Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 10

Letters
Dear Editors:
I feel that I IlIUst respond to Tom ~larkus' article on the C. S. Exhibit
at PQ 95. I found it disturbing for a host of reasons. In part, I was verv
disappointed to realize that if Mr. Markus' responsc was typical, thcn we
had done a very poor job of achieving our goals in the exhibit. This may
very well be true, but as I will discuss, Mr. Markus apparently missed or
ignored most of the exhibit. More disturbing were his criteria that
seemed to depend on the triviaIizing and condesccnding stereotyping of
a wide range of nationalities present at PQ 95. IIc praiscd this ycar's
Egyptian exhibit because it included an icon of a Sphinx that matched his
tourist-brochure concept of thc country, but would he have condemned
the Egyptian exhibit at PQ 9I which failed to show a Sphill~ or pyramid?
And how would he have responded to Dionisis Fotopoulos' rather violent
iUld disturbing costumes that comprised the Greek exhibit at PQ 91 in
which there was not a threshing Ooor to be found? (And what would Mr.
Markus do with the fact that it is now generally acccpted that the circular
orcbestm of the Greek theatre did not emerge until the fourth century so
that his "quintessence of Greek culture" had nothing to do with the original production of the great tragedies? !) Mr. 1arkus seems to want the
PQ to resemble those world's fairs iUld expOSitions from the nlrll of the
century such as the World's Columbian Exposition in which "quaint" ethnic types were displayed in their "native habitat.··
But I want to concentrate on his response to the U. S. exhibit.
Markus begins by talking about William Ivey Long's GII)'S alld Dolls costumes which dominated the "entrance" to the exhibit. The problem is,

there were two entrances. At the other, visitors wcre greeted by Gabriel
Berry's horse iUld rider-part of the army from A.R.T.'s production of
Helll:J' V. (Granted, given the location iUld orientation of the exhibit
space-something over which we had no control-the "Long" entrance
was somcwhat more prominent. but if one came to the U.S. after Russia,
"iorway, Poland, Britain among others, you were likely to enter from the
"Berry" side.) If you entered from that portal, you were confronted II'ith
Gabriel Berry's award-winning costumes which then segued into George
Tsypin's space. (I still believe that Tsypin had the most startling and innovative designs at the PQ, but our decision not to include models of his
work but only conceptual collages, paintings, photographs, and videos-a decision that I am responsible for and regret-worked against
him according 10 several judges and visitors.) Next on this itinerary was
Ann Hould-Ward. Yes, there were renderings from Beatlty and the
Beast, exquisite eXiUllples of theatrical art, though put unashanledly to
commercial use. In 1995, are there still people who feel that popular entertainment should be excluded from the ranks of theatre? And, frankly,
an American design exhibit that did not include Beallt)' and tbe Beast or
A Cbristl//as Carol would. in my opinion, be a fraud. How could these
items not be in the exhibit? But regardless of one's take on Disney on
Broadway (or Broadwav in Prague, for that matter), Hould-Ward has
worked in a varietv of venues: with Tsypin and director JoAnne Akalaitis
not to mel1lion Richard Foreman; she works with Ballet Hispanico and
COl/til/ues Ol/ page 60

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996