Morgan Library & Museum Examines the Artistry and Innovation of 20th Century Stage Design |
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| Written by rubin |
| Friday, 22 May 2009 02:24 |
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“This exhibition offers the visitor the opportunity to see a remarkable trove of designs for the stage that are rarely put on view at the Morgan,” said William M. Griswold, the museum’s director. “It is fascinating to see how experimentation in stagecraft in the twentieth century paralleled similar explorations in the other arts. The drawings are beautiful and imaginative visions of what the modern stage could be by artists willing to push boundaries and move beyond accepted conventions.” The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections—Origins of Modern Scenic Theory, Destroying Tradition, the Russian Avant-Garde, and Diversity of the American Stage—together emphasizing the international scope of advances in set design.  The
exhibition opens with visionary drawings for the stage by Edward Gordon Craig
(1872–1966) as well as texts fundamental to the foundation of modern scenic
theory by Craig and the Swiss stage designer Adolphe Appia (1862–1928). Appia
spurred a move toward visual simplicity and a unity of aesthetic elements in set
design and direction, in part through his 1899 book, Die Musik und die
Inscenierung (Music and Set Design). Appia’s innovations of modern stage design
was essential to the work of Craig, whose Art of the Theatre (1905) set out
principles for an imaginative and suggestive, rather than literal, approach to
set design. These radical ideas—the “new stagecraft”—would gradually transform
European theater through sporadic experimental productions and revolutionize
theater design in the ensuing generations. At the beginning of the twentieth century, ideas about the new stagecraft spread through the Continent and into central and eastern Europe. A synthesis of the arts was elemental to several avant-garde movements, such as the Austrian Sezession and the German Jugendstil. Artists became more involved in the theater, which revitalized scenic design and resulted in new and daring productions throughout Europe’s theatrical capitals. The break from aesthetic tradition is documented in dramatic designs by German Expressionists, including Ludwig Sievert and Emil Orlik. Sievert’s design for a 1922 staging of Kokoschka and Hindemith’s opera Mörder, Hoffnug der Frauen (Murderer, Hope of Women) depicts a moment of confrontation between Man and Woman echoed in the angular and aggressive forms of the set. During and immediately following World War II when materials were scarce, Berlin designers’ clever use of available resources continued to push the limits of convention. Dialogue, set, and movement were fused together to create a comprehensive theatrical experience, achieving a potent combination of content and design. The Moscow Art Theater, founded in 1899, represented the vanguard of innovation. The collaboration between producers and designers, many of whom were painters, yielded an exceptional standard of stagecraft. At the center of this phenomenon was Mir iskusstva (World of Art), a group that emerged in St. Petersburg during the late 1900s. Beyond founding a journal, members Alexandre Benois, Serge Diaghilev, and Léon Bakst designed and executed dance and theater productions in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Shortly thereafter, avant-garde artists Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, and Nikolai Pavlovich Akimov broke further from conventional set design, using as their guide abstract approaches influenced by Cubism and Constructivism. The lively history of Russian folk traditions also informed the aesthetic of their sets. Bakst’s drawing for one of Diaghilev’s ballets, Les Orientales features a cascading arrangement of drapery, a hallmark of his designs that conveys the romantic tendencies of Mir iskusstva. Also included is Exter’s Construction for a Tragedy, a design typical of her skeletal architectural constructions which emphasized purity of form and demonstrated an inventive approach to structures. Soaring black vertical frames and ascending diagonal ramps of bright orange create independent, yet interconnected, spaces that could accommodate a wide variety of performances. On stages throughout the United States, the vaudeville tradition of the early years of the twentieth century gave rise to the genre of musical theater, a distinctly American art form. Actors were in demand for both stage and screen, and the Depression inspired socially conscious plays as well as comedies. American theater also benefited from an influx of European and Russian designers, who brought their experience to New York and other major theater centers in the United States.  A new American stagecraft originated largely in
the work of Robert Edmond Jones (1887–1954), one of the principal designers
responsible for its reinvigoration. He aimed to unify the elements of acting,
lighting, and setting through his dramatic use of abstract forms and lyrical
tonal effects. To disseminate these innovations, Jones, along with Lee
Simonson, published texts on the subject, creating a major body of literature on
the history of scenic design. The exhibition further chronicles modern
developments in stage design through drawings by Claude Fayette Bragdon, Woodman
Thompson, and Norman Bel Geddes; also included are designs for musical theater
by Serge Soudeikine, Erté, and Oliver Smith. Eugene Berman is one of the best known New York stage designers of the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Russia, he fled during the revolution and worked in Paris before emigrating to America in 1940. As a set designer, he rejected the abstract aesthetic established by Appia and Craig in favor of more evocative, elegant, and richly colored settings, often on a vast scale and replete with ruins and mysterious light. Such practices can be seen in his designs for Amahl and the Night Visitors, a one-act opera commissioned by NBC television from the composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1951. “Working on a sketch for a setting is probably the happiest and briefest part of the artist’s work in the theater,” wrote Donald Oenslager. As a young man, he began collecting drawings, rare books, and prints related to the theater dating from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. His collection, built throughout his prolific career as a designer and professor at the Yale University School of Drama, provides a comprehensive history of stage design over the course of four centuries. Totaling approximately 1,600 sheets, the collection was presented to the Morgan by Oenslager’s widow in 1982. Creating the Modern Stage: Set Designs for Theater and Opera is organized by Jennifer Tonkovich, curator of drawings and prints, with the assistance of Elizabeth Nogrady, Moore Curatorial Fellow, The Morgan Library & Museum. Creating the Modern Stage was made possible through the generosity of Jane and Robert Carroll and Eliot and Wilson Nolen. Generous assistance is also provided by the David L. Klein Jr. Foundation and the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Visit : http://www.themorgan.org/ Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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