Designing the Domestic: A Photo Essay
Curated by Michael Schweikardt
What is domestic space? When taken alone, the word domestic means “of or belonging to the home.” But the term domestic space is not exactly synonymous with home. In the theatre especially, this term refers instead to an image or representation of home—domestic space is the simulacrum of home. As a freelance scenic designer who has spent fifty percent of my adult life on the road, I know the importance of establishing domestic spaces. When adrift in the strange world I often feel alarmingly disconnected. To keep myself moored, I travel with articles of home (my old blue pillow, a pound of my favorite coffee) in my suitcase, unpacking them in generic hotel rooms in an effort to make them feel homey. I carry personal items (my ever-present laptop, an ancient wooden box of pencils) in a bag on my back to theaters where I set them on tech tables, establishing home bases for myself in darkened auditoriums. I label old coffee cups with my name, written on spike tape in black Sharpie, and claim room among dozens of other cups on crowded shelves in greenrooms. Everywhere I go I create a sense of belonging by staking out a small piece of territory and making it my own. I domesticate the space.
Domestic space is both an idea and a thing. We discuss the notion of space that represents home in theatre, and we materialize this notion on stage in a theater. It is incumbent upon |
scenic designers to realize meaning materially on stage, to spin the notion of home into a scenic environment that a play can inhabit. The job of the scenic designer is that of world-builder. We are the makers of the simulacra of home. Consequently, no forum on domestic space in theatre would be complete without inviting some scenic world-builders to contribute to the conversation. Perhaps domestic space means something different for scenic designers than it does for other theatre artists? How is it that scenic designers go about transforming ideas of domestic space into form and dimension? How do they decide what to include in the representation and what to edit out?
Ultimately, a designer’s work is meant to be seen, so the editors of this issue of Etudes invited several scenic designers to contribute two images of their work, along with their thoughts on how domestic space is present in their designs. Stage design is, of course, “an art of time, motion, action, and space,” as designer and scenographic scholar Arnold Aronson concisely expressed it. But, photos of stage designs, by nature, are records which lack motion and action. They are missing the key element of an actor to stir and enliven the space. Nonetheless, this lack of resolution is itself a source of drama, for although the photos in this essay are artifacts of production, they still show us the signposts devised by designers that stand in for larger ideas—we can study them, read them. They represent domestic spaces that are, at once, both real and fictional, present and remembered, normal and supernatural. They are simulacra of home.
For the purposes of curation, I have come to think of the following contributions in a few broad categories: spaces of public privacy, two types of domestic space that experience intrusions from the outside world, and spaces which conceive of home as a protective casing. In the first category, a symbiotic relationship exists between private space and public space; one cannot exist without the other. We create the illusion of domestic space in reaction to the public world, out of a need to create for ourselves, some false sense of interiority. We may try to enclose our private space, but we can never shut out the public world entirely. Designers often explore the innate tension between domestic space and public space, and the anxieties of characters that inhabit them. Amanda J. Stuart’s designs for Trouble in Tahiti and The Diary of Anne Frank describe hidden interiors of self-imposed isolation. Be it the American suburbs of the 1950s or 1942 Amsterdam, the porous walls that surround her designs make palpable the anxiety of being discovered by the outside world. In her design for Stop Kiss, Soledad Sanchez Valdez’s apartment interior crowds the stage. The implied safety of this home is invaded by a suggestion of a public street that slices across the downstage left corner of the space. In Valdez’s design for The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the interior fantasies that reside within the shelter of a small jail cell stand in opposition to the oppressive power of the prison that surrounds it. David Barber’s sets for Byhalia, Mississippi and Everything is Wonderful reflect the non-traditional families that created them. Depicted as islands of domesticity set against larger landscapes, they struggle to claim their space within the communities that threaten to destroy them. In Jess Fitzpatrick’s design for Flyin’ West, the physical representation of “a home of their own” means freedom for the former slaves, and children of slaves, who inhabit it. This sits in sharp contrast to her design for On Trial where home, invaded by a courtroom, becomes a system of repression for those who live there. Colt Frank’s design for Stick Fly expresses domestic space as interior islands of comfort. When Frank takes his notion of interiority further in his design for Yours, Anne, he obviates the need for physical shelter from the outside world entirely.
No matter how hard one tries to seal off his or her interior space from the outside world, the public will always intrude upon the private; the phone will ring, the doorbell will chime, the mail will arrive. These intrusions upon the private are not always limited to natural forces—spaces of interiority are often disturbed by the supernatural. George Maxwell’s designs for Next to Normal and Clybourne Park present tangible domestic spaces that are disrupted by intangible human histories that haunt them. In The Ghost of Splinter Cove, Anita J. Tripathi shows how one space of domestic safety becomes transformed physically when disturbed by characters who reside only in memory. Joe C. Klug juxtaposes the quiet domesticity of a mundane, Irish shop in his design for The Cripple of Inishmaan with an aloof attic space that, when stirred, magically spills forth the contents of its stored memories in Big Fish.
Sometimes, our sense of self is defined by how we see our self in relation to the public world. If domestic space is an illusion, it cannot succeed at isolating us from public life. Isolation is a wish, a longing, for we all must go out into the public world, and when we return, we bring that world inside with us. Spaces of interiority become reflections of our public persona. Andrew R. Cohen’s design for Jewish Queen Lear and Tom Burch’s design for The City of Conversation reflect domestic spaces created by matriarchs who display their public wealth to prove their power in the world. In his design for The Crucible Cohen presents a public face of domestic calm that is meant to belie the truth of the inner turmoil of the household. Designer Leazah Behrens’s designs for August, Osage County, and Luna Gale expose the domestic chaos present in both plays when she puts their messiness on full public display.
Often the angst we feel over navigating the outside world will result in a need to exercise some sense of control. This can take the form of domestic étui: a collection of objects from the public world brought under the seal of the private space. The collecting of objects divorces them from their intended purpose and deprives them of their usefulness. Enclosing the impotent collection in one’s private space creates an illusion of control. Robert Mark Morgan’s design for The Dazzle begins as an empty space, but the anxieties of the main characters emerge as the landscape becomes more and more full of stuff. This impulse to amass and entrap objects borders on hoarding; it is a reaction to feeling out of control in the world. Paige Hathaway’s design for John is also characterized by an obsessive accumulation of objects. Trapped inside of the chaos of the assemblage, the characters themselves become part of their own collection. Conversely, Morgan’s design for Fallen Angels features a carefully curated and displayed collection of furniture. The placid arrangement of objects sealed in this interior serve to create an illusion of domestic tranquility. The collection sealed inside of Hathaway’s design for Becoming Dr. Ruth consists of a series of boxes that are meant to signify that a character is packed to move, but as the boxes are opened, they reveal more interior spaces that contain collections of their own.
Before moving on to the photos themselves, it is worth taking a moment to ponder the significance of scenic design. A revolutionary in theatrical stagecraft and the dean of the New Stagecraft Movement in America, stage designer Robert Edmond Jones said, “A setting is not just a beautiful thing, a collection of beautiful things. It is a presence, a mood, a symphonic accompaniment to the drama, a great wind fanning the drama to flame.” Designers are world-builders; they give shape to the drama by materializing meaning on stage. While there are as many possible representations of domestic space as there are productions of plays that require a domestic setting, the photos in this essay demonstrate specific ways that designers have given meaning to domestic space by materializing the simulacra of home.
Ultimately, a designer’s work is meant to be seen, so the editors of this issue of Etudes invited several scenic designers to contribute two images of their work, along with their thoughts on how domestic space is present in their designs. Stage design is, of course, “an art of time, motion, action, and space,” as designer and scenographic scholar Arnold Aronson concisely expressed it. But, photos of stage designs, by nature, are records which lack motion and action. They are missing the key element of an actor to stir and enliven the space. Nonetheless, this lack of resolution is itself a source of drama, for although the photos in this essay are artifacts of production, they still show us the signposts devised by designers that stand in for larger ideas—we can study them, read them. They represent domestic spaces that are, at once, both real and fictional, present and remembered, normal and supernatural. They are simulacra of home.
For the purposes of curation, I have come to think of the following contributions in a few broad categories: spaces of public privacy, two types of domestic space that experience intrusions from the outside world, and spaces which conceive of home as a protective casing. In the first category, a symbiotic relationship exists between private space and public space; one cannot exist without the other. We create the illusion of domestic space in reaction to the public world, out of a need to create for ourselves, some false sense of interiority. We may try to enclose our private space, but we can never shut out the public world entirely. Designers often explore the innate tension between domestic space and public space, and the anxieties of characters that inhabit them. Amanda J. Stuart’s designs for Trouble in Tahiti and The Diary of Anne Frank describe hidden interiors of self-imposed isolation. Be it the American suburbs of the 1950s or 1942 Amsterdam, the porous walls that surround her designs make palpable the anxiety of being discovered by the outside world. In her design for Stop Kiss, Soledad Sanchez Valdez’s apartment interior crowds the stage. The implied safety of this home is invaded by a suggestion of a public street that slices across the downstage left corner of the space. In Valdez’s design for The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the interior fantasies that reside within the shelter of a small jail cell stand in opposition to the oppressive power of the prison that surrounds it. David Barber’s sets for Byhalia, Mississippi and Everything is Wonderful reflect the non-traditional families that created them. Depicted as islands of domesticity set against larger landscapes, they struggle to claim their space within the communities that threaten to destroy them. In Jess Fitzpatrick’s design for Flyin’ West, the physical representation of “a home of their own” means freedom for the former slaves, and children of slaves, who inhabit it. This sits in sharp contrast to her design for On Trial where home, invaded by a courtroom, becomes a system of repression for those who live there. Colt Frank’s design for Stick Fly expresses domestic space as interior islands of comfort. When Frank takes his notion of interiority further in his design for Yours, Anne, he obviates the need for physical shelter from the outside world entirely.
No matter how hard one tries to seal off his or her interior space from the outside world, the public will always intrude upon the private; the phone will ring, the doorbell will chime, the mail will arrive. These intrusions upon the private are not always limited to natural forces—spaces of interiority are often disturbed by the supernatural. George Maxwell’s designs for Next to Normal and Clybourne Park present tangible domestic spaces that are disrupted by intangible human histories that haunt them. In The Ghost of Splinter Cove, Anita J. Tripathi shows how one space of domestic safety becomes transformed physically when disturbed by characters who reside only in memory. Joe C. Klug juxtaposes the quiet domesticity of a mundane, Irish shop in his design for The Cripple of Inishmaan with an aloof attic space that, when stirred, magically spills forth the contents of its stored memories in Big Fish.
Sometimes, our sense of self is defined by how we see our self in relation to the public world. If domestic space is an illusion, it cannot succeed at isolating us from public life. Isolation is a wish, a longing, for we all must go out into the public world, and when we return, we bring that world inside with us. Spaces of interiority become reflections of our public persona. Andrew R. Cohen’s design for Jewish Queen Lear and Tom Burch’s design for The City of Conversation reflect domestic spaces created by matriarchs who display their public wealth to prove their power in the world. In his design for The Crucible Cohen presents a public face of domestic calm that is meant to belie the truth of the inner turmoil of the household. Designer Leazah Behrens’s designs for August, Osage County, and Luna Gale expose the domestic chaos present in both plays when she puts their messiness on full public display.
Often the angst we feel over navigating the outside world will result in a need to exercise some sense of control. This can take the form of domestic étui: a collection of objects from the public world brought under the seal of the private space. The collecting of objects divorces them from their intended purpose and deprives them of their usefulness. Enclosing the impotent collection in one’s private space creates an illusion of control. Robert Mark Morgan’s design for The Dazzle begins as an empty space, but the anxieties of the main characters emerge as the landscape becomes more and more full of stuff. This impulse to amass and entrap objects borders on hoarding; it is a reaction to feeling out of control in the world. Paige Hathaway’s design for John is also characterized by an obsessive accumulation of objects. Trapped inside of the chaos of the assemblage, the characters themselves become part of their own collection. Conversely, Morgan’s design for Fallen Angels features a carefully curated and displayed collection of furniture. The placid arrangement of objects sealed in this interior serve to create an illusion of domestic tranquility. The collection sealed inside of Hathaway’s design for Becoming Dr. Ruth consists of a series of boxes that are meant to signify that a character is packed to move, but as the boxes are opened, they reveal more interior spaces that contain collections of their own.
Before moving on to the photos themselves, it is worth taking a moment to ponder the significance of scenic design. A revolutionary in theatrical stagecraft and the dean of the New Stagecraft Movement in America, stage designer Robert Edmond Jones said, “A setting is not just a beautiful thing, a collection of beautiful things. It is a presence, a mood, a symphonic accompaniment to the drama, a great wind fanning the drama to flame.” Designers are world-builders; they give shape to the drama by materializing meaning on stage. While there are as many possible representations of domestic space as there are productions of plays that require a domestic setting, the photos in this essay demonstrate specific ways that designers have given meaning to domestic space by materializing the simulacra of home.