Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1992 - 33

khaki boxer shorts for the men in batrle
scenes, which they wore with great
knobbly knees and long socks, and it
was much, much, much less expensive
than them all having the period gear
that they should have had. Then when
Guthrie and I both did the same play at
Srratford-upon-Avon, a lot of it came
out the same. I can'r think why! It was
different, of course, and there was a lot
of scenery, and some of the scenes were
preset on wagons which were pulled on,
pushed on by acwrs in view of the audience. There was no pretense, Now we'll
let the cunain down and do something
magical, Up she goes again. So they
were pulling one scene off and pulling
another on. It was all very, very energetic. When we got w the batrle scenes,
there they were again, in the same gear,
much the same ro look af. Laurence
Olivier, who JUSt happened to be
around at the time then, said, "You
should have pUt those men in puttees."
They're worn with breeches, knee
breeches, and they're like bandages,
khaki-colored bandages, that go round
and round and round the leg, tight,
very neat, and are finished off with, I
suppose, a great big safety pin, I don't
know. However it's finished off, it
would take half an hour ro do that, and
if all these men had ro have quick
changes and come back in the next
scene in full evening gear, they couldn't
have worn these purrees under the
rrousers, which were pencil-slim, very
snug, very tighr. Bur I JUSt hadn't gOt
the [nerve then] ro say, "\Vhat abour
the quick changes'" I just said, "Oh,
oh, dear" and felt that was an opporrunity missed. Then later it hit me, Of
course, they couldn't have done thar.
Which producrions do you remember
with the most sense of satisfaction?
Looking at some of the Chekhov plays,
I'd rate them as the happiest, working
from the very stan, from the very first
thought w seeing the play acred. That
was in Minneapolis.
On the whole, I suppose, the most
challenging was The House ofAtreus (in
Minneapolis]. Like the four [hisroryl
plays at Scratford, England, it was three
major productions all in one breath.
There was talk about having a long
interval, as in Eugene 0' 'eill, and having a Greek meal served w the audience,
but that came w nothing. They priced it
at a Greek restaurant and it couldn't be
done. 0, it should have gone on and
on, with very shan intermissions, bLlt of
course the acwrs gOt very hor.

Challenging because of its length. In
what other ways?
The breadth-and the height! Guthrie
said, "Well, now, Apollo, you know,
ought w be about nine foot talL" \X!e II ,
looking at him, I could see that nine feet
JUSt meam a few inches above his head.
"All very well for you. Bur think of the
acwr going up that high. Is he going w
have w walk about?" "Oh, yes, yes."
How did you create the height?
losrly, they were built cothurni, which

he was walki ng in any other way except
he was very tall. Of course one acwr, the
man who played Apollo, Lee Richardson, had w be coerced into trying them
on. The first few steps were very temative. He let go, he was holding on ro
rwo people, he let go, and he staned w
walk. They had kind of flexible feet at
the very botrom, so you didn't have ro
sromp as on real scilts. Then everyone
wanted ro have a go. They were all
purring them on. So one pair was
bought and heavily decorated with gold
paint and fattened up ro look like a
boor. Then he had a long skin that covered ir.
You used those only for Apollo, and
everyone else was in built cothurni?
Not everyone, only the main characters
and the speaking pans. The chorus was
human height; they were speaking parts
alright, but I mean they were not the
main characters. The servants were
human heighr.
How abour the masks? Were there any
lessons that you learned from doing the
Oedipus at Stratford with masks?

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were based on what we did here for
OedipllS, they worked here, and Douglas
Campbell was here, Douglas Campbell
was there, he knew they'd work. But
when we were asked ro go up ro a certain height beyond that, Gordon Smith,
the producrion manager, one day came
inw the wardrobe, where everyone was
sewing, with their heads down, busv,
and they looked up and they saw him
walking abour, and thought, he's JUSt
checking, and then someone said, "Oh,
he's very taiL" He was walking on onefoot-six extensions under his shoes,
which were called plasterer's stilts.
They're commercial, you buy them in
the shops. He was lent a pair, he went
around scouring for ideas, and no obligation w purchase if it didn't work. He
walked around with people not noticing

Must have, must have been. Here they
were made of leather, chamois leather,
which I was wid was "like the Greeks."
What abour that! [In Minneapolis] we
cried various things that were lighter in
weighr. Carolyn Parker was co-worker
on the masks, indeed she was almost the
designer of the masks. I drew them flat,
side-view and from view, and then she
interpreted them-she was a sculpwr as
well-in the round. From then on, we
all muscled in. We were using papier
mache. It was found w be much lighter.
It was lovely ro work with, it's just soft
paste.
They held up over an extended run?
They were very strong. They weren't juSt
papier //Iache. They had one layer of
scrim, I think, ro keep the botrom
wgether.
Were they full head masks?
They scopped at the nose. The acrors
were able w move their jaws.
How early in the rehearsal process did
they get to have their masks and
cothurni?
They would have liked them from the
day one, but they sure couldn't have
them. I think they pm paper bags over
TD&T

1992 FALL

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1992
