy revue Beyond the
Fringe; wri rten books on Marshall
McLuhan,
Freud and
Darwin;
collaborared on rwo pop-up books, The
Human Bodyand The Facts ofLife; hosred
several relevision series; and produced
and directed Shakespeare for the BBC.
His "controversial" productions of
operas have rweaked the noses of more
traditional opera buffs, including his
"Mafioso" Rigoletto set in ew York's
Little Italy in rhe 1950s and The Mikado
ser in England in rhe 1920s. In the
theatre,
Miller's
"iconoclasric"
productions include Long Day's Journey
Into Night, in which Miller offended
0' eill purisrs by employing overlapping
dialogue thar cur the running time and
demystified 0' eill's family prose.
Throughout Miller's productions,
however, rhe conceprual choices are nor
based on capricious novelry, but on
scholarship and what Miller refers ro as
"mapping," in which every aspecr of the
producrion's setting corresponds on a
one-ro-one basis with the original text.
An interview with an English
author/docror/theatre and opera direcror
might seem like an odd choice for a
magazine on design and technology. But
in fact, Miller's approach is so strongly
visual and based on design-painting,
architecture and sculpture-rhar he
synthesizes an, scholarship and directing
into a unique approach ro theatre.
Miller was in Athens, OH in Ocrober
1989 ro give a lecture ar Ohio University

e e

for the Kennedy Lecture Series. During a
dinner wirh many faculty of the
universiry I requested a breakfast
interview and suggested a time. Miller
quickly accepted, but asked, "Are you
sure rhar will give us enough rime? Can'r
we meer a little earlier?"
Even after traveling and getting up far
earlier rhan any more traditional theatre
person would, Miller was charming,
loquacious and delightful. His penchant
for mimicry was apparent with frequent
caricatures of American accenrs,
mannerisms and preoccupations.
I interviewed Miller for a fonhcoming
book on [he creative use of theatre space,
but realized shordy afterward that
Miller's ideas were so interconnected and
iconoclastic that I couldn't simply extract
an occasional quote.

C

Condee: I was reading articles that were
written abollt YOllr staging techniqlles and
in a nllmber of them yOIl were quoted as
saying that yOIl were influenced by
painting, that you've studied painting a
great deal and that whenever YOII're in a
cil)l yOIl run offto the mllsetlm. \'(Ioliid yo II
say that because of this importance of
painting that you're more inclined to work
on the proscenium stage?

Jonathan Miller directs the cast of the
Opera Theatre of St. Louis production
of Cos; fan tutte (1982). Bottom: Miller
consults with designer John Conklin.

Miller: No. My study of painting is not
with a view to making my productions
look as much like painrings as possible. I
think that would be awful-just tableallx
vivants and so forth. It's simply that
painrings, drawings and so fonh are the
only evidence we have of what things
looked like in [he past. And if you wanr
to get some sort of indication about
clothing, posture, the fall of light and
even indeed in some cases the
organization of space, painrings are the
only way in which we can derive some
TD&T

1991

WINTER

41
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991
