CHAPTER IX

SCENERY AND COSTUMES

Very little need be said regarding the usual conventional sets, whether they represent interiors or exteriors. The purpose of this chapter is (1) to suggest simple but effective means of staging without using the conventional sets, and (2) to lay down a few principles as to costuming.

By means of the simple devices about to be described, the amateur is enabled to do without "box sets" and all the paraphernalia of the old stage. The tendency nowadays is away from naturalism in setting; the aim is rather to supply simple but beautiful backgrounds with as little obvious effort as possible; to suggest rather than to represent. When the word "conventional" is used it is intended to convey the meaning not of "old" and "hackneyed", but of "simple", "suggestive." Beardsley's drawings are conventional because attitudes and lines are conventionalized.

In the main, there are three sorts of setting which may be used for practically all kinds of plays. They have been successfully tried out on numerous occasions, and few plays have been found which cannot fit at least one of them.

1. The first and simplest of them all consists of draperies and tall screens. The Greek classics and Shakespeare are particularly effective with this sort of background. Where Greek plays are given, a peristyle of wooden pillars up-stage, behind which may be hung white or tinted curtains, is especially desirable. Any Greek, and most Latin plays, can be produced with this setting. Often such plays are given in the open. If the performance takes place in the daylight, there is no difficulty as to artificial lighting; but if it is at night, then a flood-light must cover the stage. This is placed toward the back, or else behind the audience.

Shakespeare is seen at his best with the simple background. A sort of cyclorama may be constructed by using curtains hung at the back of the stage, upon which is thrown light from one place: behind the proscenium arch, from above, or from one of the sides. Suppose that "The Comedy of Errors" is the play to be performed. The first scene of the first act is "_A hall in the Duke's palace_." This, of course, should be printed on the program, but on the stage all that is needed is a suggestion or two, like a gilded chair, and a painted white bench or two. These are not needed in the action, but they serve to create an atmosphere. The second scene is "_A public place_." Absolutely no "props" or furniture are needed; indeed, their very absence indicates the "place." The first scene of the second act is the same. The curtains around the stage must be made in sections, in order to allow the actors to enter and exit through them. The lines are always sufficient to indicate where a person is coming from or going to. In the first scene of the third act, Dromio of Syracuse says:

DRO. S. (_within_). Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch! Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch: Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store, When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.

A house is evidently intended to be represented, but it is not necessary that we see it: Dromio of Syracuse can speak from behind the curtain. The convention will readily be accepted. Nor is it necessary to differentiate the various "public places", except for the sake of variety: perhaps a bench or two now and then will accomplish this purpose. And when, in the first scene of the fifth act, the public place is "_before an abbey_", still there is no need of any definite set pieces. From time to time, doubtless some special article of furniture or set piece of some kind will be mentioned in the text, not elsewhere, in which case it can easily be supplied.

This "Shakespeare-without-scenery" is not the only method by which Shakespeare can be performed, but it is the easiest and, if done with taste, the most effective.

Let us now take rather a more difficult play, "Twelfth Night." The first scene of the first act is "_An apartment in the Duke's palace_." The Duke sits on a sort of throne or sofa. In Max Reinhardt's production of this play at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the set consisted simply of a semicircular lounge extending all the way across the stage. It was covered with dark blue plush; the hangings were of the same color. A warm yellow light directed from above flooded the stage.

Either a throne or sofa for the Duke, then, and a few other chairs for the remaining characters, who sit down--the musicians stand--or else, following Reinhardt, a semicircular lounge. This is all. The second scene is "_The seacoast_." The stage is bare here. The third scene is "_A room in Olivia's house_." Different chairs or sofas and a throne for Olivia. The following scene is the same as scene one. The first scene of the second act is the seacoast once more. The next is "_A street_." No furniture. The third scene is "_A room in Olivia's house_"; evidently not the same as that in which Olivia first appeared. The room is probably in or near the wine cellar. A table, therefore, and three or four chairs, will not be amiss. The next is the same as in act one,