Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1985 - 9

haps a husband. Women novelists can
write in the privacy of the home. As a
result, there are relatively more women
painters, sculptors, novelists, and writers in general, than scene designers.
For a scene designer to flourish, the
designer not only has to be an artist but
has to receive the commissions, cooperation and approval of the company. As well as having been a conservative institution, theatre historically
has been, of course, dominated by men.
There have been times in history when
women weren't invited to the theatre:
there were no women actresses, and
men played women's roles. Theatre is
an essentially voyeuristic medium-the
proscenium arch itself, the design of the
arch, the emphasis of the arch makes
the theatre event like a framed painting
up for sale to a particular patron-the
group of male artists in the audience.
The whole issue here is political and
economic power: if you have money
you have power, if you don't have
money you don't have power. In the
past, the men bought the tickets. If they
brought their wives, they kept them
properly masked in the boxes in the
background. The men were paying,
and through that kind of political and
economic power, helped choose the
plays, and by extension the designs and
kinds of environment for the theatre.
The plays that are chosen for production and produced, the various opportunities plays offer for interpretation from a feminist or woman's point
of view, have varied historically. Traditionally plays have had the kind of
women characters that supported the
central male character, and traditionally, were designed in such a way that
these women would be at the sides, or in
support of the central male character.
Or, the woman would be placed below
the central male character, like the
Jemme Jarale or the evil temptress, the
woman who is below the man morally.
Or, traditionally, placed on a pedestal
above the central male figure, like Juliet
in the little balcony above her admiration and idealization, a kind of extreme
Virgin Mary figure who is idealized,
whose sexuality is denied. She's made
asexual and hence less dangerous. Traditionally, women have surrounded the
male figures in the play and in the design of the plays.
ARO SO : A few years ago, In my
role of co-editor of TD&T, I began

Big River is Ihe firsl sel desigll by a WOlllall 10 will a TOllY A ward.

writing profiles of set designers. I began to write on people whose work I
had seen or that interested me, or that
other people had said were important
or significant, and of course I wound
up writing just about men.
Then I was approached by Theatre
Communications Group to turn the e
articles into a book. I was told that,
given the length, we could do eleven designers. I began to compose lists of
possible people to write on, and initially
came up with 50 or 60 designers who
were working fairly steadily and had
done major productions around the
country. Because we had to hone this
down to a workable number, we set up
certain criteria·. We wanted designers
who: I) had been working for at least

10 years, so that there was a major body
of work to discuss; 2) were designing
primarily for the stage, rather than primarily for some other medium; 3) had
a fairly broad range of experienceBroadway, Off-Broadway, resident
professional theatre, dance, film, televi ion-though not necessarily all of
those things; and 4) were currently active rather than some of the older guard
who were obviously important but not
as active as they used to be.
Just based on those simple criteria,
of all the three set designers here-all
of whom were on the original list-only
Marge made it to the finallisl. I may be
wrong, but of virtually all the women
working in set design Marge is the only
one who would qualify. That is why

SITT Summer 1985/Thealre Design & Technology

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