Talk:The Long Christmas Ride Home

Recent edits

One-act/Full-length

A previous editor contended that a one-act play could not be full-length. This is a confusion of the two very different terms. Being presented in one act only means that the play has no internal act breaks and is presented without an intermission. A one-act play could be a shorter work (and often is), but in the case of Vogel's play this is not the case. Christmas Ride is also a full-length work, running about 1:40. Christmas Ride is thus both full-length AND one-act, much like, say, Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead, another elegiac one-act full-length play. Preserving this distinction is important. --Vaudedoc (talk) 21:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Sceneography vs. scenic design

A previous editor made two personal contentions regarding the use of the term "scenography:" that it is "obscure" and "pretentious." I disagree. Scenography is not an archaic or obscure form of "scenic design;" it is a completely different term, one that refers to an encompassing artistic vision of the stage picture. As such, it includes scenery, properties, costumes,, lighting, etc. Vogel's vision for the play, as expressed in her forward to the published script, is that the entire stage picture should embrace Wilder's brand of presentational minimalism. When the family travels in the car, for example, lights should not flash by them to indicate passing headlights. In this, she is expressing a scenographical vision for subsequent productions. This execution of this kind of larger, unifying vision for the stage picture involves either one or several designers in the scenography of the piece. (When one person alone is responsible for that vision--e.g., Svoboda--that person functions as the scenographer: a unifying visionary for multiple design elements.) Second, while that individual editor might consider the term "pretentious," it is in widespread use across the professional and academic theatres, the subject of serious scholarship, and broadly used. Just because a particular editor finds a term pretentious (say, referring to the longest tenured member of the majority party in the U.S. Senate with the Latin title of president pro tempore) doesn't mean it is not proper and useful, particularly when, as in this case, personal preference for one term over another actually changes the meaning of the reference. --Vaudedoc (talk) 21:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Response

Wow. You're pretty confused. A play that has no act-divisions isn't a one-act play, it's just a play without acts. A one-act play refers only to plays of a short duration. As far as scenography goes, I was making an assessment based on current academic and professional usage. The term is not generally-accepted or widely-used in either field. I'm perfectly aware of Svoboda's ideas--actually, you ought to credit Craig for the one you mention--but you're confusing "scenographer" with "theatre practitioner" and the wide-spread attention given by most 20th-century theatre-makers to all aspects of theatrical production (though not all of them want to "unify" those elements). At a stretch, you could use "scenographer" for theatre directors that also design--Robert Wilson, Craig, etc.--but only if you really had to. To describe a play's staging as its "scenography" is obscure, rare, and without specific justification arising from the practitioner in question, pretentious. Restoring the more-common form and corrections. DionysosProteus (talk) 22:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

First, DionysosProteus, I don't think using your tone--calling an editor with whom you disagree "pretty confused"--is particularly helpful to discussing the issues at hand. It sounds as if we're both theatre professors with PhD's in the field. Second, I would note that the definition of one-act play included mention of longer works (e.g., Art) up until the moment you edited it today to match your own far more limited definition. (editors should go back and round out and broaden this entry now.) A one-act play quite often is a shorter work, but it need not be. It is a structural distinction (i.e., a single act), not one based on duration (e.g., brief). It would be akin to saying a soliloquy, defined by its single speaker and its point of address, must always be "a fairly short speech, usually under ten minutes" simply because most are. That definition would exclude, say, Susan Miller's My Left Breast, a full-length play that is also a soliloquy.

As for scenography, it is the focus of major conferences, books, journal articles, and scholarly studies. One can receive a graduate degree in it from major research universities in multiple countries. (I mentioned Svoboda, by the way, as an example of one scenographer, not as the originator.) One of the largest design organization in the world is the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians. The Prague Quadrennial, the largest and most prestigious of design gatherings, is also known as "International Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture." While many theatre practitioners or audience members might not be aware of or commonly use the term in conversation, I don't know of many theatre scholars who would describe the term "scenography" as "obscure." The same could be said of Gesamtkunstwerk, of course, and that doesn't mean WP should not employ that term precisely and deftly. (I will confess I'm a bit confused as to why you think the term could now be only applied to theatre directors who also design multiple elements--and only then at a stretch. The theatre world is filled with countless practicing and notable scenographers who do not direct the works with which they are associated.) The Christmas Ride entry does not, as you appear to argue, confuse the "staging" of the piece with its many design elements. You are of course quite right in noting that many modern playwrights take great pains to insert themselves into the envisioning of subsequent productions. However, the increased frequency of such playwrights doing this, when compared against most of their nineteenth-century counterparts, should not impeach a writer having a scenographical vision when writing. If anything, it argues for the waxing importance of this type of vision. What the article needs now in this section is a fleshing out of costume and lighting to accompany the mention of scenery and properties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vaudedoc (talk • contribs) 06:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)