Editor’s note: Theatre designer Joshua Dachs’s opinion article “The Neutrality Trap” (Jan. ’12) elicited a great number of comments from American Theatre readers, many of them professional colleagues of the writer or stewards of studio theatres around the nation. Here is a selection of letters, followed by Dachs’s response.

Is Black the New Black?

Re: Joshua Dachs’s “The Neutrality Trap”: While this article is listed as “Opinion,” and Mr. Dachs is entitled to his, I am concerned about its purpose. Mr. Dachs argues that a black box theatre is not a neutral space. He is absolutely correct, as others have eloquently pointed out before him. Indeed, scholars Ric Knowles and Marvin Carlson have argued against Peter Brook’s theory that theatre provides an empty space, as space “exerts its influence” (Knowles), is “ideologically coded” (Knowles and Carlson), and is “haunted” (Carlson, using Derrida’s hauntology, adapted from Marx—which is, in short, the idea that each experience we have informs the next experience; this can be said of each work of art we spend time with, each building we enter, and our horizon of expectations for the entire theatre experience).

The problem comes in with the tone of the piece. Speaking as someone who works with emerging playwrights at the college level, and who works in New York independent theatre, many of our spaces are found—classrooms, old storefronts, etc.—which we then convert into a space which can speak to a number of needs, and a number of aesthetics. What we have in imagination, we lack in budget, and the black box serves us well on both fronts.

I quote: “Far too many contemporary theatres have been designed to be architecturally autistic (neutral, bland, generic) or self-aggrandizingly extroverted (donor-enticing ‘signature’ buildings that glorify the sculptural proclivities of a particular architect). Both extremes can be numbingly sterile for drama.” So, what does Mr. Dachs propose? That every time a play/musical/performance piece is produced, a new space is erected? If only such a space could accommodate the multiplicity of theatrical expressions! For some of us, there is one: the black box. If Mr. Dachs does not like the color, he is welcome to build his own theatre and paint it as he wishes.

Lastly, I have to mention the use of the word “autistic.” My son has autism, and to suggest that “autistic” is synonymous with “bland” and “neutral” is outright offensive.

Editorials such as this wrongly suggest there is one way to embrace plurality, which is both an oxymoron and purposely divisive. 

Dr. John Patrick Bray, lecturer
Department of Theatre and Film Studies
University of Georgia

Buzz About the Box

The best part about Joshua Dachs’s article was the historical perspective. We all get into the mindset that we have “just discovered” a new way or better way to present theatre. And I agree that flexibility is the buzzword of today. Of course, as the owner of a theatre with mustard curtains, turquoise walls and an orange hallway, the black box idea is not my priority, anyway. I remember talking about the orange hallway as a “palate cleanser” from the lobby to the theatre. 

I hope this provocative article raises awareness from the university to the regional theatres—the safest way is not always the most exciting way. 

Carole Rothman, artistic director
Second Stage Theatre
New York City

The Guthrie Experience

Your readers may be interested in how the black box studio has been utilized by the Guthrie Theater. Our experience in some ways mirrors Joshua Dachs’s take and in some ways diverges. We by no means have found moving the seats too onerous, and frequently move them multiple times in one week. Once we figured out how to encumber the budgets for seat moves (every show coming in or out pays to move them once), we build budgets to accommodate this flexibility. Five years into the building we are still coming up with new ideas. Partially because the capacity goal of 199 seats is not possible without some additional platforms, we use those platforms in different ways to “customize” the seating for the show. Our studio is the busiest space in the building.

Perhaps it’s my background as a lighting designer, but my personal bias is that black is beautiful, especially once the house lights go down. I’m a firm believer in the school of “paint it black and it will disappear,” because, in my experience, it does—and this belief extends beyond the black box setting and includes prosceniums as well. I remember seeing the proscenium arch at San Jose Repertory Theatre several years ago with its gorgeous brown wood panels on either side of the stage. I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s really beautiful, but I wish it wasn’t there.” Now black is certainly variable—there are red blacks, green blacks and blue blacks—but I’ve found that for the most part, the effect of surrounding your setting in black is to render the design in a mostly neutral and therefore flexible context.

Frank Butler, production director
The Guthrie Theater
Minneapolis

Not Worth the Big Stage?

I agree with Joshua Dachs that “neutrality” is a phantom and over-flexibility is a waste. Art is always about “limitations” and boundaries, be they physical, economical or cultural (probably in reverse order). Art that does not deal with (or go against or transcend) limitations is usually flat, stale or simply propaganda. 

A comment on “poor theatre”: In the ’60s there was also a movement called “arte povera” in the visual arts, which took a stance against the opulence of the “traditional bourgeois” cultural machine that was blamed for using art only as pompous diversion from “reality.” When working in Europe and being part of the “poor arts” (in the real sense of having no money and in the aesthetic sense of going against the established and dominating “cultural machines” of the establishment), I always felt insulted by the attitude of the large municipal theatres that the studio theatres were basically release valves for the steam that was not worth the “big stage” and all the infrastructure and potential such spaces may provide. So my work at ZKM [Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany] and at EMPAC was always driven by the thought that the “experimental,” “evocative,” “provocative,” “not so comfy” approaches need the same support as those big productions, which have a larger audience.

I agree that poor artists don’t make “better art”—but being poor does hinder the potential development of “great art.” The decision to build black box theatres in academic environments was most likely not driven by the artists but by the institution that said: “Well, this is what we can offer and this is what you can get—take it or get nothing.” 

Johannes Goebel, director
Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
Troy, N.Y.

Let Me Out!

What a provocative, passionate piece of writing. While I’m receptive to how an atypical space affects what I see on stage, I hadn’t really considered the pervasiveness of the black box and the way that seemingly neutral spaces limit the scope of what I imaginewhile writing. I love how Joshua Dachs tied in misappropriations of Brook’s and Grotowski’s theories with the university setting and economics. I feel like I’ve been in a box this whole time without knowing it!

Mike Lew, playwright
New York City

Funky Is Better

I couldn’t agree more with Joshua Dachs’s point about black paint—I personally like old found brick warehouse spaces with peeling paint, old signs and rusty fire doors. 

Scott Wilson, architect
Wilson Butler Architects
Boston

Joshua Dachs answers: First of all, Dr. Bray is quite right to call me on the use of “architecturally autistic.” I apologize.

More generally, my article is about the fallacy of striving for neutrality in a theatre in the first place, which in my opinion is an inappropriate objective: Painting everything black and wringing out all the character of a place neither achieves that goal nor serves performance particularly well.

There are many kinds of theatre, and many theatre artists with their own perspectives. No one kind of space can serve them all or accommodate every play. The piece does not argue against small experimental theatres, flexible theatres, or even black theatres per se—it looks back at how the idea of the neutral space may have evolved, and it argues that theatres should be special places, designed to inspire and engage artists and audiences. I’m not suggesting neon pink theatres, and I’m not suggesting the imposition of the architectural style-du-jour for any reason whatsoever. Nor am I simply railing against blandness as if it was a decor choice. I’m suggesting that theatre spaces that aren’t engaging on some level—that don’t grab an audience emotionally or intellectually from the time they enter, and don’t inspire artists and give them something to play with (or against)—are simply not doing their job very well. I think we must aspire to more than “neutrality.” Do playwriting programs need simple, inexpensive rooms in which to try things out? Sure. But can’t we also have a dialogue about what qualities we actually value in the spaces we build for performance?

Corrections

On page 139 of the On Stage section (Jan. ’12), Jessica Lauren Ball (not Lauren Ball) is pictured in the Olney Theatre Center’s production of The Sound of Music.

In Elaine Avila’s story “Discovered in Translation” (Jan. ’12), the hill in Panamá City that controls canal operations should have been identified as Cerro Ancón, and the year that students protested and were killed by U.S. soldiers should have been given as 1964.

In the opening photo for Jeff Liu’s report on the ITI World Congress (Feb. ’12), the editors incorrectly identified Wang Ling as the secretary general of ITI. He is the secretary general of the Chinese center of ITI.