Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United States (review)

Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United States is a much-anticipated survey of the history and development of the art and practice of Western theatrical scenic design and painting. Readers are quite familiar with the work of the late Oscar Brockett, author of numerous theatre histories and textbooks, including History of the Theatre (considered by many to be the standard theatre-history text for three decades); World Drama: Perspectives on Contemporary Theatre; A Century of Innovation; and The Essential Theatre. Co-author Margaret Mitchell is professor of theatre arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio and a practicing scenic and costume designer, while Linda Hardberger is the founding curator of the Robert Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum in San Antonio.

The three authors assembled and condensed the research of numerous historians and theatre practitioners in one volume, which is illustrated with over 537 black and white and color images depicting the progression and evolution of scenic design and painting traditions from ancient Greece through the twenty-first century. Approximately one-third of the illustrations are from the Tobin Collection. Tobin, who first conceived this book, intended to use only images from his vast private collection of theatre design; however, the authors understood that to produce a comprehensive history, they needed to seek images from other sources.

Brockett and Mitchell collaborated on the major chapters, with Mitchell writing most of chapter 10 and the epilogue. Brockett integrated the cultural context into the text; Mitchell researched and wrote on the technical aspects of the historic theatres and provided descriptions for the numerous illustrations; and Hardberger wrote concluding sections for each chapter describing audience and cultural milieu (situating scene designers in the worlds in which they worked) and also served as the picture researcher and organizer. David Gunderson was brought in as literary editor and assisted in unifying the writing style. Jodi Karjala was enlisted to assist as picture researcher and oversee what must have been a daunting task of obtaining permissions for all the illustrations.

Arranged chronologically, the chapters and epilogue illustrate the evolution of scene design from classical Greek theatre up to the present. Each chapter explores materials, techniques, technologies, and various philosophical and aesthetic ideas that influenced art and theatre production. These influences include, but are not limited to, theatre architecture, the introduction of perspective-based thought and representation, the advent of electric spotlights, paradigm shifts in aesthetics, evolving social and economic conventions, and the rise of the middle class. Chapters include: "Scenic Design in Ancient Greek and Roman Theaters"; "Medieval Scenic Design"; "The Italian Renaissance"; "Design in France and the Holy Roman Empire from 1640 to the Early Eighteenth Century"; "The Influence of Scena per Angelo on Eighteenth-Century Design"; "Neoclassicism and Romanticism—A Rivalry of Opposites"; "Realism and Naturalism"; "Modernism"; "American New Stagecraft, Russian New Constructivism, Epic Theatre, and the Bauhaus"; "Post–World War II and the Late Twentieth Century"; and "Epilogue: Looking Toward the Twenty-First Century."

As the written word is easier to preserve than the ephemeral elements of acting, directing, and design, most theatre-history texts privilege the work of the playwright. Likewise, words have been traditionally easier to reproduce than images. The recent advances in the transmission and publication of digital images have allowed the authors of Making the Scene to provide a richer appreciation of design as an integral element of the theatre event.

Making the Scene is accessible and informative to general readers, students, academics, and seasoned professionals. The extensive bibliography (with over 400 citations) is in itself a treasure trove of sources. This text will become a standard history of theatrical scenic design and should find its way into the library of every designer, theatre historian, and director, as well as many...