Maxime Dethomas - Theatre

Theatre

Dethomas worked under Jacques Rouché at the short lived Theatre de Arts (1910–1913). Upon his appointment as director, Rouche enlisted the talents of several artists of Les Nabis group who had contributed to the Grande Revue, including Jacques Dresa, René Piot and Maxime Dethomas, none of which had previously worked for the stage. As chief set designer or director of the Services Plastiques, Dethomas embarked on a career that would last for the remainder of his life. The Theatre des Arts represented a major shift away from facile acting, shallow content and the painted-canvas drawing rooms of commercial theatre, that were the norm in early 20th century European theatre. The inaugural production, Carnaval des Enfents (1910), marked a major theatrical revolution by which Dethomas's settings accentuated line and colour, rather than painted detail and endless props. Against blue, ochre, grey and steel, black costumed characters created striking pictorial compositions in lighting effects that "varied like inflections in a conversation." The Theatre de Arts went on to present nearly twenty plays, including Jacques Copeau's adaptation of Brothers Karamazov (1911), and the production of La Tragedie de Salome (1912), both a popular and critical success (Garafola. 154). Due to the small size of the theatre, it eventually ran into financial trouble and closed. Hired to direct and design at the Paris Opera (1914–1936), Rouche and Dethomas went on to offer fresh interpretation of old material and to make inroads into stale scenic convention (Londre 498). By 1917 Dethomas was also designing sets for the Comédie Française (Carson, 79). Dethomas's reputation was such, that in early 1912, he was commissioned by the British Aristocracy to design a set for a London masked ball with some 2000 guests. Guillaume Apollinaire felt that Dethomas's influence on French Theatre had "transformed the art of scenery, costume design and staging . In 1926 the Opéra-Comique in Paris celebrated Manuel de Falla's 50th birthday with a program consisting of La Vida Breve, El Amor Brujo, and Master Peter's Puppet Show, with new designs by Falla's close friend Ignacio Zuloaga, and new marionettes carved by Dethomas. Dethomas once wrote that above all else decor should be a good servant of the play and that a designer must get beyond a painterly "feel" to something more solid.