Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1984 - 15

The work of the jury spanned four
days beginning on June 11, two days
before the official opening, and culminating in the formal voting on June 14.
The four days were spent in viewing and
reviewing the exhibits and in collective
meetings during which reactions to the
exhibits were shared.
The jury members were able to view
the exhibits informally on June 11. On
Sunday, June 12, the initial formal
meeting was held. Dr. Soukupova presented nominations for chairperson
(Pozarskaja, USSR), vice-chair (Gallee, Austria), and secretary (Grosser,
West Germany); the nominations were
approved by the jurors. Then some of
the guidelines were discussed, including
one problematical proposal introduced
by Soukupova that the previous winners of the Golden Trigue not be considered for that award again, at least
not at this PQ. Several jurors disagreed
with the proposal but most seemed willing to go along with it. The formal
guidelines or rules do not refer to this
issue, and it remained unresolved at this
PQ, although it cropped up later in a
slightly different form in relation to a
few of the other awards, as I shall
indicate.
Meantime the jurors were informed
of additional exhibits that were now
ready to be viewed, some of which provided personnel to introduce the exhibit
and answer questions. The rest of Sunday and early Monday morning were
spent viewing the exhibits on an essentially ad lib basis, either individually or
in the company of other jurors, as one
chose.
Later on Monday morning a formal
session began in which each juror was
to express his or her reactions to the
specific exhibits and to nominate one or
more for each of the awards. During
this session, and all others devoted to
the judging process, the jurors were
alone (except for translators and a
stenographer).
Theoretically, each juror would have
equal time [0 convey his or her views,
after which some discussion might ensue. [n actuality, however, mainly because of the problem of translation, the
first jurors to speak used up most of the
available time, and the last few were
forced to condense their points radically. Moreover, there was simply no time
for discussion.

The jurors spoke in a total of six
languages: French, German, English,
Russian, Japanese, and Czech. And
whatever language a given juror used,
his or her remarks had to be translated
into at least five languages (all but Japanese). The problem was compounded
in the first few hours until it was decided
to try simultaneous rather than sequential translation.
In the brief time remaining on Monday, and on Tuesday morning, jurors
could once again review the exhibits,
especially those that had been nominated by several jurors. About noon on
Tuesday, the formal voting took place.
To begin with, the secretary summarized the nominations for the Golden
Trigue: West Germany, Great Britain
(despite the proposal to ignore previous
winners), and Denmark. The voting
proceeded by secret ballot, and the onesided winner was West Germany with
its imaginative, metaphoric exhibit displayed within a reconstruction of an
actual setting for Janacek's Kala

Kabanova.
In fact, all the productions displayed
within the West German exhibit consisted of productions of Janac:ek's operas, an act of homage that could have
won the thematic award as well. Several
of the jurors expressed a certain confusion about the guidelines relating to the
thematic award vis-a-vis the Golden
Trigue award, and there was some regret that lack of time prevented more
discussion on the issue.
The voting continued in the same
manner, one category at a time, through
the mandated gold medal awards. The
greatest number of nominations, ten,
occurred for the best foreign stage designer, but the final vote was again onesided, for the Frenchman, Andre Acquart. In this and all subsequent categories votes were also taken for silver
medal awards: either the vote for the
gold medal would clearly indicate one
or more secondary candidates, or else a
separate vote would be taken among the
nominees remaining after the award of
the gold.
Instances of the problem of previous winners arose in the consideration
for silver awards in foreign stage and
costume design. Two previous winners
of gold awards were essentially denied
silver awards despite the balloting because it was felt by many that a silver

award to a previous gold medal winner
would somehow be demeaning to the individual in question. There was disagreement on this point.
The category of Theatre Architecture involved a slightly more complicated procedure. The architecturally
trained members of the jury formed an
ad hoc group that made specific nominations. The other jurors were free
to make additional nominations and
comments, but the recommendations
of the ad hoc committee were generally
respected.
Once the gold and silver awards were
voted, nominations for honorable mention were made. These were more casually discussed and decided by voice
vote. These awards tended to acknowledge special elements or aspects of exhibits that did not qualify for mandated
awards; e.g., the experimental, innovative exhibits of Poland, Denmark, and
Holland that did not feature traditional
scenography, or the USSR exhibit composed entirely of young designers.
A few words in summation and retrospect: The jury process seemed essentially thorough, unbiased, honest,
and fair. There were no external attempts to influence the judging, and
none of the jury's decisions were questioned or altered. One would have preferred more time for individual comment and group discussion during the
meetings, but everyone did have an opportunity to express his or her choices
and had time enough to view the exhibits repeatedly.
I hope that a more effective translation system may be devised (a suggestion was made to limit the languages
to English, French and German), and
I would prefer that the previous PQ
record of the entrants not play so important a role. Otherwise, however,
the judging process of the fifth PQ
seemed wei] planned and effectively
performed.
0

Jarka Burian is a professor of theatre at
the State University of ew York at Albany and is the author of The Scenography of Josef Svoboda and Svoboda:
Wagner. He has participated in three
Quadrennials-PQ71, PQ79, and PQ83.

USITT /Spring 1984/Theatre Design & Technology

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