"...AND THIS fine set was carefully crafted by Master Carpenter Scott Kirkpatrick, whose imaginative use of one-by-threes with two-by-fours makes for an exceptionally light but sturdy structure. Not only did George Lindsay's lights enhance the play's atmosphere, but they always hit the actors just right. Lindsay also edged areas cleanly without extraneous ambient light.
"Finally, Stage Manager Mary Ettling got all the actors on stage on time, and got all stagehands off stage before the curtain rose."
So went the rave that was never written. But the characters and compliments are real enough. The audience at a Harvard show is pretty unaware of techies--the backstage and front office people who organize, frame and run a production--except as names on the right hand side of a program. But from the inside they seem pretty significant, much more so than in professional theatre.
In New York a tech director, carpenter or stage manager is an employee--someone whom you hire on the basis of credits he has piled up. At Harvard a good techie is a scarce commodity. He has rare skills which are essential to a show, and more job offers than he can possibly accept. And, of course, Harvard techies don't get paid.
NO WONDER two out of three Harvard Dramatic Club officers are techies--Jenny Tarlin '70 and Mary Ettling '70. And two out of five members of the club's executive board are techies. (This proportion is lower than that of some past boards.)
Tech people are a special breed, and can seem like a pretty strange one until they explain themselves. Why would anyone spend 40 hours a week in the Loeb shop hammering nails, sawing boards, and even taking nails out of boards? How can a stage manager sit through a month of three-hour rehearsals six days a week, and then still go on to make sure everybody and everything is in the right place at the right time for from three to seven performance nights? Why will a lighting designer and his master electrician pull all-nighters to hang their lights?
The answers have to do with the nature of the tasks themselves, the nature of theatre, life at Harvard, and, of course, the individuals involved.
A set designer's role and motivations depart from general patterns. He probably works more closely with the director than any other techie, and also comes closest to being an actor. While he doesn't take a curtain call, his work can draw applause, and his name is attached to it.
RANDY DARWALL '70, Harvard's current star undergraduate designer, and Howard Cutler '68, a graduated great, share an artist's concern for developing their work; on the other hand, carpenters learn and innovate, but are less conscious of an evolution. Also, a builder cares less about which play he works on, because he's not involved in interpreting it.
Because he wants to go professional, Darwall designs an enormous number of shows--and has worked on Gilbert and Sullivan and Loeb shows simultaneously twice (Patience and The Dybbuk; Ruddigore and She Stoops to Conquer).
But Darwall is tired of going show after show and will only design Bonds of Interest this semester. He has branched out from a realistic style into an often impressionistic one. But he feels stuck there, wants to "pause and reevaluate," and is now taking a course with Eric Martin in set design toward that end.
Cutler acted at Harvard, but then decided he liked designing better. But he maintained an "actor's attitude," picking shows carefully, with an interest in theatre rather than set-making for its own sake. Cutler eventually narowed his field down to Timothy Mayer's shows because "he [Mayer] runs a more interesting project."
Working fairly consistently with Mayer at Agassiz both summer and winter, Cutler feels he and others of the group developed artistically by building on what went before; each set was an opportunity to make a "new space" in that loveable but limited theatre. From his Plebians Rehearse the Uprising (May, 1967) to his tow-storied Midsummer Night's Dream (July, 1968) set ("a poor man's architecture, not a framework"), Cutler has been highly conscious of progression within the company.
BESIDES LOVE of theatre, the chance to work with people and collaborate moves these two artists to design for the stage rather than sticking to pure plastic art. As Cutler put it, "Just painting along in the basement of Mem Hall isn't all that much fun."
Sooner or later virtually every techie gives the same reason--"people"--as an at least partial answer to why he does what he does. HDC Corresponding Secretary Mary Ettling has been described as a wonderful supertechie "who will do anybody's dirty work." She does all that "shit work" because she likes the people she does it with and for, and because "someone has to."
