Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011 - 32

Love Unpunished

The Elaborte Entrance of Chad Deity

imaginative Design Amid Tumult of change
Inside this beat-up performing garage, you see a welter of theatre designs
that express complicated viewpoints about American society and politics:
shows ranging from the technologically savvy to site-specific re-envisioning of classics which wrestle with death, loss and tragedy after 9/11 and
hurricane Katrina; new plays and devised work about the disenfranchisements resulting from inequalities of race, class and gender; people's withdrawal into consumption or inside the white noise of technology in order
to escape the worsening realities of a damaged outside world.
From the Edge displays thirty-seven pieces, out of 360 submissions. The curators paid special attention to work that came from young
companies that have not been exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial before. They took a tougher stance against big-budget productions from
commercial producers and large nonprofit companies, except in those
very special cases (American Idiot, Appomattox, or Goodman Theatre
of Chicago's Desire Under the Elms, for example) where the productions clearly redefined the edge or pushed beyond that boundary. Since
a great number of works selected are ensemble-generated, the curators gave special recognition to six well-known avant-garde companies
whose historical influence on the new generation has been either direct or inspirational (Builder's Association, Cornerstone Theater, Ping
Chong and Company, SITI Company, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and The
Wooster Group). Additionally, August Wilson and Ellen Stewart were
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Appomatox

paid tribute for their life's work and inestimable contributions to the
American theatre. In most cases, new U.S. theatre collectives eschew
the typical process of creating sketches or of model-making, with the
result that the only tangible evidence left that a design process took
place are the production photos, the snippets of video, and the audio
excerpts. Sometimes the design was the internal discussion in the midst
of creation.
From the Edge proffers a buoyantly self-critical view from the
ground. With a tongue firmly in cheek, it delivers the hard news: this is
how American theatre artists irreverently wrestled with art, politics, and
imaginative design during the dramatic unraveling of the Aught Decade.
The period in consideration coincided with the tumult of a worldwide economic recession and a political transition in the White House-a wrenching reevaluation of core American values that brought about the rise of an
African-American as our country's forty-fourth president. After twenty years
of the Bushes and the Clintons, angry American voters demanded sweeping change with President Barack Obama-the promise of a break with
the unhappy past or of a new style of politics or, perhaps, a novel racial
transcendence. But exactly what kind of real change could be realized after
Obama was elected? Intriguingly, the majority of artists displayed in From
the Edge, despite their optimism and ebullience, register only their unresolved feelings about the possibility of real political change in the situations of both the U.S. theatre system and our country's institutions.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011
