Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 41

ing about it which would spark something inside you that
you know. For example, most of our audience remembers
the Second World War. I felt that the occupation of France by
Nazi Germany was a very similar kind of feeling to the occupation of France by the British. Therefore without making
the whole thing Second World War, I just set out enough images that people would look at it and say, 'Oh, God, it feels
like France in the Second World War, even though they're
talking medieval talk.'''
Porteous gave each scene a different flavor, moving
back and forth among images from the turn of the century to
the Gulf War. The retreat from France by Warwick took place
under the wing of a British cargo jet among the ruins of the
battlefield. To keep the medieval link, tile designer put a coat
of arms on the side of a jeep. The coronation he set as a
19th century coronation, with the king looking like Prince
Charles at ltis investiture as Prince of Wales at Cardiff.
For the trial ofJoan, Porteous credits director Neil
Monroe for the setting's motif. "It was brilliant. He wanted it
to be a media circus, just like the 0.]. Simpson trial today;
he was allead of ltis time. He wanted television cameras and
television monitors, with the audience watclting tile trial on
T.v. Joan played the whole scene with her back to the audience, and all you saw was her face on these television monitors, a close-up of her face. It was the most stariling image."
For tile end of the play, when Shaw introduces ltis own jllXtaposition of time zones and brings in tile Gentleman from 1926
to announce tile canonization ofJoan, P011eous jolted tile auruence \vitll ills only medieval scene: swts of armor slllTounrung
tile Gentleman's 20tll centul)' frock coat and top hat.

that theatre. It took me a couple of years to figure that out,
watclting shows and seeing the sightlines go down the drain
aIld wondering why the pace was not working in that farce because you've got the doors just two feet too far apart."
Cyrano was the Shaw's breakthrough in use of projections as well. "I had used them before in the west, but this theatre company had never used them before. Not that projected
scenel)' hadn't been done here, it had. But th is was using projections as a major tool, a major instrument in the creation of
the environment. It was essential for me to do that because I
needed to have backgrounds that could shift and move and
change with the moods of the poetry, not backdrops as such."
Against a spacious void, in wltich evocative projected inlages floated, P011eous set a structure suggestive of 17t11 cenltll)'
French aI·c1titecltlre. TIle stl1lcture dissolved along \\~tll tile projections. P011eous explains, "It went from tile main tlleatre, witll
chandeliers, to tile interior of tile bake I)', aIld I would remove a

Cyrano de Bergerac
The 1982-83 production of Cyrano de Bergerac was
another landmark production in the evolution of his Shaw
design style. With Cyrano, he ruscovered tile secret of the
Festival Theatre's space.
"Evel)' theatre has its own heart," Porteous says, "and I
was lI)~ng to find out where it was, how can I maItipulate this
space to serve this audience. It's a vel)' big theatre that has a
vel)' intimate relationsltip to the stage for its size. There aI°e
problems with extreme sighilines on the side because it's vel)'
\vide. The secret I had to find out, aIld it wasn't until Cyrano
de Bergerac that I found it out, was that I had to close the
space down from a 40 foot proscenium to a 38 foot
proscenium aIld then design witltin 35 feet. The minute I rud
that, evel)1lting started to fall into place."
The key, Porteous says, was pace. "I was working with
Derek Goldby at the time, aIld because of the pace of Cyrano Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, designed by Cameron Porteous (1982)
de Bergerac, all those long speeches, aIld the poelI)' aIld
movement, he needed to have a confined space. The center of
few bits lUld pieces. Then I flew out a wall here aIld took away
the stage is 22 feet back from the thrust, which seems the
some more when it moved to tile street scene, and it beCaIlle just
best and most dynamic place for all actor to be. If you work
all extel;or with a balcony. TIlen when we went to Battle of Arras,
witllin the performing space of 35 feet, you CaIl control the
I moved all the stnlcltlres at intermission, and just left tllis skelaudience. The minute you start to get wide we move into
eton, tltis blown-out f011ress, \\~th walls tllat collapsed during tile
sometlting else. Now, it doesn't mean you CaIl't do it. You can
SpaIlish att1ck. And tllen tile vel)' last scene, notlting, except the
go up to full width if you wish. But if you control the perf01'
formal columns which make lip tile unit set, which look ever so
mance within 22 feet deep, 35 feet wide, it's just heavenly in
mllch like ruins at Glastonbl1l)' in EnglaIld, jllst ruins, aIld all
TD&T

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