Pamela Howard in Her Workspace BY Paul Terian With a chuckle, PAMELA HOWARD calls herself “a crazy grandmother.” Colorful, exuberant and eclectic, she proves to be a well-rounded theater practitioner. For the past fifty years she has directed, written, drawn, curated, and taught extensively as both a director and designer, with a special focus on opera, musical theatre and events. Awarded the OBE for her lifelong services to drama in 2008, Howard serves as Professor Emeritus at the University of the Arts in London (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design). In addition to realising over 200 productions at all major national and regional theatres in England, she has collaborated extensively with companies and artists from the U.S., Brazil, the Czech Republic, Greece and Taiwan in recent years. A wide and popular readership has enjoyed her richly illustrated book, What is Scenography? (Routledge, 2001) since its first publication; the expanded, second edition was recently published in July. She lives near the sea in West Sussex, England. Visit her website at www.pamelahoward.co.uk.

How I Began… I am often asked how I became a theatre designer, or a scenographer, and how did I know that such a profession existed. From a young age, I went on my own to see visiting ballet companies, finding the cheapest seat at the very edges of the upper circle. I very much enjoyed seeing the dancers smoking in the wings waiting to come on, or preparing themselves for the moment they would step into the acting area and become another person. I realized that the picture they danced in front of on the stage had something to do with the story that was being told, and the moving colours of their costumes are part of that overall picture. I was fascinated by the on and the offstage world, co-existing, dependent on each other yet invisible to the public… I could see how the scenery was constructed, and sometimes I could see the stagehands moving pieces into place, and whispering to each other, as the dancers danced in another world of light and sound. I was fascinated by the on and the offstage world, co-existing, dependent on each other yet invisible to the public unless they cared to look beyond the ethereal dancers. I listened to conversations in the auditorium, and once heard an argument between two elegantly dressed men about the merits of the design we were watching. One man indignantly said of the designer, “He pays no attention to what the piece is about — he just does exactly what he wants, and it’s the same thing every time.” I thought this sounded an interesting way to live one’s life. A short time later, in the class at school, we were asked to write down what we wanted to be when we left school. Most girls wrote ‘ice skater; ballet dancer; air hostess; hairdresser.’ I wrote ‘theatre designer,’ because I thought — I love reading and history, and theatre design just draws it; I also thought, mistakenly, that I could spend the rest of my life doing exactly what I wanted. We handed the papers in, and my future was decided. I did not realize this was only a questionnaire. I thought I had committed myself, and my job was now simply to follow the route and do it. — EXCERPT FROM What is Scenography? BY PAMELA HOWARD (Routledge, 2009), pp. xxii-xxiii

What is Scenography? BY Pamela Howard (Routledge, 2009) From the Publisher: “Pamela Howard’s What is Scenography? has become a classic text in contemporary theatre design and performance practice. In this second edition, the author expands on her holistic analysis of scenography as comprising space, text, research, art, performers, directors and spectators, to examine the changing nature of scenography in the twenty-first century. The book includes case studies and anecdotes from Howard’s own celebrated career illustrations of her own recent work, in full colour throughout an updated ‘world view’ of scenography, with definitions from the world’s most famous and influential scenographers. A direct and personal response to the question of how to define scenography by one of the world’s leading practitioners, What is Scenography? continues to shape the work of visual theatremakers throughout the world.”

In your dense yet marvelously delightful book, What is Scenography? you hinted at many channels of resistance towards “scenographers.” Simply, why do you think the notion as well as practice of “scenography” is still so little understood or much misunderstood? Any cultural or artistic bias? In Eastern and Western Europe, the word “scenography” has always been used and easily understood, both by the practitioners and the public. However, the invasive influence of American theatre interpreted it to be a European way of describing “set design,” and inevitably that influenced other English speaking countries. From the Greek — skeno-grafika — the writing of the stage space… it doesn’t seem so extraordinary to me. So I am always surprised when people get rather uptight about it. I have been told by theatres that “there is not enough space on the programme for such a long word.” Others (as in a very recent experience) pronounced it “fancy.” So, I do think there is a cultural misunderstanding that stems from the American separation via the different unions of set design and costume design which is the antithesis of scenography: the total and holistic creation of visual staging. (The section in my book entitled “World View” contains numerous other opinions worldwide.) Artistically, in this time of spatial exploration and economic stringency, it makes both artistic and economic sense to begin by regrading the performers in the space, and responding to the architecture. Do you remember at Barnard in 2001 when we staged the workshop just in the studio yet we made the sea and the land so simply? And the doorways and everything…[1] I thought it was magic. Given its composite nature and organic process, will scenography be able to replace directing? I rather like to think of it as “creation” and not replicating the conventional directing — which I am sure can coexist. There are so many visual artists who are “artists taking the Lead” and making their own work. From the great Heiner Goebbels to Punchdrunk Theatre’s Felix Barratt, and the young visual artist Becs Andrews… many artists in Spain and beyond who work in an interdisciplinary way. I observe that visual artists are never nervous or afraid of directing taking over scenography, but directors are too often and unecessarily afraid of scenographers taking over directing. There are exceptions. Like the work of the director Katie Mitchell (see her recent work at Salzburg ) and Deborah Warner in her site-specific work, two unafraid women directors… so is it also a gender fear? I am sorry to say it seems also to be so.

Pamela Howard’s Design Model
of The Marriage (2009) by Gogol
BY Paul Terian

Why is it not a good idea to “advocate death to directors” if scenography can open up to a stronger communicative form of theatre?

Simply because cooperation and coexistence is the name of the game, and I think original creation is different from conventional directing.

Speaking personally, I have a whole list of projects that I am waiting to be able to do before I finally give up and die, and considering I am now over 70 there is not all that much time left. I could almost guarantee that the projects I want to do would never ever interest someone who wants to be a conventional director… I always want to say, “Its fine! Don’t worry! I am not taking over your territory! I am just doing my own work for my own obsessions and it’s not going to start the third World War…” I am very keen on holding workshops for directors, getting them to draw and learn to look and see. I do this quite a lot, and I think it makes a difference.

As a practitioner, your style of scenography is in itself a very living form of art.

Absolutely. This is exactly the point.

You emphasize the thrill of composition such that rehearsal and performance become two-in-one. How does time play in as a factor? Can time exhaust itself in such a demanding process when everything is possible?

I think it is more of the question: can I/we/the creator(s) exhaust ourselves in such a process? And I would say it is not for the weak or fainthearted. To work in this way requires complete focus, and collaboration with all those who will make the creation. The initial vision may be personal, but the actual creation cannot be one person alone. Therefore one has to be able to be both rigorous in creating in advance the aesthetics that one is striving for…

To work in this way requires complete focus, and collaboration with all those who will make the creation. The initial vision may be personal, but the actual creation cannot be one person alone.

In my case, it is often placing objects within a space, using strong colours… and being open and receptive as daily work reveals unthought possibilities. If the general aesthetics has been established, and illustrated by drawings or paintings as a starting point, then other people can contribute and ease the load. It’s so like cooking. If the ingredients are good, what comes out will be good to eat.

Sometimes things take a long time… and sometimes, but less often if one is devising original projects, it happens very quickly. Sadly, it depends on finances and other people wanting to give the project a home, and this is the exhausting part — not the creation. Continually putting oneself up for rejection, then picking up, dusting down and starting all over again. The real danger is simply running out of creative steam. Has it always been like this? It’s getting harder, and especially as I get older. People just think I am mad, I think, and sort of a crazy grandmother… Well, there is something about that I enjoy too.

Scenography stresses on being visual, after all. What if one decides to work in a theatrical expression that shifts emphasis from the eyes to the other senses?

‘Stuck and Desperate – V&A will help’
Drawing for V&A Commemorative book pp. 24-25
COURTESY OF Pamela Howard

I work a lot with music and performers, and especially the human voice. This is the dimension in the space, and I see scenography like creating sculptures in space with bodies. The visual is only the equivalent of choreographic notation, or a musical score, that will remain after the actual theatrical event, which is only ephemeral. After a production is over, it only exists in the memory. The visual notations are all that stay. (Look at the little sketch of Calisto and Melibea on the two ladders in my book, for example.) And don’t forget the importance of the text, scenario or score as the inspiration or starting point for any work.

Must scenography necessarily only be applicable in theatre?

Not at all. Note also that working in new spaces attracts new audiences. There is a real hunger for contemporary music and events out of theatres, not withstanding the practical fact that theatres are normally well equipped and work is “easier” there.

How about dramatising other public spaces or events such as museums, rituals…? Would that be pushing too far?

Nothing is too far, and I can and do make performances in all sorts of strange spaces, as you will see from the book. Museums which create “blockbuster exhibitions” have given birth to “museologists” who apply scenographic principles to exhibitions. In this case, it is the audience that moves. The performers who are the exhibits stay static.

At the stage where you are now, how are you going to further develop / enrich as far as your art and resources are concerned?

I have discovered that if your work is your ambassador and people fall in love with it… you can eventually find the right place for your project.

I hope to be taken seriously as a creative artist, and thus to be able to find financial support for my projects that always have a strong link to the community, social and political. If only I could find a patron… but every project is a repetition of the same process of applying for funding from people who can barely grasp your intention. That is why I try to create artwork that speaks for me, because I have discovered that if your work is your ambassador and people fall in love with it, you can eventually find the right place for your project. But it is very, very hard and one has to have a dogged determination. I have projects planned right now up to 2012. Of course I am over 70, so I have a limited time left now to be able to do this kind of work. I have to be realistic about it.