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Page 88a
The tea room of the Ritz-Carlton in which lattice, mirrors and plants are largely depended upon for effect.
Page 88b
One of Robert Edmund Jones' settings which loses fearfully in its effect by the photographer's inability to reproduce
the color and lighting. 'Scene from Richard III.
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CHAPTER VI
STAGE SETTINGS
THE one enormous advantage that the designer of stage settings has over every other type of decorator is that he is his own architect. He not only designs the embellishments, but also the scene itself. He cannot explain the shortcomings of his work by laying them up to the architecture of the room. His only curb is the stage description of the author and this is frequently merely a general suggestion of certain exits and pieces of furniture and is often not very closely followed. In the designing of exterior scenes for the stage the decorator has a still freer hand and if he is a modern he constructs heaven and earth out of his own imagination.
We have only to remember the stage settings which were current ten years ago to realize what a tremendous advance has been made. At that time it was still the practice of many managers to produce woodland scenes by means of wings made up of foliage distributed along either side of the stage and a painted realistic back drop done in perspective to give the effect of distance, which became rather grotesque as the characters on the stage approached it. The interior scenes were also pictured at times with wings and at others with a box-like effect, making up a room with an enormously high ceiling, over-elaborately decorated walls and a great many doors. This was
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90INTERIOR DECORATING
anything but realistic, as very few of the homes of that time looked like the homes that were pictured on the stage.
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