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.
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.
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.
“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?”
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,
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.
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.
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.