The US national exhibit at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, called "From the Edge", curated a selection of 37 American theatre design works out of 360 submissions. It was housed in an emblematic beat-up garage structure meant to represent innovative fringe theatre in the US. The exhibit showcased socio-politically engaged works exploring themes of loss, tragedy, inequality in response to events like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2008 economic collapse. It featured fewer large productions in favor of small companies and young designers pushing creative boundaries at the "edge" of what constitutes American theatre today.

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2. An e-mail message popped up in our in-boxes soon after the curators re-
turned home from their meetings in March 2010. “I am struck,” a curator
wrote, “by how important it is for us to manifest a cultural re-imagina-
tion.” This comment, a necessary spur to action, was a response to William
Bloodgood’s early architectural ideas of the United States pavilion space.
“I guess if I were going to give Bill any questions to further his
process,” the note continued, “I would ask him where he thinks we are
going—how we are changing? What has dominated and represented the
American cultural landscape—and what is it now?” The curator liked the
fact that the trend toward sustainability was evident in Bloodgood’s pre-
liminary ideas and went on to say he has reservations about the “viability
of current methods, forms, and art-making structures and systems.” “The
Prague Quadrennial is about change,” he said. “What constitutes change
in America? What has changed? (Obvious changes: Bush to Obama. Eco-
nomic collapse reveals a false economy of means.) What is the new econ-
omy of means? (Crisis in arts funding. Scenography must do more with
less. Waste less. Be sustainable.) What does it mean to be sustainable?
How has that changed design for performance?”
New Challenges
These questions cut straight to the core of why From the Edge rocks the
boat. Creating an exhibition of theatre design that both vividly represents
a country and opens up new scenographic or architectural horizons is an
a u.s. Approach to
extremely tall order—if this is the path future curators wish to pursue. At
most European art biennials and mega-exhibitions, curators sidestep the
problem by promoting a single artist (or a group of artists), a synecdoche
that stands for the whole. Add to that challenge the imperative inscribed
in the new moniker of the quadrennial, which has repositioned its focus
from “world scenography” to “performance design and space.”
The layers From the Edge’s curators needed to cut were thick with
ambiguity, obstacle, great diversity, and ambition—not the least of which
was the necessity to search for a compelling metaphorical space that would
house the overall exhibit in Prague. A comparison with the Venice Biennial
might be instructive. In Venice, visual artists are essentially decorators of an
already existing palatial venue in the Giardini or of a historic naval shipyard
site in the Arsenale. What’s doubly crazy about the Prague Quadrennial is
that theatre designers from around the world are expected not only to turn
up every four years with an exhibit of works but also to erect an architec-
tural space that will somehow sum up the disparate elements.
Cultural Re-imaging
From the very start, From the Edge was conceived emblematically. Artistic
director Susan Tsu and the team of curators were intent on showing a
perspective or an image of American theatre that had not typically been
displayed before at the quadrennial. They wanted to create an exposi-
tion that forced the world to re-examine or revise its hard-to-budge
n
By Randy GenerThe exterior of From the Edge, the USITT-USA national exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial, 2011.
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3. performance design
assumptions. Of course, they couldn’t manufacture out of whole cloth a
new cultural re-imagining of U.S. theatre, so part of their journey meant
coming to an agreement about what it means for today’s U.S. designers
to create socio-politically committed work at the shifting edges of new
artistic possibilities. What does it mean to be a risk-taking performance
maker in the U.S. today? Considering the predominantly text-based
works that define the American theatre, can we find works that hew
closer to this new magpie philosophy called “performance design”? To
quote again from the numerous e-mails swapped among the curators:
“Design is becoming more site-specific, [more oriented toward] per-
formance spaces over large scenic treatments which seem gratuitous,
another form of Wall Street’s conspicuous consumption and frankly
are not affordable. Even in the commercial theatre, heavy spectacles
are failing. There is a generational shift that is happening. The basic
structure of musicals and other forms are changing to reflect the audi-
ence’s appreciation for complex performance modalities. The country
is focused on large shifts—demographically, politically, culturally, and
socially.”
To greater magnify those “large shifts,” From the Edge purposefully
concentrates on fewer U.S. productions. Unlike previous American na-
tional exhibits, which had been behemoth affairs, From the Edge wears its
impish unconventionality on its sleeve. Bloodgood’s pavilion is an arrest-
ingly iconic structure—a disheveled old garage space in a grubby section
of a city in Nowheresville, USA. With its brick walls, concrete floor, metal
trusses, and industrial lighting, the mode is beat-up realist. As you ap-
proach it from the entrance of Prague’s National Gallery, the first thing you
are confronted with is a huge graffiti of President Barack Obama’s face
prominently painted on one side. Then you see a playful inflatable sculp-
ture by performance artist Pat Oleszko jutting out on the roof’s edge—a
fanged dinosaur-type monster engorging the figure of Uncle Sam entitled
“WarUSaurus.” Susan Tsu sums it all up perfectly: “From the Edge not
only refers to the brave and dangerous edge of creation but also refers to
our country on edge.”
Many visitors to From the Edge have since expressed a desire to visit
the very workspaces and performing venues in the U.S. where the original
creation had taken place. That impulse speaks directly to the romantic
lyricism that throbs beneath Bloodgood’s conception of a performing-
garage pavilion. If John Conklin’s recreation of a designer’s studio, which
was the USA entry for the 1987 Prague Quadrennial, captured the messy
processes of design, Bloodgood’s pavilion emblematizes the very site and
mind-space of a rowdy, anxious and fecund re-imagining—the chrysalis
of a new American theatre struggling to reinvent itself despite the long
shadows cast by the commercial theatre and the still-living experiments
of the 1960s avant-garde. In fact, Bloodgood took direct inspiration in
the example of the Performing Garage in New York, which serves as the
headquarters and workspace of the Wooster Group.
Apollo (left) and Desire Under the Elms (right)Arias with a Twist
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4. Imaginative Design Amid Tumult of Change
Inside this beat-up performing garage, you see a welter of theater designs
that express complicated viewpoints about American society and politics:
shows ranging from the technologically savvy to site-specific re-envision-
ing of classics which wrestle with death, loss and tragedy after 9/11 and
hurricane Katrina; new plays and devised work about the disenfranchise-
ments resulting from inequalities of race, class and gender; people’s with-
drawal into consumption or inside the white noise of technology in order
to escape the worsening realities of a damaged outside world.
From the Edge displays thirty-seven pieces, out of 360 submis-
sions. The curators paid special attention to work that came from young
companies that have not been exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial be-
fore. They took a tougher stance against big-budget productions from
commercial producers and large nonprofit companies, except in those
very special cases (American Idiot, Appomattox, or Goodman Theatre
of Chicago’s Desire Under the Elms, for example) where the produc-
tions clearly redefined the edge or pushed beyond that boundary. Since
a great number of works selected are ensemble-generated, the cura-
tors gave special recognition to six well-known avant-garde companies
whose historical influence on the new generation has been either di-
rect or inspirational (Builder’s Association, Cornerstone Theater, Ping
Chong and Company, SITI Company, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and The
Wooster Group). Additionally, August Wilson and Ellen Stewart were
paid tribute for their life’s work and inestimable contributions to the
American theatre. In most cases, new U.S. theatre collectives eschew
the typical process of creating sketches or of model-making, with the
result that the only tangible evidence left that a design process took
place are the production photos, the snippets of video, and the audio
excerpts. Sometimes the design was the internal discussion in the midst
of creation.
From the Edge proffers a buoyantly self-critical view from the
ground. With a tongue firmly in cheek, it delivers the hard news: this is
how American theatre artists irreverently wrestled with art, politics, and
imaginative design during the dramatic unraveling of the Aught Decade.
The period in consideration coincided with the tumult of a worldwide eco-
nomic recession and a political transition in the White House—a wrench-
ing reevaluation of core American values that brought about the rise of an
African-American as our country’s forty-fourth president. After twenty years
of the Bushes and the Clintons, angry American voters demanded sweep-
ing change with President Barack Obama—the promise of a break with
the unhappy past or of a new style of politics or, perhaps, a novel racial
transcendence. But exactly what kind of real change could be realized after
Obama was elected? Intriguingly, the majority of artists displayed in From
the Edge, despite their optimism and ebullience, register only their unre-
solved feelings about the possibility of real political change in the situa-
tions of both the U.S. theatre system and our country’s institutions.
Love Unpunished AppomatoxThe Elaborte Entrance of Chad Deity
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5. ements extend the performing body. If displayed with theatrical intention,
design elements can also perform without and in spite of the human body. I
would go so far to say that, after post-structuralism, communication is now
the dominant force in design innovations. PQ provides designers with an
international art-based platform where they can wrest back the centrality
of time-based performance modes, which visual artists have ruthlessly co-
opted for their own ends. Indeed, more and more visual artists are turning
to live performance and site-specific exploration, as can be witnessed in
the Venice Biennale and in the modular Intersection maze of PQ 2011, to
execute their trans-disciplinary ideas. Perhaps the PQ’s “performance de-
sign” mission might work to break out of that visual-art-vs.-theatre-design
silo through a process of providing legitimacy to theatre design as a practice
(a doing), a production (a thing done, a thing that performs), as a per-
formance (a thing that acts), and as an art project worthy of putting on a
pedestal of contemplation in the world’s museums.
Time will tell if Prague’s “performance design” rubric will have a vis-
ible effect in the training and professional practices of U.S. designers. As
theatre art becomes increasingly hyper-local and immersive, the designers
of the future will first need to be widely touted as primary creators of the
spatial or performance event. What is clearer is this: Vibrating within a
new discipline that is up for grabs, From the Edge proposes one approach
toward an American version of performance design. Future curatorial
teams will really have to find the courage to contend with the challenge of
displaying the U.S. anew—of re-envisioning U.S. design creativity within a
competitive international design environment. I believe the future of U.S.
participation in the Prague Quadrennial rests on the continuing advocacy
of acts that delve into “designing performance” and “performing design.”
We need to lay bare the wider potential of scenography and performance
design to reinvent the way human minds create in virtual spaces, in theat-
rical spaces, and in everyday life. v
Randy Gener, the Nathan Award–winning editor, writer and artist
in New York City, served as curatorial advisor to From the Edge. He
was also Editor-in-Chief of PQ Today, the official newspaper of the
Prague Quadrennial. For his editorial work and critical essays as
the former senior editor of American Theatre, Gener has received
the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, the Deadline
Club Award for Best Arts Reporting from the New York chapter of
the Society of Professional Journalists, five awards for excellence in
travel writing from the North American Travel Journalists Association
Awards competitions; and the NLGJA Journalist of the Year 2010. His
website is theatreofOneWorld.org.
“The view of scenography is changing every day,” Tsu says. “Tradi-
tional boundaries and descriptors of scenography are being challenged
by the intersections and blurred lines of other disciplines. U.S. designers
are often frustrated by not being able to manifest the full force of their
ideas. Trained as collaborators, we are mostly responsive to each other,
but many designers want to do more. Strong designers are able to lead
their teams and directors, but not unilaterally. Many designers become
directors and both design and direct, like Nancy Keystone (of Apollo and
The America Play) or Basil Twist (of Arias with a Twist). Paul Chan’s
conception of taking Waiting for Godot to the streets is a brilliant mani-
festation of an old idea. Ping Chong has long been both the designer and
director. David Kaplan both directed and designed Tennessee Williams’
play The Day on Which a Man Dies. Rob Roth (Screen Test) and Chi-
Wang Yang (The Closest Farthest Away) both did the video design for
their pieces.” Tsu adds that she would personally like to see directors and
designers more enmeshed in each other’s work. She would like American
training programs to have “a broader base of studies that includes me-
dia, sculpture and movement in addition to the more traditional courses.
There is much work to be done on this front.”
An International Art-based Platform
In Prague, scenography, performance design, and architecture have to be
deployed as visual experiences that both project and perform. Design el-
In Prague, scenography, performance
design, and architecture have to be
deployed as visual experiences that both
project and perform. Design elements
extend the performing body.
A crush of visitors on opening day.
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