Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 40

Michel Saint-Denis at the Old Vic and passed on to his students Saint-Denis' commitment to ensemble and the
interconnectedness of text, actor. and design.
During his time in London. Porteous met and absorbed
ideas (rom Ralph Koltai, Selll1 Kenny, 1ll1d Tlll1ya Moiseiwitsch.
He was particularly struck by the "'ork ofjosef Svoboda. although he was not to meet the Czech master until 19-9.
At the end of his Wimbledon course, the Vancouver
Playhouse offered Porteous a position as assistant to its deSigner, Brilll1 jackson. former head of properties 1ll1d then a
designer at the Stratford Festival. Porteous recalJs that one of
his instructors said, "No. Canleron. tlus nught take you right
back to where you started, because jackson is 1111 incredible
technician. You need to be working with somebody like
Desmond Heeley, who is much more of an artist than a craftsman." But the 32-year old Canadian felt he was ready to establish his own identify as llIl artist. "I was mature enough
now, and I think I knew who I was. ,.
What did the Oedgling designer know about himself! "1
knew that the minute I alJowed my ego to step in and create
an environment of ambition, where I said, 'Today I'm here,
tomorrow I'm there,' I would Sltunble. There were still areas
of my development that needed to be finely tuned. I decided I
would just take the cards as they were dealt llIld not tty to
maIupulate my career too much. Secondly, I also realized that
to work in the theatre was what I wanted to do more than
llIly11ung, that I was going to stay in the theatre, that I was not
going to be tempted back into motion pictures llIld television
as a craftsperson at very high salaries, much higher than theatre. That if I went back into motion picltlres and tele\~sion, I
would have to go back in as an artist, not as a craftsperson. I
knew that."
Porteous spent ten years at the VllIlcouver Playhouse,
first asjackson's assistlll1t, and then, with Christopher ewton as artistic director, as head of design. When Newton was
appointed artistic director of the Shaw Festival in 1980, the
synergy between director llIld deSigner was so strong it was
inevitable that Porteous would join him.
Porteous's vision of the Shaw l11aIldate for design
meshes with Newton's. "I carne with the idea of exploring this
concept of creating an ensemble, creating a proper design
department, of setting staIldards of excellence. I also wanted
to get away from the idea that theatre had to be big, overblown, expensive, billions of cosltl111eS, aIld get down to a
clear, cleaIl look, aIld at the same time a very highly polished
look. That can look expensive sometimes, but maybe it isn't.
So my experience in the regions of making silk purses out of
sows' ears would be of some "a1ue. ,.
Porteous found the makings of a good staff at the Shaw
but a pllll1t and operation in need of revamping. "There were
vel)' highly skilJed people here, extremely skilled people. But
the philosophy was a little more nineteenth centlllY than I
would have liked. So it took a few years to change the construction techniques around to make them more modern,
adding aluminum welding, things like that, enlarging the
wardrobe department, creating a prop department with skills
in evel)1hing from fine sculpting to upholstel)' techniques."
EquaIJy impOrllll1t to Porteous was putting in a support
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staff of fine craftspeople aIld building llInong them the same
sense of ensemble that \'e\\10n was developing in the acting
company.
"In the past, in the regions and in the festivals, you
started afresh evel)' yelll'. The Stratford Festival was probably
the exception in that it had a key core group of people who
were there aIJ the time. We used to caIJ it the 'burn out.' You
get somebody in until they burn out, throw them away, get
somebody else in. I didn't want that. I wlUlted people to come
to work and develop their skilJs tile sal11e as I was developing
my vision of theatre. I wanted them to take courses, become
experts, develop whatever they wanted to develop, but just
keep growing and growing and growing. You could only do
that out of a foundation of stability. And thaI's what we've
done. I've vel)' proud of what we've done here."
At first, he admits he felt shackled by the maildate's limited period. "How many tailcoats and frocks of that time Cllll
you design until you think you've done it aIJ? After awlule,
however, I began to see the importaI1Ce of it, llIld secondly, I
began to see the opporltll1ities within it. And what was that? It
was to take the text and find out precisely what the autllOr,
Shaw, in tlus case, or GrlUlville-Barker or Oscar Wilde or Noel
Coward, what was it tlley were attempting to communicate to
ail audience in their own time which was modern, relevant,
and important, llIld to find what those sal11e ideas mean today.
You have to reconfigure the design, lie style of tile piece, so
that it is stiIJ truthful to the period but has modern overtones
about it that wiIJ communicate to a modern audience immediately."

Shaw's Saint Joan, designed by Cameron Porteous (1993)

Saint Joan
Porteous cites the 1993 Saint joan as a production which
epitomizes his view of Shaw design.
"I had my own personal charge: to take each scene and
get rid of the historical-Gothic-medieval, beautifully-colored
thing. That meant the audience would not hear the words, because they were being distracted by the suits of armor and all
that sort of stuff. I wllllted to create a ve!)' simple statement
that allowed each scene to fold into the next one, unintel~
rupted, similar to a film. Each scene would have a visual feel-

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