Ringer uses her design for a production of Marsha Norman’s Getting Out to explore ways in which feminism can be visualized on stage. She states that “feminist scenographers can use the trivial and ordinary details of women’s lives as the material with which to make monuments” (302), pointing to her design of painted landscapes on the aprons of the characters to depict how their environment has imprinted them. This kind of approach is an example of how, as a feminist designer, the designer’s duty of visualizing the context in which the story takes place becomes about recognizing the differences in the visualization of the woman’s world verses that of the man’s (Ringer 312). In a traditional design approach, the landscape of the environment might have been made visible in paintings or photographs on the walls, but by painting it across an article of clothing deeply associated with women and their role in life, it creates a more socially charged message about the life of the characters in the play and relates to the feminist performance techniques of using the body as script and canvas.Furthermore, the designer’s awareness of how to use visual language to illuminate or deconstruct gender and power in the performance of written word goes beyond the actor and action, but also the space encompassing them. In a discussion about women’s theatrical space, Hanna Scolnicov asserts that “woman is so closely associated with space that almost any articulation of space on stage [. . .] is directly expressive of her position, her lifestyle, her personality” (xiii). Thus, the visual cues provided in scenic design become important in constructing power dynamics in a theatrical piece. Again, in discussing her design for Getting Out, Ringer explains that the decision to arrange the scenery in a “nonlogical fashion” was directly related to making manifest the nonlogical aspects of the past that Arlene, the main character, was facing (302). This departure from Realism is a common approach to feminist art and design, and is important in creating a visual language that does not ignore the explicit and implicit messages of gender power that Ringer asks about in her questions above. It is also a way in which women designers can grapple with Ringer’s third question: “How do I as a woman and designer relate to the visual language and the world around me? How do I visually process information?” (299)
Calling attention to the position and interpretation of the designer’s artistic eye is the point at which feminist design departs completely from traditional design practices—becoming conscious rather than unconscious—and comes into direct conflict with the great forefathers of design. In The Dramatic Imagination, Jones demands, “Get the personal you out of your work. Who cares about you?” (41). This call for a complete divorce of the artist from their art is impossible, and in any other art form would be considered ridiculous and ignorant. However, traditional theatrical design practices require a seamless misé en scene that disappears from the consciousness of the spectator. Smith likens the emphasis put upon fusing many artistic visions under one, unifying concept to that of military discipline, in which any “show of individuality is considered a breakdown in discipline. [. . . And in theatre] where any detection of separate individual artistic expression in the production […] is considered a threat to the ‘willful suspension of disbelief,’ a distraction that weakens the impact of the performance” (113).
The creation of a unified design that recedes from the audience’s conscious is bounded by Realism, because at the heart of Realism is the stylistic consistency that is needed to create a design that will recede behind the action of the production. However, some scholars define feminist art as approaching “reality from a feminist perspective” (French 69) and feminist performance art as having a quality of “undecidability [. . . . In which] ‘meanings are explosive, ricocheting and fragmenting throughout its audience. The work becomes a situation full of suggestive potentialities, rather than a self-contained whole, determined and final’” (Smith 111). The departure from Realism needed in order to create this “undecidability” begins with the designer’s awareness of how she processes visual information. The feminist designer is the first lens through which meaning is created, by choosing what images to draw inspiration from and how to mold and edit them into scenic and costume designs. Awareness of her role in the creation of meaning for a given production means that the feminist designer will be aware of the audience’s consumption of that meaning and breaks away from the teachings of traditional design practice which shows “indifference to the philosophical and political meanings embedded in the way that designers work” (Smith 109).
(To be continued...)
French, Marilyn. “Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?” Aesthetics in Feminest Perspecive. Ed. Hilde Hein and carol Korsmeyer. Bloomington, Indiana UP: 1993. 68-76. Print.
Hein, Hilde. “The Role of Feminist Aesthetics in Feminist Theory.” Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics. Ed. Peggy Zeglin Brand and Caroylyn Korsmeyer. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State UP: 1995. 446-463. Print.
Jones, Robert Edmond. The Dramatic Imagination. New York: Theatre Art Books, 1969. Print.
Ringer, Delores. “Re-Visioning Scenography: A Feminist’s Approach to Design for the Theatre.” Theatre and Feminist Aesthetics. Ed. Karen Laughlin and Catherine Schuler. Madison, Farleigh Dickinson UP: 1995. 299-315. Print.
Scolnicov, Hanna. Woman’s Theatrical Space. New York: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.
Simonson, Lee. The Stage is Set. New York, Theatre Arts Books: 1963. Print.
Smith, Raynette Halvorsen. “Deconstructing the Design Process: Teachign Scene Design Process Through Feminist Performance Art.” Perspectives on Teaching Theatre. Ed. Raynet Halvorsen Smith, Bruce A. McConachie, and Rhonda Blair. New York, Peter Lang: 2001. 107-116. Print
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