Robert Edmond Jones

Jones Comments

*12 December 1887-26 November 1954) was an American scenic designer. Jones is credited with incorporating the new stagecraft into the American drama. Jones’s designs sought to integrate the scenic elements into the storytelling instead of having them stand separate and indifferent from the play’s action. His visual style, oftentimes referred to as simplified realism, combined bold vivid use of color and simple, yet dramatic, lighting.

Biography

*He was a highly educated although somewhat introverted young man. Born in Milton, New Hampshire, in 1887, he was the son of Fred Jones, a respected New England merchant-farmer, and Emma Cowell of the noted Moody family to whom Ralph Waldo Emerson was so proud to be related. Jones’ mother was as much responsible for Jones’ artistic sensibilities and education as was his primary education, Harvard degree, or anything else.

Education

*Jones graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1910, and after a year as a graduate assistant and another as an instructor in the art department he left Harvard Yard for New York (1912) with less money that aspiration, bent on a career in the theatre. At Harvard, Jones was had become familiar with the writings of Gordon Craig, and when he heard that Craig had just opened a school of theatre in Florence he expressed a desire to attend. On June 27, 1913, he sailed for Europe in the company of John Reed and Carl Van Vechten. Craig unceremoniously refused even to receive Jones, far less allow him to attend his school. Rejected, Jones fell in fortuitously with the German Baron Freiherr von Schlippenbach who invited him to come to Berlin where he said he would arrange Jones to observe Max Reinhardt at work in the Deutsches Theater. In Berlin, Jones had the opportunity to attend Reinhardt’s productions and study the designs of his principle artists: Ernst Stern, Karl Walser, Emil Orlik, Alfred Roller, and Oscar Stnard. *Jones learned that suggestive lighting on moving bodies and three-dimensional shapes can produce powerful stage effects. Lighting for mood and plasticity would become a key feature of Jones’ stagecraft.

*He arrived back in the United States in September 1914, out of pocket, without a job, and undernourished. His trip cut short by the outbreak of World War 1. He came back with many ideas and images.

His return to American theatre

*Soon after his return from Europe, Jones was asked by Albert Boni to help the Liberal Club put together a set for their production of Lord Dunsany’s The Glittering Gate. Jones agreed, proceeded to tear off 10 feet of wrapping paper, and improvised two simple columns in the back room of the Washington Square Bookshop. This production launched the Washington Square Players and gave Jones his first opportunity to realize a visual image for actors and audience. Jones was among that group sitting in the large comfortable office of the publishers Albert and Charles Boni in their Washington Square Bookshop when the formation of the Washington Square Players was planned.

*He also arranged sets for another influential little theatre, the Provincetown Players. As with his previous improvised design, scant funds taught ingenuity with few resources. Jones was among the group gathered at the Hapgoods’ summer house on Cape Cod that included Havel Hyppolyte, Polly Holliday, George Cram Coo, and Susan Glaspell, who planned the formation of the Provinceton Players. The lessons of working within the financial limitations of American little theatres reinforced the lessons Jones learned in Europe, developing his broader understanding of stage simplification.

Initial Designs

*For a 1915 production of the play The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife directed by British director Harley Granville-Barker, Jones designed a fairly simple set that complimented the action and the other design elements of the production rather than overwhelming it. Jones’ single formal setting in shades of grey, white and black, together with costumes in primary and secondary colors, were unlike anything ever seen on Broadway in a dramatic production. The setting, to use one of Jones’ favorite adjectives, was a smashing success. With this decor, Jones not only introduced a new kind of stagecraft to Broadway, but opened up a whole new era in the history of the American theatre. However, it apparently did not create any great impression among critics when it first appeared, since there were not that many reviews written about his design. After this production, American stage design would radically change over the next 10 years, with simplification becoming an ever-more-important factor.

*When Robert Edmond Jones accepted Arthur Hopkins’ invitation to design The Devil’s Garden, it was the most fortuitous decision of his life, for it marked the beginning of a relationship that endured during the lifetimes of both, and a collaboration that produced some of the most prestigious plays of twentieth-century American theatre. Seldom have the thoughts and theories of two artists complemented each other as did those of Hopkins and Jones. Edith Ellis’ realistic play The Devil’s Garden is a dark and sinister drama about the evils of government bureaucracy; in this case the havoc and terror that the British Postal Service wreaked on a poor postal clerk. This realistic setting was more precise than his formal, romanticized exterior in The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife and demonstrated that the new stagecraft could work even for such an extremely realistic play as The Devil’s Garden. Jones displayed a new kind of realism, a simplified realism that was to become the predominant style of American scene design, especially for interiors, for several decades to come.

*Jones also brought his expressionistic style to many productions put on by The Theatre Guild, Inc., with innovative designs for The Philadelphia Story (1937), Othello (1943), and The Iceman Cometh (1946). Jones’s biggest commercial success was with The Green Pastures (1930), which, including its revival in 1951, played for a total of 1,642 performances. Due to illness this revival would be Jones’s last production

*Also as one of the early members of the Provincetown Players, Jones worked closely with his friend Eugene O'Neill on many of his productions including Anna Christie, The Great God Brown, and Desire Under the Elms.

Published Works

*Jones published many articles on theatre design throughout his career; his books include: Drawings for the Theatre (1925), The Dramatic Imagination (1941), and, with Kenneth Macgowan, Continental Stagecraft (1922).

He died at the home of his sisters, and had been in failing health ever since an operation a year previous, on Thanksgiving Day, 1954.

Productions

*The Green Pastures (Revival, Play)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 15, 1951 - Apr 21, 1951

*The Enchanted (Original, Play, Comedy)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 18, 1950 - Feb 25, 1950

*The Iceman Cometh (Original, Play, Drama)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 9, 1946 - Mar 15, 1947

*Lute Song (Original, Musical)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones; Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Feb 6, 1946 - Jun 8, 1946

*Helen Goes to Troy (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Apr 24, 1944 - Jul 15, 1944

*Jackpot (Original, Musical, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 13, 1944 - Mar 11, 1944

*Othello (Revival, Play, Drama, Tragedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 19, 1943 - Jul 1, 1944

*Without Love (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 10, 1942 - Feb 13, 1943

*Love for Love (Revival, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Jun 3, 1940 - Jun 8, 1940

*Romeo and Juliet (Revival, Play, Tragedy)

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones May 9, 1940 - Jun 8, 1940

*Juno and the Paycock (Revival, Play, Drama)

Produced in association with Robert Edmond Jones;

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 16, 1940 - Apr 13, 1940

*Kindred (Original, Play, Drama)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Dec 26, 1939 - Jan 6, 1940

*Summer Night (Original, Play, Drama)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 2, 1939 - Nov 4, 1939

*The Ballet Caravan-Air and Variations

-Billy the Kid

-Pocahontas

Produced by American Lyric Theatre (Robert Edmond Jones, Managing Director) May 24, 1939 - ?

*Susanna, Don't You Cry (Original, Musical, Romance)

Produced by American Lyric Theatre (Robert Edmond Jones, Managing Director);

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones May 22, 1939 - May 27, 1939

*The Devil and Daniel Webster-Filling Station (Original, Play, Play with music)

Produced by American Lyric Theatre (Robert Edmond Jones, Managing Director);

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones May 18, 1939 - May 1939

*The Philadelphia Story (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Lighting Design by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 28, 1939 - Mar 30, 1940

*Everywhere I Roam (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Dec 29, 1938 - Jan 1939

*The Seagull (Revival, Play, Drama, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 28, 1938 - May 1938

*Othello (Revival, Play, Drama, Tragedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 6, 1937 - Jan 1937

*The Green Pastures (Revival, Play, Play with music)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Feb 26, 1935 - Apr 27, 1935

*Dark Victory (Original, Play, Drama)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 7, 1934 - Dec 1934

*The Joyous Season (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 29, 1934 - Feb 1934

*Mary of Scotland (Original, Play, Drama, History)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 27, 1933 - Jul 1934

*The Green Bay Tree (Original, Play, Drama)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 20, 1933 - Mar 1934

*Ah, Wilderness! (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 2, 1933 - Jun 1934

*Nine Pine Street (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Apr 27, 1933 - May 1933

*Lucrece (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Dec 20, 1932 - Jan 1933

*Camille (Revival, Play, Drama)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones;

Book adapted by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 1, 1932 - Nov 1932

*Mourning Becomes Electra (Original, Play, Drama)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 26, 1931 - Mar 1932

*Roadside (Original, Play, Comedy)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Sep 26, 1930 - Oct 1930

*The Green Pastures (Original, Play, Play with music)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Feb 26, 1930 - Aug 29, 1931

*Children of Darkness (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 7, 1930 - Mar 1930

*See Naples and Die (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Sep 24, 1929 - Nov 1929

*Holiday (Original, Play, Comedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 26, 1928 - Jun 1929

*The Jest (Revival, Play, Comedy, Tragedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Feb 4, 1926 - Apr 1926

*The Great God Brown (Original, Play)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Jan 23, 1926 - Sep 1926

*The Fountain (Original, Play)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones;

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Dec 10, 1925 - Jan 1926

*Last Night of Don Juan- The Pilgrimage (Original, Play)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 9, 1925 - Nov 1925

*Love for Love (Revival, Play, Comedy)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones Sep 14, 1925 - Sep 1925

*Outside Looking In (Original, Play, Comedy)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones Sep 7, 1925 - Dec 1925

*Love for Love (Revival, Play, Comedy)

Directed by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 31, 1925 - May 1925

*Michel Auclair (Original, Play)

Directed by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 4, 1925 - Mar 1925

*Patience (Revival, Musical, Operetta)

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones Dec 29, 1924 - Mar 1925

*Hedda Gabler (Revival, Play, Drama)

Staged by Robert Edmond Jones May 16, 1924 - May 1924

*Welded (Original, Play, Drama)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 17, 1924 - Apr 1924

*The Spook Sonata (Original, Play, Fantasy)

Produced by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 1923 - Nov 1923

*Hamlet (Revival, Play, Tragedy)

Production Design by Robert Edmond Jones Nov 16, 1922 - Feb 1923

*The Claw (Original, Play, Tragedy)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones Oct 17, 1921 - Jan 1922

*King Richard III (Revival, Play, History)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones;

Costume Design by Robert Edmond Jones Mar 6, 1920 - Mar 1920

*The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife (Original, Play)

Scenic Design by Robert Edmond Jones

Quotes

*“Life has become so wonderful, beyond words. I have so much work to do, I can’t possibly do it, all wonderful work, just what I want to do. I wonder how many people have the luxury of living by the work that makes them the happiest and the most content. I want you to be glad because you are going to see me become a real influence on the American theatre.” -Robert Edmond Jones wrote in a letter to his mother

*“The best thing that could happen to our theatre at this moment would be for playwrights and actors and directors to be handed a bare stage on which no scenery could be placed, and then told that they must write and act and direct for this stage.”-Jones

*“A stage setting is not a background,; it is an environment. Players act in a setting, not against it. The designer creates an environment in which all noble emotions are possible. Then he retires. The actor enters. If the designer’s work has been good, it disappears from our consciousness at that moment. Stage designers, like musicians, are born and not made. All art in the theatre should be, not descriptive, but evocative.”-Jones

*“We light the actors and the setting, it is true, but we illuminate the drama.”-Jones

*“Recently I heard the story of a blind child on whom a successful operation had been performed. When the bandages were finally removed from its eyes, the child looked around in ecstasy and murmured: ‘What is this thing called light?’ To me, the theatre is like a light that blind people are made to see for the first time. The theatre is a dream that the audience comes to behold. The theatre is a revelation. I look about me here, and I do not see light, I do not perceive dream, I do not feel revelation.” (Robert Edmond Jones - a talk given to the members of the Saint company)

*“He looked forward to the time when in the theatre the imagination would be set free, and realism abandoned because no longer necessary.” John Mason Brown speaking of Robert Edmond Jones

*“What has come from the easel and soaring imagination of an artist is easily the most beautiful background given to any place in recent years. His colors flow across the stage in an ever changing pageant which seems to stretch out beyond the confines of the theatre. They swirl with the dancers and add majesty and dignity to the lives they touch.”-Lewis Nichols of his design for The Lute Song

*“His profession was less of a calling than a call, like the ‘call’ that led some of his New England forebearers to the pulpit. The soul is to be served with the theatre’s. ...Design that is fundamental will redeem the theatre; ever lapse from it will hasten the theatre’s eventual doom. Jones’ work was not simply a profession, in the accepted sense, but a continual dedication. For he possessed both the vision of an artist and the imagination of a militant visionary.” -Lee Simonson about Jones

*“a remarkably perceptive artist and unerring craftsman” who, with “his hands, his head and his heart and with imagination and discernment ... could evoke setting on our stage that mirrored his poignant insight into the meaning of all things theatrical.”- Donald Oenslager about Jones

Works Cited

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Edmond_Jones

*http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=9776

*http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0826573.html

*Bristow, Eugene K.. "Book in Review: The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre." Educational Theatre Journal 254-255.

*Clurman, Harold. __The Fervent Years__. New York: Hill and Wang, 1945.

*Feinsod, Arthur. "Stage Designs of a Single Gesture: The Early Work of Robert Edmond Jones." The Drama Review 102-120.

*Larson, Orville K.. __Scene Design in the American Theatre__. Fayetteville, London: The University of Arkansas Press, 1989.

*Walters, Walter H.. "Book in Review: The Theatre of Robert Edmond Jones." Educational Theatre Journal 171-173.