Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007 - 59

ing in the missile silo to actors
smoking cigarettes. It was a total picture."
Unfortunately,
as
Zimmerman quickly learned,
the judging process was never
entirely based on the actual
contents of national scenographic displays. "The jurors
agreed at one point to re-deﬁne the category as the best
realized presentation of a
production," Zimmerman recalled. "Some of the judges
went back on that and voted on
a production they had seen. I
feel that unless we had seen all
the original performances, that
prize should be given for the
best overall presentation or representation of a production."
The challenge, excitement and surprise of every
Prague Quadrennial lies in that tension between
what spectators see in the halls of the Industrial Palace (known locally as Vystaviste) and
what the original performances actually were
in their native contexts. It is a quandary intensiﬁed by the competitive ritual of bestowing
prizes during this ten-day quadrennial derby. As
every designer knows, the veritable mountain
of scenographic detritus exhibited in Prague
(photographs, blueprints, renderings, plans,
costumes, set models) is merely an echo or

PHOTO BY RICHARD FINKELSTEIN

netherlands

As a form of evidence, video
documents are superior
tools because they permit
the very possibility that the
performance can be seen at all.
PHOTO BY ALVA HASCALL

estonia
58

THEATRE

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY
F

2007

fragment of living creative processes. Shards of
absent performances, these design objects offer
incomplete or distorted records, divorced from
the realities, exigencies, and richer dynamics of
theatrical performance.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. The
elevation of processual artifacts heightens our
awareness of the contributions of stage designers. It gives emphasis to design's inseparability from live performance and underscores the
aesthetic lines that differentiate it from visual-art
objects. Nevertheless, the hothouse atmosphere
of the PQ makes it difﬁcult to dutifully inspect
and apprehend the hundreds of stage artifacts
on display and glean how these elements had
been translated onto the four-dimensional world
of the stage in ways that would be sympathetic to
the original meaning of the performances.
The preponderance of ﬁlm, video, new
media and digital technologies at PQ 2007
rectiﬁes the various distortions and powerful
conundrums that come into play when designs
are placed on a pedestal of contemplation. As
a form of evidence, video documents are superior tools because they permit the very possibility that the performance can be seen at all.
Videos allow for careful analysis and preserve
the means by which works may be restaged with
accuracy. And, with the right equipment, they
can be cheaply produced. The U.S. pavilion,
in particular, was very much in the avant-garde
when it came to embracing the transitory work
of sound designers: Using headsets in the sound
area, visitors could sample ten audio clips of

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007