DYEING FOR PLAYS AND PAGEANTS
The play bases its claim in the school curriculum on the very essence
of human nature. The art of being someone or something else in thought
and action under a setting of conditions and through a flow of events
is practiced by all of us. It is the eternal expression of playful and
imitative childhood, and, though restraints enter with maturity, it
never leaves us. Witness the audience we give to the stage.
[Illustration: {COSTUME FROM A PLAY} {p. 97}]
This has been recognized in the study of the play in literature and in
the production of the school play. The application of the art training
of the school in giving the play its setting and costumes is of the
greatest value. The life of a school finds expression, through
co-operation of all departments, in its own community theater.
Dyeing is an important consideration in a dramatic production.
Colorful costumes and properties have a large part in making a play.
[Illustration: MINIATURE STAGES, PLAIN AND DECORATED BY CHILDREN
{p. 98}]
[Illustration: STAGE SCENES IN MINIATURE {p. 99}]
The possibilities of continuous play without scene shifting, by
drawing unobtrusive curtains alternately to the right and to the
left--creating atmosphere by the merest suggestion--is simple when
dyes and dyeing enter into the plans of the setting. The old heavy
painted scenery is not a part of the new drama.
The ground cloth and colored lights also offer opportunities for the
service of the dyer.
Costumes are more easily created when soft old materials are dyed, and
it requires but little experience to discover how the beauty and
effectiveness of a play are enhanced thereby.
The proscenium arch takes its place in the illusion, when the
imagination is stimulated by color decoration.
There should be an intimate co-operation between the community of
little theater and craft workers.
The relation of the little theater to those who do handicraft is
stated by Mr. George Somnes, Director of the Little Theater of
Indianapolis, as follows:
"Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance of all-over
dyeing, batiks, and other pattern dyeing, and their application in the
work of the little theater.
"Preeminently the little theater stands for the giving of the theater
back to the artist, be he producer, musician, scene designer, costume
designer, dancer or author. There is the endeavor to establish each
little theater group as a means of community expression. The use of
color in its relation to the play and lights, as scenery and in
costumes, is so obvious and necessary that it needs scarcely more than
mention. As experimentation is necessary and desirable, there must be
at the bottom an actual foundation and knowledge upon which to
experiment and build.
[Illustration: MINIATURE STAGECRAFT {p. 100}]
"School plays and pageants could be improved many hundred percent if
the knowledge of color and its application were made more general. Not
only would children be taught that green and red go together, but they
would be taught just _what_ greens and reds form the various
combinations--they could find out under what lights certain colors
react best.
"Give us more artists and craftsmen and we will have a real theater;
give us local artists and craftsmen and we will have a Community
Theater."
In the following item from "The Workshop," the magazine issued by the
Little Theater Society of Indiana, the editor writes to the community
of the dyed costumes used in "Dierdre of the Sorrows."
"The Little Theater Society feels it very significant that they are
able to call attention to the use of color in the present production
and to mention that its application in this play is the work of local
artists. The Waldcraft Studios have generously given time, service and
experience to help make this production complete. Does not that sound
hopeful for our development, and by example, are there not more people
in other fields who can give their time, knowledge and experience to
the development of something which when it is completed as an
institution will belong to you?"
[Illustration: MINIATURE STAGE, PLAIN AND DRAPED WITH BATIKED
HANGINGS {p. 103}]
The illustrations shown in this chapter are, (1) a plain miniature
stage constructed of pasteboard and upon which the study of the
decoration for a school play may well begin, (2) two stages that have
been thus decorated, (3) two scenes in a play with miniature jointed
dolls wearing real dyed costumes made by children, (4) several
children at work designing and constructing for plays, (5) a group of
scenes from a play given in a backyard, for which the costumes were
especially dyed, (6) another miniature stage made of wood, shown plain
and decorated with dyed hangings for a play, and (7) some character
parts from the Little Theater of Indianapolis, for which special
dyeing was done.
The miniature pasteboard stages, page 98, were decorated with opaque
water colors by school children. These illustrate the preliminary step
in decorating a stage with dyed textiles. They would reproduce in
batiks.
The first decorated stage is planned to play "Treasure Island." The
decoration over the proscenium arch is "The little ship that is headed
south-west," and the border,
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum."
The background colors are blue and black, the ship white and the
fifteen men red and white.
The other stage is planned for a patriotic entertainment. The colors
for this occasion are conventional.
The miniature stage in wood (page 103) and the ensemble pictured
suggests dyeing of stage properties.
[Illustration: SCENES FROM AN OUT-OF-DOOR PLAY {p. 105}]
The proscenium arch of this little stage was decorated for the study
of the play "Restoring the Mourners." The dramatic story tells of the
exile of the Miami Indians from Indiana to Kansas. When this event
took place there were seventeen states in the Union. The Indians
called these states the "Seventeen Fires" (Council Fires). These
"fires" were treated symbolically in the border at the top of the
proscenium arch.
The fires, realistic in color, were painted in and stopped out with
wax. The panels were dyed blue. The spaces back of the fires and the
council were stopped out with wax and the whole dyed a deep purple.
This stage construction is suitable for the end of a room or hall
where there is no balcony or for out-of-doors.
The curtain, seen through the proscenium arch and enlarged on page
108, is an interesting batik dyed in values of red, blue and purple.
The decoration was painted realistically on the white silk and covered
with wax.
The bottom of the piece for about four or five inches was kept in the
dye-bath until most of the color was exhausted. A small amount of red
was added to the bath and little by little the material was immersed
in the bath until about two-thirds of the goods were dyed.
The top of the material was dyed blue in like manner.
The bottom is a brilliant red, the top a bright blue and the center
different values of purple and pale lavender.
The pictures of Mr. George Somnes and Mrs. Eugene Fife as Naisi and
Dierdre, in "Dierdre of the Sorrows," page 107, illustrate some of the
hand-dyed costumes for this play.
[Illustration: HAND DYED COSTUMES FROM THE LITTLE THEATER {p. 107}]
Mrs. Fife's cloak was a beautiful clear blue; her dress a dark red;
the tie-dyed veil a deep purple; the design an intense yellow-gold.
There was no attempt to show batik in the decoration. The wax resist
was the easiest means of decorating the costume.
Mr. Somnes' cloak was a purple gray with symbolic designs painted in
wax. His boots were dyed brown.
These costumes were made of old material. All of the costumes were
dyed to suggest contact with the elements.
[Illustration: A SCENE CURTAIN {p. 108}]