Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2013 - 24

253). After the war, Ricketts's costumes for the Le Havre productions
went to Ashwell's company, and they were reused many times in various
plays and performances for which they were not designed (Delaney 1990,
304). Ricketts's thoughtful unified costume designs for these plays were
variously recycled and separated piecemeal to serve other productions.
The letters from Charles Ricketts to Penelope Wheeler provide a vivid
window into the past. His handwriting gives us the pictures: the middleaged designer is bent over the 100 yards of stenciling late at night; the
desired furniture satin is not to be had; the manager/star does not provide
enough money; the situation requires complicated touring logistics; the
designer encounters the obstacles of inflation; stressed collaborators slam
the door in the designer's face; the designer depends on the underpaid,
overworked miracle worker who has it in her hands and mind to achieve

the impossible; the designer is overcommitted, and swirling around him
are lost friends, financial troubles, and a violent world in conflict facing
an unknown future. Even so, Ricketts insists on the perfect hem, the precise height of the feather, the exacting spangle pattern, and the emotional
and physical communion of actor and costume.
Although Ricketts found himself in angst over the Great War, he also
expressed one internal war every artist faces: the fear of or acknowledgment of the loss of creativity. Ricketts refers to his awareness of creating
the designs out of technical necessity rather than artistic courage. In a
letter to Wheeler about his sketches for Judith, he wrote,
"I have finished the last drawings today.... I don't know who is to execute them, so have tried to keep the designs to skirts, tunics and turbans
and with a little luck they should look very good indeed, but the work has
grown complex since the fearless Salome days...
when one had plenty of inexperience of the right
kind." v
Margaret Mitchell is a costume and scenic
designer and a professor of theatre arts at
the University of the Incarnate Word in San
Antonio, Texas. She is a co-author of Making
the Scene, A History of Stage Design and
Technology in Europe and the United States.
Permissions for illustrations have been granted by
Heather Lammers, registrar, McNay Art Museum; Louise
Oliver, images and rights executive, Tate Gallery; and
Leoni Sturge Moore, heir to the Ricketts estate.
n

Sources cited

Attoe, Barry. 2012. E-mail correspondence
between author and archives officer of the
British Postal Museum & Archive, May 30.
Delaney, J.G.P. 1990. Charles Ricketts: A
Biography. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, Cecil. 1939. Self-Portrait: Taken From
The Letters and Journals of Charles
Ricketts, R.A. London: Peter Davies, LTD.
Nathan, Archie. 1960. Costumes by Nathan's.
London: Newnes.
Ricketts, Charles. [1918] Letters to Penelope
Wheeler. Robert L. B. Tobin Theatre Arts
Collection Archives, TL 2002.225.
Wheeler, Penelope. 1915. "On the Boards
Behind the Lines." Lady's Pictorial, Nov. 13.
Editor's Note: This article is published under
the guidelines of TD&T's juried submission
process. It has undergone blind peer review
and has been judged to meet the highest
standards of scholarly writing. Juried article
submission guidelines are available on the
TD&T website, tdt.usitt.org.

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