Identifier: arttheatrediscus00chen (find matches)
Title: The art theatre; a discussion of its ideals
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Cheney, Sheldon, 1886-1980
Subjects: Detroit Little theater movement
Publisher: New York, A. A. Knopf
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ng a definite stylethrough all parts of the production. In thisbroad interpretation the term is a synonym forsynthetic treatment. Stylization has recentlybeen narrowed by many writers to mean the ap-plication of individual style to the plays settings.But even when the unifying process is thus con-fined to the mise-en-scene, it is still a powerfulfactor in imparting continuity and singleness ofimpression to the production. It happens that the designing of appropriatesettings is the direction in which all countrieshave made greatest progress toward the new ideal.The artists concerned have developed certain in-ventions which are definite aids to the attainmentof synthetic effect. New lighting systems makepossible the creation of atmospheric effects whichare delicately attuned to the most subtle emotionalor spiritual values of the play; new mechanicaldevices make possible rapid change of scene, thusdoing away with the long between-acts waitswhich used to do so much to destroy continuity64
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Ideals of the Art Theatre of interest and mood; and adaptable settings,wherein certain elements remain through severalchanges of scene, carrying a subconscious senseof oneness through several scenes, bring a newharmony of background. Kenneth Macgowanspeaks, for instance, of a curious unity achievedwhen Joseph Urban used a permanent skeletonsetting through all the scenes of The Love of theThree Kings. And William Butler Yeats writesenthusiastically of a lingering tone of restful-ness and beauty running through a series of ar-rangements of Gordon Craigs screens. It may be that through the search for the ideal,through applying the unifying principle to thebest plays we now know, the art theatres will dis-cover new forms of drama more beautiful thanany so far developed. Perhaps that decorative,typically theatric, de-humanized art which manyof us have visualized fleetingly while we dreamedover the pages of Gordon Craigs essays will be-come a reality when the art-theatre method isstudied, p

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