Charles Steckler looks back on 35 years of stage design at Union
When Charles Steckler, studio artist and theatrical designer, arrived at Union in 1971, it was for a “one-year, half-time” faculty position in the Department of Arts. But together with colleague Barry Smith, Steckler produced a very ambitious first year. Both had just graduated from the Yale School of Drama, “although we had never met before arriving at the Nott Memorial Theater, that last week of August, to begin work on a play for freshman orientation,” recalls Steckler.
During that first year, we were uncommonly compatible as artists. It was the beginning of a 28-year collaboration, during which we directed/designed 32 fully staged productions. Working with Barry inspired me to new levels of creative discovery. His originality and openness to my ideas were of central importance to my continuing development as a designer. I had not planned to remain at Union beyond that first year. But the College offered me a ‘3/4-time' contract the following year, and my work with Barry and our new theater program was reason enough to remain at least another year. The rest, as they say, is history. My students and colleagues throughout the years have been a source of great stimulation and encouragement. I consider myself most fortunate to have found my creative home so early in my career.”
Thirty-five years and nearly 100 shows after his arrival on campus, Steckler, now Professor of Theater and Designer-in-Residence, looks back on almost two generations of Union students and audiences, and close to a hundred productions that have been impacted by his stage wizardry. He will be honored for his work in a retrospective exhibit at the Mandeville Gallery in the Nott Memorial, opening January 12, 2006.
As you might expect, the retrospective features many of Steckler's stage designs, drawings, and construction models. There are also interesting artifacts-cloth from a curtain, painted tiles, moldings, puppets, masks, and other props from various productions, such as a large “rock” from the set of Waiting for Godot.
Over the years, Steckler has taken hundreds of photographs recording his sets for posterity and some unspecified future exhibit. “I practice an ephemeral art form; stage design is temporal and temporary. After the play is over, my work ceases to exist. In fact, it is literally destroyed. All that remains is a memory and these few images. It is an unusual occasion when a stage designer's art can have a second life in a gallery exhibition.”
Notes curator Rachel Seligman, stage design is both a rigorous and an unappreciated field. “The art of stage design is complex and multilayered,” she says, “bound as it is to its functional aspects. Exhibiting these artifacts, removed from their original function, emphasizes their visual artistry and strength as aesthetic objects.”
Steckler is dedicating the exhibit to the memory of Jarka Burian, who died earlier this year. “Jarka was a historian, author, director, and professor emeritus of theater at SUNY at Albany. He was always supportive, always interested in my latest projects. I believe we all need models in our lives of remarkable people who possess some virtue or special gift. Jarka, for his combination of intellect, generosity, and friendship, was that kind of example to me.”
It may seem obvious to say that theater is a collaborative art, the intersection of several disciplines and crafts. But it is a distinction that defines a community as well as an art form. At Union, that community is small, but made up of a core of talented people. “I feel lucky to work with such a stimulating group of artists like Bill Finlay, Joann Yarrow, Patsy Culbert, Lloyd Waiwaiole, Miryam Moutillet, and John Miller. But the backbone of this community, of course, is our students. They are smart, energetic, curious, and inventive. I learn from them every day.”
stage design
How much direction?
We asked Steckler how much direction on set design he gets from the playwright and from the director. “It depends,” he says. “Directions from the playwright are sometimes detailed, sometimes terse, sometimes nonexistent. All that Samuel Becket gives us for Waiting for Godot is ‘A country road. A tree. Evening.' That's it. The rest comes out of a close reading of the text, research, and discussions with the director. When I talked with Bill Finlay [Chair of Theater and Dance, and Associate Professor of Theater] about his take on our production of Godot, he offered me this: ‘whoosh,' he said, as he swept his arms through the air. From that I got what I needed. The play's essential action is waiting, but the quality of that ‘country road' where they wait is indeterminate. How literal must I be? I always wanted to do something with clouds and a great starry firmament. I thought the characters might inhabit a staged space enveloped by a ‘whoosh' of a sky with an oddly shaped tree. We built the tree from plywood, cut and sculpted it, and turned it into a tree. Kind of poetic, I think, returning wood back into a tree. In the sky we set a clock whose second hand rotated but whose minute and hour hands were frozen. Floating in that painted sky, the clock seemed like the moon. By this device we alluded to the theme of time passing and simultaneously standing still.”
Steckler is eager to talk about his current project-designing A Midsummer Night's Dream. This production is set in Hawaii. Why Hawaii? “Lloyd Waiwaiole [guest artist and native Hawaiin] is directing, and it was his conception to place Shakespeare's play about love's afflictions in an Hawaiian dreamscape, transposing the songs and dances into traditional Hawaiian chants and hula. It's a brilliant idea and it really works! It is my task to evolve a beautiful Polynesian isle as it might appear in a dream while providing an undulating stage space for 25 actors. We'll have palm trees, a spiraling bamboo ramp, and a volcano spewing lava, volcanic rocks, a waterfall, a popcorn moon, an undersea scene with fish puppets, and a gekko that climbs the proscenium. It's a very exciting project.”
The Question of Individual Style
Sets are designed to aid and illuminate, Steckler points out, and serve as an integral part of the storytelling.
“When I was a student,” he says, “there was this idea that designers don't have their own individual style. We were trained to work in many different styles, to design without inserting our own personalities. This was troubling to me; I envied the painter and sculptor who could work an idea over and over, experimenting and developing it over a long period of time. I rarely get to do that as a designer. Each show is unique with its own circumstances and demands that must be resolved by the deadline and within a budget.”
Nevertheless, Steckler's style comes through. “It is collage-like, layered and eclectic. His dioramas and collage art connect him to Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg,” says Rachel Seligman.
“I call it my ‘Accretion Style,' a penchant, a sensibility,” adds Steckler. “I like to layer and overlap materials to create densities, compressions, and subtle interactions of colors, lines, and shapes. I like to play with materials abstractly for a while. Not every play necessarily lends itself to that treatment, but when one does, I enjoy the opportunity to develop my style a little further.”
The Strike
What happens to his work after the play is over? “As soon as the last member of the audience has walked out of the theater, we strike the set: the work lights go on, the tools come out, and we begin dismantling the scenery. For the audience the show is done when the final curtain falls and they leave the theater; it's done for the actors after the final applause. But for me it's over only when the last piece of lumber is put back up on the shelf and the bare stage is swept clean. The strike is essential to completing the circle that began with the first reading of the play. I usually photograph the empty stage at the end as part of my own closing ritual.”
Memorable Projects
Tartuffe (2004), he says, was great fun to work on. “Strictly set in Moliere's time, we created an authentic-looking kitchen of a great house in Paris in 1671, complete with a double fireplace, masonry walls with cornice moldings, Delft wall tiles, marble floor tiles, a cantilevered balcony, and oculus window, and crystal chandeliers as well as smoked ham hocks, sausages, and cheeses made of papier-mache, pastries of Styrofoam, and all manner of period cooking and serving utensils. It was very rich in detail. Acting, directing, and design intersected successfully to create a convincing view into a 17th-century household.”
Another play that stands out is the Joann Yarrow (artist in residence) production of Metamorphoses (2004)-a fanciful retelling of myths and stories from Ovid on themes of change and transformation. “It was a beautiful production. I used the pool of water called for in the script but adapted it to the space of the Yulman Theater. The entire set was black with a shallow reflecting pool at the center, a wall frieze of classical figures in a nighttime constellation panorama surrounded by thousands (or so it seemed) of twinkling stars. Against that severe background, the actors in sumptuous costumes stood out in bright relief reflected in the water. We built an 800-gallon pool, with advice from former Engineering Dean Robert Balmer and members of the Facilities Department. It was beautiful, and the show was very moving.”
For their production of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1993), “we transformed the Nott into a postcolonial island strewn with the debris of technology and popular culture. We filled the theater with 11 tons of white beach sand and built a split-level beachcomber shack out of distressed barn wood, truck tires, Salvation Army furniture, a dozen or so old TVs, and the front end of a Volkswagen Beetle that served as Caliban's cave. On the surrounding walls, skeletons danced with glowing stars studding a lapis lazuli-colored sky. Under the moody lights, it was like being in some Surrealist planetarium.”
Other Courses, Other Influences
Over the years, Steckler has taught: Stage Design, Puppet Theater Design and Performance, Intermedia Design, Visual Books, Relief Printmaking, Play Grounds, Design Fundamentals, and Freshman Preceptorial. He has also led terms abroad to Italy and England, where he has taught courses in visual thinking through journal-writing, drawing, and photography.
Whose work has influenced him? “Buddha and Picasso. As I understand it, one examined the nature of existence and the other, the nature of perception-things that interest me. Cubism challenged centuries-old habits of rendering space-something I am aware of each time I design a stage set which is both an image and a space. Buddhist teaching and meditation give me a sense of perspective about myself and the workings of my own mind. Early in my life, as a young artist, I was excited by the Dadaist and Surrealist painters and sculptors (who isn't?): de Chirico, Man Ray, Schwitters, Miro, Yves Tanguy, Klee, Giacometti, Max Ernst. Salvador Dali infected my adolescent brain as did Joseph Cornell. I attended the High School of Music and Art, in Manhattan, and spent a lot of time at the Museum of Modern Art and the old Whitney Museum, junking out on art. At Queens College, I had professor Jay B. Keene for theater design, sets, costumes, color theory, scene painting, rendering, and model-making. He was an utterly engaging teacher and an inspired theater artist. Jay set the spark under my britches and recommended that I apply to the Design Program at the Yale School of Drama. I had many wonderful teachers at Yale, but the two notable standouts were Donald Oenslager and Ming Cho Lee, both of them brilliant designers. Once my professional training began in earnest, my influences became many, from contemporary American and European designers to the great masters of the past.”
What does Steckler still want to do? “I'd like some time for studio work. Theater is enormously time-consuming. Stage sets are large constructions. More and more, my personal interest leads me to want to work on my collages, drawings, dioramas, and small sculptures. The dioramas have the quality of stage sets but don't have any of the pragmatic constraints. I'm not beholden to the playwright, or the director, or a budget, or the limitations of a specific theater. Like dollhouses, model train sets, and toy theaters, these are large worlds fitted into small spaces. I can make up the story, the characters, everything.”