Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2013 - 51

designed costumes for Ethel Merman in her debut on Broadway in Girl
Crazy and costumes for Joe E. Brown, Jeanette MacDonald, Fred and
Adele Astaire, Bob Hope, Clifton Web, Gertrude Lawrence, and Ray Bolger,
who were all at the beginnings of their careers from 1925 to 1929.
Kiviette's career encompassed some momentous changes in the
American theatre. From 1917 to 1948 she designed during the rise and
fall in popularity of the Broadway revue, and she ended her career designing the thirteen costumes needed for Light Up the Sky by Moss Hart, her
only non-musical. A new style of play and production was entering the
American theatre.

williAm h. mAthews

dinosaurs, whose day was coming to a close" (Bordman 1978, 373).
Second, on November 6, 1922, The 49ers, "a modernistic review in
two acts and ten scenes," opened at the Punch and Judy Theatre, a small
venue that seated around 300 people. It was directed by George S. Kaufman, with a book by Frank Adams, sketches by George S. Kaufman, Marc
Connelly, Ring Lardner, Morrie Ryskind, Dorothy Parker, Howard Dietz,
and Robert Benchley, and costumes by Mathews. The review was "more
intimate, more literate, and more bitingly witty" than anything Broadway
had seen. But as the critic Burns Mantle noted, "The multitude sniffed and
would have none of it" (Bordman 1978, 375).
Many of the creators of the piece were long standing members of the
Algonquin Round Table, including the director, George S. Kaufman. After

The Broadway career of William H. Mathews (d.1954) got off to an auspicious beginning when he was hired by Ziegfeld, along with Mme. E.S. Freisinger, to design the costumes for the first edition of the Ziegfeld Follies
in 1907. Evidently Ziegfeld was pleased with his work because Mathews
designed the 1908, 1911, and 1914 editions as well.
The 1911 edition was unusual in that Mathews was the only costume
designer hired, and the cast consisted of only thirty-seven actors. Among
them were Fanny Brice and Bert Williams.
The 1914 edition of the Follies was unique for Mathews. The production credits read: Directed by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., and Leon Errol; Scenic
Design by William H. Mathews; Costume design by Cora MacGeachy. This
appears to be the only record of Mathews working as a scene designer.
During a Broadway career that would run from 1907 to 1929, for
a total of thirty-six shows, fifteen of which he is credited as the only designer, Mathews would work with producers such as the Shuberts, R.H.
Burnside, Joe Weber, and Earl Carroll.
Carroll was famous for exploiting nudity in his revues. Mathews's
beautiful rendering of an idealized female in a svelte black evening dress
with a long train may be an example of the kind of design he would do
for Carroll. A close examination of the rendering shows that the bodice is
made from a transparent fabric. Notes in Mathews's hand say "bodice is
to cover breasts" and "make bodice separately," suggesting that the gown
could easily have been topless.
Mathews was known as a multi-faceted artist, and according to
Steiner-Strauss, "his costume designs in the Theatre Museum, which
were produced between 1908 and 1921, cover the entire range from
extravagant revue costumes to the daywear which also featured in the
shows. While Mathews' earlier drawings had a light watercolor quality.
he later opted for more closed forms. The silhouettes of his designs for
eveningwear are invariably very elegant and slim."
Mathews was also involved in three theatrical enterprises that were
the stuff of the theatrical legends of the time.
First, Mathews was one of four costume designers hired by R.H.
Burnside for the 1922 musical spectacular Better Times at the Hippodrome. This was the eighteenth, and last, of the mammoth Hippodrome
productions. Little had changed from the first version. The dancing chorus of scantily clad chorines, the twenty-horse ballet, the elephants, and
Jocko the juggling crow were all in attendance. The evening ended with
the house's bathing beauties disappearing into its famous tank. "Although
Better Times would run as long as its predecessors, no producer could
be found to continue the mountings when Charles Dillingham bowed out.
Gorgeous, but inane, the Hippodrome shows were lumbering theatrical

Costume design by William h. Mathews, dated 1920. Courtesy the Theatre Museum,
Vienna, Austria.

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