Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2012 - 62

. . . . he rallied and
inspired the talented
staff, and became
renowned for his
deft handling of the
egos and bodies of
the stars who sang
in this multi-storied
red, gold and
crystal temple to the
music gods.

theatre design

Throughout his career, Ray hired young people with talent to join his workshop and encouraged them to "make
things," as he had done in his mother's workshop in Brighton, where she supported her children as a dressmaker.
When World War II broke out, Ray served in the Royal Air Force. He became a Morse code instructor at Compton Bassett in Wiltshire and joined the station's dramatic society, where he met the producer and director Laurier
Lister, then a sergeant in the RAF who was directing A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ray played Starveling, the tailor,
and helped with the costumes. Posted to Belgium, Ray worked in signals until the Germans retreated at war's end.
Lister helped him get started in civilian theatre. While in Stratford-upon-Avon for a play preview, Ray discovered the Shakespeare Festival workrooms:
"I crossed the road from the stage door to a little alleyway, between two of the cottages on Waterside. There
I found a rabbit warren of workrooms, painting and dyeing shops, armour and millinery workrooms, including a
huge stock of old Shakespearean costumes, some dating back to Henry Irving. ENCHANTMENT!"
Tony Award-winning designer Desmond Heeley (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) was fifteen when
he first met Ray at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1947. They were to work together on productions for half a century.
"I was just a useful pair of hands, told to make hats, props, jewelry," said Desmond. "When Ray saw one of
my first efforts he tossed it across the room. I was crushed."
"If you're going to cry, go to the loo, have a bloody good cry if you must, but come back and start over," said Ray.
"I did just that," said Desmond. "Haven't been afraid to experiment 'hands-on' ever since."
Post-war privations meant low wages and scarce resources. Directors Michael Benthall, Anthony Quayle, Tyrone
Guthrie, and John Gielgud, and actors Paul Scofield, Robert Helpmann, Richard Burton, Diana Wynyard, and Claire
Bloom created exciting productions. By necessity, the costume crew invented techniques and processes to create
the illusion of the richness and ornamentation of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, as well as the fantasy costumes
required for Shakespeare's repertoire. This became known as the "Stratford Look." Ray soon exported it.
When thirty years old, in France on his first vacation, Ray met an American, Harry Good, and fell in love. They
became life and business partners. Ray returned to England to wrap up his work there and emigrate to America to
join Harry in New York. And Tyrone Guthrie recruited Ray Diffen for the new Shakespeare Festival in Ontario.
In his memoir, In Spite of Myself, Christopher Plummer recalls Guthrie's excitement about starting this
new theatre.
"Money! Raise it! Going to need a lot of it. . . . I'll choose the plays and the actors, but you'll need a star; I'll
find one-ditto, a lady warhorse. . . . Don't forget costumes-find a space-gather every seamstress you can. I'll
send Ray Diffen, best cutter there is-he'll make 'em. Tanya will design 'em."
In 1956, at Guthrie's suggestion, Ray set up a workshop in New York to make clothes for a show he was to
direct, with Motley as designer. Ray and Harry raised $2,000, set up a partnership, and found rooms on 58th St,
above an all-night deli. They furnished the workshop with tables, dressmaker dummies, sewing machines, and,
for their fitting room, a large mirror and white fur rug. They bid on the job and lost.
New shop, no show! Yet within a few years there was steady work from a loyal group that included designers
Alvin Colt, Leslie Hurry, Cecil Beaton, Donald Brooks, and Dorothy Jeakins; directors Michael Langham, John Gielgud; actors Ralph Richardson, Coral Browne, Hume Cronyn, Christopher Plummer, Paul Scofield, Jessica Tandy;
and producers Frederick Brisson and Roger L. Stevens.
Returning to New York between seasons in Ontario, Ray found employment with the influential fashion designer Charles James, where he met others who reappeared in his career: designer Patricia Zipprodt, and Lon
Whitney, who later became his head draper.
Ray sponsored Jane Greenwood, a draper in Ray's Ontario workshop, for employment in the United States, offered her the use of his friend Peter de Rome's apartment, and gave her work. When her focus moved to designing,
she brought him shows, as well as young people whom she taught. Greenwood has been nominated for fifteen Tony
Awards, is on the faculty at Yale, and has designed more than 100 shows for theatre, opera, dance, and film.
When Tyrone Guthrie left Stratford, Ontario, to start a new theatre in Minneapolis, Ray's shop built its first
costumes.
Designers Desmond Heeley, Patricia Zipprodt, and Ann Roth brought in shows. In the '70s Ray Diffen Stage
Clothes became the go-to shop for dance companies. Working with Willa Kim on designs for the Joffrey Ballet, they invented a laborious technique for hand-painting and embellishing dance costumes that could be successfully machine
washed and dried. This innovation created a turning point in dance design, adopted wherever possible by designers
and dance companies, and recognized by the general public with the Broadway success of Cats.
One day Ray got a call to remake some costumes for the Metropolitan Opera that had been destroyed in a
warehouse fire. After producing and delivering them, he recognized an affinity for the task-it reminded him of

& technology

2012

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