Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1991 - 25

misery worse than their own. "You'll be glad you aren't in Dixie
when you see Tobacco Road, " wrote Robert Garland in the
World- Telegram. "Away down Sou th in the land of cotton
they're looking forward to the Depression." It looked like
dreariness would finally prove lucky for Sharpe. Just as the
country was beginning to climb out of the depths of the
economic crisis, the designer seemed to have turned a corner
personally and professionally.
Artistically too a new mood settled on him. His last work,
done in the early spring of 1934, was a project for Sweet Nell of
Old. Drul)l Paul Kester's comedy of Nell Gwyn and Charles II.
Looking to the art and theatre of the 17th century for his
inspiration, he places all four acts in a unit-setting of neutral
arches varied with in-sets and properties to suggest different
locales. The arches are structural in defining the space, through
subtly painted to convey a moderate degree of stylization. It is
an elegant, beautiful set, its spaces various and open, its colors
muted, its ambience one, as Sharpe noted, of "austere
richness." With Sweet Nell of Old Dl'llry, Sharpe had at last
reconciled the need to create solids and voids with his love of
color, decoration and fantasy.
With Tobacco Road becoming almost a permanent fixture on
Broadway, with his fame seemingly assured and with his
creative imagination rekindled, the future looked bright for
Robert Redington Sharpe in the spring of 1934. He may have
contemplated his good luck late one night in May after a
pleasant dinner party with friends as his subway train stopped
at the station at Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place.

t the end of May 1934, Ralph and Mayfair Freud,
two of Robert Sharpe's friends at the Pasadena
Playhouse, received a letter from Homer pfander, a
friend of Bob's in ew York, telling them of his
death. "1 eedless to say," he wrote, "all of us miss the color and
intelligence and fine artistry that was Bob. We who have been
his constant companions for years miss him unspeakably."
Maurice Wells remembered "with great sadness" a spare
memorial service attended by only a few close friends. "Bob
was a most gifted, lovable and attractive individual and those of
us who worked and were associated with him were devoted to
him. His death was a great waste."
Tobacco Road continued to run for eight years, closing on 31
May 1941 after 3,182 performances and road tOurs by three
companies. At the end of its first year, the New York Times had
reported on its phenomenal success, recounting in detail how
the setting's tons of dirt had been transferred when the
production moved from the Masque Theatre to the Forryeighth Street Theatre. There was no mention of the man who
ffi
had designed the set or his untimely death.

Arnold Wengrow is professor ofdrama at the University ofNorth
Carolina at Asheville. He /Vas gllest Cllrator for the exhibition
"Robert Redington Sharpe: The Life of a Theatre Designer" and
author ofthe cataloglle, frOIll luhic!J this article is adapted.
Endnotes
I. :\orrnan Bel Geddes,

ct
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allows EnActto store up to 900 full-sized cues per
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Ideal for touring groups, profes ional theatres,
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Show Controller Application
8 simultaneous Multi-part Fades
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Call or write Electronics Diversified, Inc., for
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ED.
Electronics Diversified, Inc.

i\fjr,ld~ in

tlu El"(UWg (Garden Ciry, ~Y: Doubleday & Company.

Inc.. 1960) 161-163.
2. Bel Geddes 261.
3. Information on Gilmore Brown .lno the founding of the PJsadena Communiry
P1J.}'house is He.Hed in C.lil Shoup's 71Jc' Origin tl1ld Elr~} IliHO') of the PtlStldtllll
Community PIII),houu. di5~., Uni\'crsiry ofCalilorni.l, Los Angeles, 1968.

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TD&T

1991

WINTER

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