Theatre Design & Technology - May 1972 - 30

discussions concerning the nature of color
in Iight, the treatment of large scenic surfaces, and the technology of scenic projection, the author treats the less-frequently
documented variations in basic design
methodology encompassed in lighting musicals, opera, ballets, and repertory theatre.
Brief but comprehensive analysis of problems of the non-proscenium stage concludes
his section on design.
The second half of the book is laid out in
the format of a "designer's notebook" and
by means of many exquisite line drawings
compares American, British, and European
equipment. At the end of the book there is
a three-page international dictionary of theatrical I lighting
terminology
in
English,
French, Italian, and German which would be
helpful to the person who does not have
access to nor need one of the standard
comprehensive dictionaries available.

Costume Design and Making

A practical Handbook
Mary Fernald and E. Shenton. Theatre
Arts Press, New York: 1967.
Costume Design and Making has been
around for a long time and deserves to be
laid to rest. This British handbook was first
published in 1937, reprinted several times,
and published in a second edition in 1967.
Many of the costume and fabric terms used
are no longer in common usage or are
British and not shared by readers in the
United States. What it has to add to the
body of practical costume knowledge not
already explored by Prisk, Barton, Jackson
and others is minimal.
The introduction, in its time a good commonsense approach to amateur stage costuming, suffers from being outdated. information about fabrics or the problems of the
costume and stage lighting seem to be
either lacking in an understanding of modern technology or irrelevant.
The historic information is extremely limited and not specific enough to be of real
value to the novice costumer. Such specifications as "It should be full in the skirt and
should reach to the ground, the lower
hem being rounded," would elicit questions
of "How full is full?" or "What do you
mean by a rounded hem?" The period
460-1880 is covered by a sparse thirty-

Throughout this book one finds excellent
drawings and photographs (8 of them in
color) illustrating points made in the text.
Five "demonstration" light plots and instrument schedules, unique in their legibility (compare to Jules Fisher, "From Light
Designer to Producer," Theatre Crafts,
Nov. I Dec. 1971) lend excellent supportive
evidence to the arguments propounded by
Mr. Pilbrow.
While Stage Lighting is neither as comprehensive nor as technical as either Frederick Bentham's The Art of Stage Lighting
or Stanley McCandless' A Syllabus of
Stage Lighting, it is nevertheless a beautifully produced, concise statement of current
lighting practice, and it merits a position of
prominence in any collection of books on
the subject.
Bruce W. McMullan
Dartmouth College

nine pages of text and muddy illustrations.
Several of these illustrations defy interpretation because of the poor quality of reproduction. Many of the pictures do not support the text in any useful manner.
The pattern drafts are helpful as indicators
of how a basic dress pattern might be
modified to simulate a period pattern. The
women's Elizabethan and Eighteenth Century
pattern drafts are really not representative
of the tailoring of those periods. I also
question the accuracy of a man's pattern
which when scaled up to full size, provides
a sleeve only twenty-eight inches in length
(center back to cuff).
Costume Design and Making is old and
to a certain extent flawed. It has been replaced by a number of more useful books,
among them Stage Costume Handbook by
Bernice Prisk, Historic Costume for the
Stage and its companion volume Period
Patterns by Lucy Barton, and Sheila Jackson's Simple Stage Costumes and Howto
Make Them. The Fernald and Shenton
book, Agnes Brooks Young's Stage Costuming as well as Katherine Morris Lester's
Historic Costume are occasionally all nice
to look at. But, they all seem to point up
the fact; stage costuming has come a long
way in thirty years.
Leon I. Brau ner
Indiana University

Department of Speech and Theatre

THEATER DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

MAY, 1972

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - May 1972