Theatre Design & Technology - May 1969 - 15

"The Theatre As It Has Been and As It Is." Theatre
Arts Monthly XI, September, 1927,661-73. Reprinted as Ch. III of THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION.
Jones recreates moments of ext.:itement. of high theatre, of several periods of the past, including the
Greek, Elizabethan, Restoration, Victorian, and contemporary, in order to exhort modern theatre workers
to create the same kind of excitement. The essay
begins with Jones' famous story of the beginning of
theatre, with Ook and Pow, Pung and Glup, and Little
Zowie, and the Lion skin.
"Art in the Theatre," Yale Review XVII, October,
1927,37-48. Reprinted as Ch. II of THE DRAMATIC
IMAGINATION. Jones lectured often for the students
of the Yale Drama School. This was his first and It
is perhaps his most popular essay on theatre aesthetics. His earlier statements on the art of the theatre
have by this time become Quite poetic in their expression. His generic statement about scenery: "The
drama is the fire, the scenery the air that lifts the
fire and makes it bright" for example, becomes, "A
setting is not just a beautiful thing. .It is a presence, a mood, a warm wind fanning the drama to
flame."
"The Artist's Approach to the Theatre," Theatre Arts
Monthly XII, September, 1928, 629-34. Jones explores why and how an artist works in the theatre.
Just as a poet thinks in poetic terms and the painter
in terms of painting, so the artist of the theatre must
think in theatrical terms. "He sees something that is
an image of theatre," says Jones, "and he works
toward that image_"

"Behind the Scene," 151-57. Jones' philosophical attempt to define the theatrical experience and to explain why the acting profession has always been
thought of as "a profession apart." Jones the poet
and Jones the artist meet in this essay.
"The Essence of a Stage Setting," UNITED SCENIC
ARTISTS' ALMANAC, 1940-1941, New York, 1941,
8. In this succinct statement, is the distillation of
Jones' theory of scene design. "The essence of a
stage setting lies in its incompleteness. A setting is
planned with great care to enhance the characteristic
Qualities of actors and their performances, and it
really does not exist without them. By itself it is
nothing. In connection with actors it can become a
work of art, filled with dramatic life."

Robert Edmond Jones spent a short period in
Hollywood (1933-341. when his lifetime friend
Kenneth Macgowan, now a motion picture
producer, invited Jones to assist in the production of 'live' action movies to be shot in
technicolor. Jones and Hollywood did not agree
for Jones made only two full length pictures
and the popular cartoon, La Cucaracha. Coincidentally, Jones wrote only three articles
about Hollywood and color pictures:

"My Hollywood," Vanity Fair 43, October, 1934,
37 and 63. A prose poem to the glamour of the
Hollywood of the early thirties, Jones complains that
the magic and enchantment has gone out of the
theatre. "Our theatre has become scientific, objective,
literal, analytic." The magic and enchantment he fails
to find on Broadway he discovers, to his delight, in
Hollywood.
"A Revolution in the Movies," Vanity Fair 44, June,
1935, 13 and 58. The revolution Jones writes about
is the advent of color in motion pictures. "Color, he
says, "will enhance the emotional impact of the
drama and help to create emotion the same way
music does." An excellent discussion of the emotional appeal of color and how it could be used in
motion pictures. Without mentioning television, Jones
forecasts color television in the home.
"The Problem of Color," New York Times, February 27, 1938, X, 4. A cynical and disillusioned
Jones, who has given up Hollywood by this time,
blasts Hollywood for producing colored pictures not
color pictures. The essence of the problem," says
Jones, "is that color moves, progresses from color
harmony to color harmony like a kind of visual music
and that affects our emotions precisely as music
does." When motion picture makers realize this and
make pictures accordingly instead of just coloring
pictures, Jones predicts that a new art form will be
born.

Henry VIII: Act Curtain (1I-3)

"A Theory of Production," ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA 14th ed., 1929. A portion of an article en·
titled "Theatre," In a somewhat revised form reprinted as Ch. I of THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION.
Jones discusses the influence of the theory of the
unconscious and the stream-af·consciousness writing
that has begun to appear in plays and production.
Jones believes that the pertect medium for expressing
these in theatrical terms is the motion picture. "In
the simultaneous use of the living actor and the talking picture in the theatre there lies a wholly new
theatrical art, whose possibilities are as infinite as
speech itself."
"Some Thoughts on Stage Costuming," Theatre Arts
Monthly XXIV, November, 1940,791-98. Reprinted
as Ch. V in THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION. Although
this is an essay on costuming, it contains Jones'
wondertul explanation of imagination
of the
dramatic imagination. "Imagination is not ingenuitY,"
says Jones, "It is the peculiar power of seeing with
the eye of the mind. And it is the very essence of
the theatre." One of his most penetrating essays on
the art of the theatre.
"Light and Shadow in the Theatre," Theatre Arts
Monthly XXV, February, 1941, 131-39. Reprintedas
Ch. VI in THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION. In this, one
of the most often quoted of all of Jones' essays, he
talks of the livingness of light as the essence of
stage lighting. It contains his constantly misquoted
statement that stage lighting is "the problem of
knowing where to put light and where to take It
away."

Henry VIII: Detail of Shield and Sera!! Above Act Curtain

"Toward a New Stage," Theatre Arts Monthly XXV,
March, 1941, 191-200. Reprinted as Ch. VII in THE
DRAMATIC IMAGINATION. Jones rejoices that the
motion pictures are destroying realism in the theatre.
Motion pictures are able to portray realism on the
screen in a manner never possible in the theatre. And
with the departure of realism, a new and more dynamic kind of theatre will appear.
THE DRAMATIC IMAGINATION. Reflections and
Speculations on The Art of the Theatre. New York:
Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941_ In addition to reprinting several essays (as noted abovel. the collection included the following two new essays:
"To a Young Stage Designer," 69-83. Jones' clear
analysis of the art of the scene designer. the distilla·
tion of years of thinking about his craft. Jones explains the kind of thinking this "poet of occasions"
must engage in, for the art of scene designing, according to Jones, is poetic, "in that it seeks to give
expression 10 the essential qual ity of the play rather
than its outward characteristics." It is in this essay
that Jones admonishes designers to keep in their
souls "images of magnificence."

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - May 1969