Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011 - 34

THOUGHTs fROM
n

By LinDA essiG, DAviD RODGeR,
ROBeRT LeWis sMiTH, AnD DAve TOsTi-LAne

"For me," says Don Tindall

, sound curator of the From
the Edge, "one of the most interesting and rewarding parts of the process
was the collaboration among the curators, especially in the development of
the theme or focus of the exhibit." It felt to him like they were all just working on a show together. Costume curator Linda Cho echoes that sentiment,
but adds that her biggest challenge was often just finding the time to give to
the project. During the three-year period the team worked on the exhibits,
Linda gave birth to two children!
Initially, the curators needed to figure out, as Tindall puts it, "what
story we wanted to tell about American design in the last four years." Chris
Barreca, scenery curator, recalls that other nations exhibiting at the PQ frequently "include a smaller selection of designers in their national exhibits
because many smaller countries have fewer designers." Those nations, Barereca said, were able to exhibit "an increased number of selections for the
individual designer and thereby gave a fuller representation of the artist's
work during the previous four years." In some previous U.S. exhibits, by
contrast, there was a tendency to include a wide range of designers and to
exhibit just one or two design artifacts for each of them.
Allen Hahn, lighting curator, says the team this year took a new approach. "We were looking principally for entire productions that showed
excellence across the design disciplines. It didn't ring true to us to feature
one aspect without consideration of the whole." Tindall adds, "We wanted
to feature the ideas of the playwrights and directors as well as the ideas of
the designers. After a lot of discussion, we all became very interested in the
unsung companies in the U.S. that were producing very exciting and innovative theatre at the fringes of the mainstream. We felt that the rest of the world
was probably not aware that this kind of theatre even existed in America,
and we wanted to call attention to groups and productions that seemed to be
taking more risks (artistic, societal, and financial) than most for-profit and
regional theatres." They were interested in presenting outstanding examples
of theatre design, says Hahn, "that supported dramatic work uniquely American in its ideas, perspectives, or subject matter. We were drawn to work
that reflected contemporary American thought and culture, like the ramifications and legacy of the Bush years, the economic state of the country,
immigration, and our relationship to technology, to name a few."
The curators were very involved in seeking out submissions. Cho says,
"We wanted as many submissions as possible from all over the country, so,
to that end, we employed various strategies. We asked colleagues from a diverse geographical and professional spectrum to scout, we asked designers
we knew to submit, and we looked at the offerings of companies we knew to
be doing the kind of self-introspective work we sought."
Barreca follows up on the idea of presenting works in context. He says,
"The committee also wanted to include artists talking about their own works
[and] found that a number of the theatre companies had high quality video
recordings that could be incorporated into the exhibit." Tindall points out
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that "we realized that...these organizations whose work felt so vital and
interesting were also operating on very sparse budgets, and when we tried
to present the designs aurally and visually in the exhibit, they often felt very
rough and uninteresting on their own. Therefore, we tried very hard to focus
on the interaction of all of the designs and to contextualize them within their
performance as much as possible. This led to featuring intent statements from
all of the production teams, asking them to talk about what they were trying to
do and why they made the choices that they made. It also led us to create an
extensive collection of video interviews with directors and designers."
Allen Hahn and Don Tindall were responsible for designs that are
inherently difficult to capture in an exhibit. They each had extended comments about the works selected for From the Edge and how they were to
be presented in the exhibit.
Hahn defined lighting "from the edge" in two different ways. On the
one hand is the more expected implication that lighting from the edge
"embraces the range of gear that's out there," but on the other hand it can
be lighting that subverts that expectation. As Hahn explains, "How do you
take the audience expectation for what lighting is and use it to your advantage, and when do you thwart that expectation? What's most interesting
to see is not so much what Robert LePage and Cirque Du Soleil are doing
now with their massive budgets, but how those ideas and aesthetics influence small companies working in old warehouses or places like PS122.
Some artists adapt those ideas to work in smaller spaces, or tell stories
aimed at more than entertainment, and others reject the technology outright in favor of something more authentic. "Ultimately," Hahn adds, "in
the work we selected, technical sophistication was trumped by aesthetic
merit. For all our technical advances in lighting, video, and projection,
without a strong aesthetic at the core, the work can't really be held up as
the pinnacle of American design." Using all the available razzle dazzle isn't
always the best design approach. Hahn's criteria can be summarized in
the question, "When is it appropriate to use all that technology, and when
is it best to use one low-pressure sodium fixture?"
The latter choice can be understood in the context of a trend that
pervades many of the projects in the exhibit, a trend toward authenticity.
Hahn explains it as "authenticity in terms of spaces created by set designers and lit accordingly-spaces that didn't present themselves as scenery
but more as architecture presented on stage. We all identified that as a
trend in American theatre. Well into the age of the Internet we are very
aware of authenticity. A simulacrum doesn't pass muster in the way it used
to, unless it's used as a style. The theatrical appearance of things has its
place, but it is no longer the default mode and more a style choice."
Ironically, the trend toward authenticity is accompanied by a trend
toward greater use of media or projected images on stage, sometimes in
juxtaposition with one another. "On one hand there is authenticity-a move
away from a slick technical agenda-and then there is the opposite tack,
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2011
