Is There Such a Thing as Feminist Design?

Okay, the honest truth is that my weekend has been so full of preparing for SETC next week that taking a second to write this entry seems like a bad idea. But I do have something that has been jumping around my brain for a while because I'm writing a research paper about it. Is there such a thing as "feminist design?"

There is an article by a woman named Delores Ringer that discusses this very question. She posits that there is a way to approach design in a feminist mode: that by making obvious ways in which the patriarchy is represented in the play and breaking those down/highlighting them in design choices, a designer can further a feminist interpretation of the piece. She lists the following questions as a way to approach the script:

1. In the production I am currently working on, what are the explicit and implicit messages about power in gender relations?
2. How does visual language contribute to these explicit and implicit messages?
3. How do I as a woman and designer relate to the visual language and the world around me? How do I visually process information?
4. How have my relationships with other artists in the theatre and the creative and working process I use been constructed? (299)

Let us set aside questions three and four as a part of the discussion of being a female designer overall. They are important, but I believe that the first two questions hold in them the seed from which the notion of feminist design may spring.

1. In the production I am currently working, what are the explicit and implicit messages about power in gender relations?

I would argue that a good designer, male or female, should be asking this question regardless of their social agendas. Granted, the question may not be framed in terms of gender-- for sure when we were approaching The Seagull we did not discuss the power dynamics specifically in terms of gender and thus delve into the nature of Arkadena's character, but power dynamics were discussed and were brought to play in our design choices (especially in costuming). As I write this, having read a short essay on the female roles in The Seagull, I wonder how things might have changed if we had more directly troubled the roles of Arkadena, Nina, Masha, and Paulina.

2. How does visual language contribute to these explicit and implicit messages?

This question is more difficult, I believe. (And perhaps is why questions three and four are an important part of her list). It is difficult because not everyone interprets visual language the same, depending on where they are coming from in their lives. For instance, Ringer discusses how one might use landscape paintings on the women's aprons in Marsha Norman's Getting Out to invoke the geographic past represented in their lives. I puzzled over this idea for some time as I read it, and have often questioned these types of approaches to displaying the underlying meaning/subtext/what-have-you in a play. It reminds me of Brecht's gestus and how things like that are likely lost on an audience without a program note or talk back after the show.

When we started to work on the designs for The Seagull I had originally proposed representing the lake in a reflective floor for the set. It appealed to me as a purely aesthetic idea, and I felt that it helped underline the personal choices that were being made within the script: that people were hiding their true selves; that they were adrift in the world; that the lake holds power (which is referred to in the play). The director rejected this idea because he didn't see the point if it needed a program note to explain. And while I thought that was a ridiculous reason to cast aside my idea, over the last few months I have come to realize that perhaps it is true that the more subtle visual cues may be a lost cause. How could anyone know that was why I had wanted a reflective floor, apart from it adding visual dimension (especially in the sparse set that was decided upon)? There is no way to know.

But by the same token, is it not important to challenge the audience to find meaning in the visual landscape before them? They might not understand the reflective floor in the way I intend, but it is likely they would have found some reason for it. A number of people asked me where the lake was in my set anyway; I'm sure it would have caught on. And no one was even remotely aware that the diagonal painting on stage that represented the floor boards were specifically done upstage left to downstage right to highlight Konstantin's work at his desk in Act IV. Did we need a program note for that?

I don't know that there is a right way or wrong way to approach design in terms of the above discussion of subtle visual choices. I also am not sure how much I agree that there is a strictly feminist design approach (though, after writing this, I feel more inclined to agree than not). Design work, as with most artistic endeavors, is so much about translating the concrete into the subjective, and I believe that there is a lot of room for interpretation both in terms of the final product and how one gets there. (Though The Seagull wasn't approached in a feminist design mode, I think one could interpret it as such in some ways-- does that make it any less of a feminist design?)

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Ringer, Delores. "Re-Visioning Scenography: A Feminist's Approach to Design for Theatre." Kare Laughlin and Chatherine Sculer, ed. Theatre and Feminist Aesthetics. London: Associate UP, 1995. Print.

How To Succeed in Show Business... if You're a Girl

The Seagull opened on Friday and in celebration and thanks I brought cupcakes in for my carpenters that afternoon. I had been promising them these baked goodies for about two weeks when I had decided I wanted an excuse to bake again. I used them as leverage when they were not doing things right, but always in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. But as we neared opening and their desire to have cupcakes was synonymous for the show to be over and done with, I felt that the exchanges about the baked goods started to construct a mother-children relationship between myself and the carpenters. It felt troubling, but I still brought them in and shared with not just the carpenters but the lighting designer and her MEs, the stage manager, and the costume designer and her shop leaders.

Then, last night, I was reading Tish Dace's article "Designing Women," which discusses the role of women designers on Broadway and the uphill battle they have faced to become part of the men's club that controls the designer role sheets in NYC. Dace profiles Jean Rosenthal, the mother of lighting design, and explores how Rosenthal adopted a "quiet, non-confrontational , and meticulously polite demeanor" to earn the respect of the men that worked for her in order to survive in a "profession hostile to her sex."

Jean's quality of tranquil impersonality was not real. It was self-protective. She had a hard time in the theatre. There was a constant and long-term and even violent opposition to her from the electricians because she was a woman [...] and show business is death on women, especially in the technical end. She had to weather it, so she cultivated a great invulnerability, along with her courtesy, to deal with this. (135)

Dace discusses Rosenthal's personality traits in depth because it played a large role as to how she became as successful as she was in a male-dominated business with this new form of design. She quotes Rosenthal (and a number of designers in the article) as admitting that part of their battle was knowledge; a female designer has to know everything forwards and backwards, or their precarious status will topple with ridicule, distrust, and disrespect.

Of course this got me thinking about the process for Seagull and how my experience echoed Rosenthal's tacts, even though I was working in the supposed bastion of equality that is educational theatre.

I have always felt that as a female designer, "knowing your shit," as they say, is a huge component to surviving the process. That is the primary reason that I chose to attend graduate school rather than just trying to hop from assistant job to assistant job, hoping to weasel my way into an actual design position. They cannot argue with another three years of schooling putting more tools into my toolbox. But on the flip side, especially on the scenic end, knowing the design mechanics backwards and forwards as well as carpentry skills, is not always how you want to portray yourself. Sometimes, the damsel in distress is the preferred method, which gets you into trouble in more ways than one.

One of the things I struggle with on a regular basis is remembering (yes, remembering) that I am a very capable, knowledgeable carpenter. I have been wielding tools since I was in grade school, and my ability to construct and assemble various items both in and out of the theatre is, in my opinion, as good as any man because of my years of experience. But at some point in my undergraduate work, at the great institution of equality that Grinnell is, I started to act like I was as incapable as many of my peers who hadn't spent years working in their high school scene shop. My mentor, the design professor who designed both lighting and scenery for the school, a talented, opinionated woman, asked me to her office one day after watching me work in the shop with the fifth year intern (who was male) and told me to stop acting like I didn't know what I was doing. I was shocked. I hadn't realized that I had reverted, and after our talk I became painfully aware that I seemed to have this mental block for owning my aptitude and skills. To this day, even during small home projects, I am sometimes pleasantly surprised to be capable of simple tasks.

I think this adoption of a damsel in distress notion goes hand in hand with the need, as noted in Rosenthal's story, for the female designer to be a polite, reserved member of the artistic team. Despite the passionate volatility that is often associated with artists and designers, we female designers must remain courteous and calm. I know this for a fact because we had a number of discussions about "how nice and kind" I was to the carpenters on Seagull. And how much they appreciated that I didn't yell and curse whenever I was unhappy (and, trust me, there were plenty of times that I was fairly unhappy). Instead, I would parody other angry designers that had worked on shows at UNCG, never once really getting angry. (The closest I came was when I saw another foot print on the black-painted ground row only a few hours after we had painted them to cover other foot prints. I cursed and threw my damp rag on the ground, but I was only heard by the person standing next to me, not the entire theatre.)

Then, sitting in tech, my adviser leaned to me and gave me the same note he intoned during the Angels in America process last semester: You're in charge. You can be angry when things look horrible. I struggled with it during the previous process in part because I knew that I could get angry until I was blue in the face and the first-year run crew was never going to have the crisp, urgent movements of a professional run crew, but also because I didn't want to come across as "the angry, demanding designer." This time I still shied away from being terribly vocal about the things I didn't like, but I did feel capable of discussing the issues with the other designers, both of whom were women. I did also find a mode to deliver my thoughts to the stage manager and run crew that I felt didn't come across as a tyrant but also expressed my demands as important because my design was important.

I worry about the passive role that is set before me, both by my own doing and the gender dynamics that exist in this male-dominated field. I have watched women designers (and directors) in regional theatre settings and feel comfortable with asserting they have adopted this "quiet, non-confrontational , and meticulously polite demeanor" in order to garner the respect of the men under them. When I analyze my adoption of this tact, coupled with how I rewarded my carpenters (all male, save one) with cupcakes, I feel the natural role I am filling is that of "Mom." And while I am generally a very maternal person in all of my interpersonal interactions, I don't think this is a good role to hold as a professional scenic designer.

Is there a balance? Can I be less polite and calm and still get people to do the work for me? Is it more than a tact to survive and more a personality trait? What came first, the chicken or the egg?

I suspect I will be pondering these questions and my demeanor as designer for many years to come. But for now, I suppose as long as I also get rewarded with a cupcake and my set is by far the best I've done in my career, I can't complain too much.

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Dace, Trish. "Designing Women." Women in American Musical Theatre: Essays on Composers, Lyrcists, Librettists, Arrangers, Choreographers, Designers, Directors, Producers and Performing Artists. Bud Coleman & Judith A Sebesta, Ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2008. 130-154. Print.

Tech-tacular Design

So, not that anyone regularly follows this blog, but I'm about to hit tech for The Seagull here at UNCG and so I'm a bit hard-pressed to squeeze anything but stress out of my pitiful brain. I really should be going to bed now, but I resolved to write once a week in this thing -- maybe while I'm sitting in the darkened theatre, the muse will strike me.

In the meantime, a few thoughts on the tech process in general:

It's stressful! Duh. But not just because the clock is finally ticking down, but because it is a veritable political battlefield of how best to communicate with your fellow theatre-makers while everyone's tempers are short. It is especially difficult, I've found, as a student designer trying to navigate the many mentors/faculty in the room above and beyond any faculty working on the production. (Fortunately, Seagull is all student-designed, but it is faculty-directed.) It's just hard to know when and how to stand your ground without sounding disrespectful. And then you add into the mix being a woman... well, yes, you can imagine. More on that (or something better) next weekend, once the show is open and I have more room in my poor head for things that are not about tracing wallpaper from a projection or recovering chairs.

Tempestuous Validation

Just returned from this year's Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival (KC/ACTF) in Region IV (that's the Southeast). Compared to last year where UNC-Greensboro was the host school, I felt pretty detached from the whole thing. It also seemed to be very diminished in size as the economy problems have started to trickle down into school budgets (I know UNCG felt it).

I took my design for Shakespeare's The Tempest which I completed in my Scenography Seminar last spring semester. Basically, a Scenography Seminar means that we completed designs for all three areas: scenic, costume, and lighting. We spent four months with the play, built half inch models, and designed 30 costumes. And then it sat in the office until told that the school was footing the bill for us to go to KC/ACTF this year.

Dusting off the model (and I mean that literally), I was struck by the work that I had put into it and the joy I had found creating all of the little details of my dilapidated warehouse space. I felt very good about bringing it to competition in the regional paper project division (the competition I took home first place for La Boheme in last year). Even when the poor thing was practically destroyed in transit, I was hopeful. (I was able to rebuild it just fine).

Then on Friday night, the awards were announced, and I was left sitting in the audience while my three colleagues (the only other UNCG students attending the festival) were called onstage to be recognized for their work. I was dumb-founded, flabbergasted, and hurt. In part because I had felt so good about my work and the judge's response to it and in part because the work that was awarded first place was presented haphazardly and looked like he'd pulled it all out of his backpack before tacking it to the wall. To be honest, I drove everyone back to the hotel and then sat in the car and cried. And called my aunt.

I felt humiliated but also incredibly stupid for letting something like this tear down all of the confidence that I had about myself. I knew going into this competition that I had set the bar high last year by winning so out-of-the-blue-like. And yet I felt robbed by not even getting an Honorable Mention. After sleep, some inner soul-searching, and seeing the designs as we took our own work down to travel home, I've come to the conclusion that in the end the best designs were awarded prizes, despite their presentation quality. The designs fit the play very well (or so the judges had said) and were well-thought out and at least mostly executed well as far as the modeling technique is concerned. So what if the students hadn't been coached on how to create meticulously laid out presentation boards of research and process? Ultimately, their artistic thoughts were clear and deserved recognition.

But what to do with my own feelings of inadequacy? How, after seven months of being very proud of my work and ideas can something as innocuous as this award tear down my confidence in just a short five minute time span? Why is it that I need validation for work that has come out of my ten years of scenic design, and many hours individually scoring brickwork with an X-acto blade and reading glasses?

I think it's a cultural thing, as we are taught from a young age the importance of winning and hearing that we are the best. I also think, artistically, there are so many times that it's a shot in the dark to put something out there that will be judged so subjectively. I spent over 15 minutes talking to one gentleman during the design Meet & Greet in which he poked all kinds of holes into my modern interpretation of the piece (which was encouraged by our professor, not something I came up with solely on my own!). This guy seemed generally offended that I had deigned to take Shakespeare's play off of a literal island and place it somewhere that perhaps undercut the lines regarding the necessity of a boat to arrive there. And on the one hand it was frustrating to have him admonish me for claiming perhaps it was a metaphoric boat, but I was thankful to see that I could hold my ground even after six or so months of complete removal from the project.

This kind of thing always makes me wonder if this is truly the field that I want to wade into for sure. My skin is not thick regarding my work. In fact, I find it very difficult to separate myself from criticism of my artistic work. Why, oh why, do I want to spend years trying to squeeze every ounce of creative juice from my brain only to risk complete destruction of my psyche if the director, actors, audience, or critics tear it apart? I'm not sure if I know the answer to that. But I can say that as the years have passed I've become better at bouncing back. I've found joy in what I do that cannot be touched by outside comment. And I know that is all the validation that I can count on, even if it isn't all I will ever need.