Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1991 - 52

bur general lighting and seemingly random placement of the artifacts dissipated
the focus of the anticipated environmental experience. There were no working
drawings or photographs to clarify the
constructions' connection to an actual
production, save a half hidden miniature
version of some of the pieces that
approximated a scale model. While the
technique was admirable at times (from a
distance, the cardboard baby grand piano
did indeed look like a piano), the exhibit
as a whole was frustrating because the
point was never clear. Interest was
piqued, but never satisfied.
Great Britain, honored with the
Golden Triga award this year, created an
environment that was not related to the
particular productions on display; rather
it connected them in a somewhat
humorous allusion to design artifacts as
disposable byproducts of an artistic process. Upon entering the exhibit, one
encountered a taxidermied mongrel
dog/wolf with an apparent disregard for
some of the objects on display-he
seemed to have ripped them to pieces.
The rest of the exhibit echoed that
disregard for design objects as ends to
themselves. Junk objects, trash cans and
demolition materials were used as display
pedestals, contrasting greatly with
exhibits in which careful matting and
mounting created a conservative museum feeling. The center of the room contained a shroud of black plastic garbage
bags suspended from the ceiling with
openings that disclosed models for Love's
Labour's Lost and Twelfth Night. These
beautiful designs, hidden within the
folds of the plastic, ironically became like
jewels among refuse. Most of the display
items were in similarly interesting, if perilous, viewing positions (stacked atop
one another, on the floor, on trash
heaps). This derached attitude diminished the preciousness of the models and
working drawings as art objects and
invited the viewer to investigate the evidence of the design process casually, even
to the point of fishing our rolled-up
draftings from a trash can for closer
scrutiny. Critics commented that the
obviously artful arrangement of the
informal environment seemed somewhar
inconsistent with the purpose, as did the
inclusion of a few normally displayed
models and a carefully positioned relevision playing a video of one of rhe productions.
Germany, for rhe firsr rime in the
history of the PQ, exhibited as a single,
unified country. The first chamber of the
exhibit surrounded the viewer with lifesized photographic portraits of individu50

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al characters from a production of Faust.
The representation of performers in a
design exhibit is rare and difficult, but
the clarity and immediacy of these huge
figures from Germany's classical past
were scunnIng.
A revolving door provided passage
from that room into the other rooms of
the exhibit, each of which held counterpart designs for plays that had been produced by both the Federal Republic of
Germany and the German Democratic
Republic. The revolving door became an
involving door that asked the viewer to
consciously enter these spaces, encouraging active attention to the designs on display. The door's skeletal construction
made it less of a bartier in moving from
one space to another-from one country
to another, from one design idea to
another-than was at first perceived.
Although some viewers were observed to
curn away from the door entirely, others
ignored its presence and walked through
the framework into the other rooms.
Switzerland provided an experience
that emphasized text and sound in its
exhibit of Dialogue en Route. Viewers
entered the exhibit singly and were
admonished to walk slowly through the
datk maze-like space taking their cues to
proceed from the lights. Individual audio
tapes of the prose text by Franz Kafka
and Robert Walser, recorded in either
German or Czech, provided dramatic
aural accompaniment. Standing still and
alone in the dark, observing the play of
light on sculpted plywood and painted
scrim, created a feeling of self consciousness that made the viewer want to navigate quickly. This urge subsided as the
pretecorded sound penetrated consciousness and the experience became one of
immersion rather than observation. Even
if the language was foreign to the viewer,
the element of sound was the most
evocative part of the presentation. However, it was not clear whether this was an
approximation of the theatre experience,
or an installation incorporating theatrical
techniques used in the production. Was
the primary experience in the theatre an
aural and kinesthetic one-with the
audience listening and moving through
the space, the aural experience arousing
the visual imagination' Or were the visuals more salient in the actual production?
Who and where were the performers?
Poland's exhibit raised similar questions as to the relationships of the
designs (as exhibited) to the productions.
In a less abstract manner than the Swiss
exhibit, imagery in the Polish exhibit was
selectively revealed by cued progressions
of light focused on various objects within

the dark exhibit space. Upon entering,
one ascended a slight rake of rough-cut
boards lit from underneath. Immediately
confronting the viewer (and eclipsing
some traditional coscumes displayed on
mannequins just inside the entrance) was
a sculpcure of masked and draped stick
figures torturously emerging from
beneath the floor. Although thete wete
no supporting photogtaphs or sketches,
it seemed completely plausible that this
was a display for a play titled For Example Oedipus. The figures, perhaps, represented the chorus, but were they puppets, actors, scenic elements-or all
three?
Along the right side of the ramp was
a seties of somewhat oversized but otherwise traditionally presented scenic models. They too were interestingly revealed
by periodic illumination of various
angles and intensities, but there were no
corresponding photographs of actual
productions. Conversely, at the far end
of the exhibit, several large photographs
of different productions were displayed
unaccompanied by any other design documentation.
Beside the photographs, a large white
arrow pointed the way, through a black
curtain, our of the exhibit. Drawing the
curtain aside, it became clear that leaving
the exhibit meant walking across a plexiglass floor, beneath which several figures
appeared to have been entombed alive.
Once atop the plexiglass tomb, a black
corridor was revealed containing figures
immersed up to their chests in a trench
of mud and water. Their backs to the
viewer, they seemed at once to be struggling/drowning/emerging. Above their
heads were the barely discernable wings
of flying birds.
A number of people never saw this
final image (which appropriately enough
represented a play titled The Gateway),
for they chose not to cross this threshold
at all, turning to exit the way they had
entered. This may have been because the
strength of the plexiglass floor appeared
questionable, not because the experience
was unappealing. Like the other nontraditionally presented imagery in the Polish exhibit, the emotional impact of this
last moment was extremely powerful.
Finland's exhibit, featuring the work
of Tiina Makkonen, achieved the most
comprehensive expression of the relationship of design to performance.
Designs for a half dozen plays, ranging
from A Midsummer Night's Dream to
Howard Barker's Scenes/rom an E\'ecution, shared an environment that not
only unified the designs, but afforded
each design its individual expression. It

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1991