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With this issue of the Lincoln Center Theater Review, we welcome the charismatic dance-theater pioneer Martha Clarke and her gifted collaborators to the Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Like the distinguished director-choreographers Susan Stroman and Graciela Daniele, who, with Contact (1999-2000) and Chronicle of A Death Foretold (1995), respectively, introduced Lincoln Center Theater audiences to memorable works that emerged from a spark of an idea, Clarke has made a riveting theater experience inspired by the art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and developed under our own roof in a variety of workshops with her creative team. The result is Belle Epoque, a lush, louche universe that animates the sen-suality and suffering in Lautrecs paintings of late nineteenth-century Parisian nightlife.
Through interviews with Clarke, co-creator Charles L. Mee and set designer Robert Israel, we hope to give you a sense of the unique rapport between these artists and how the movement, imagery and text of Belle Epoque expanded over the months to fully encapsulate Lautrecs seductive and disturbing world. Essays by Michael Feingold and Julia Frey illuminate the spirited burst of Lautrecs life and times, and Honor Moores poem demonstrates again how Lautrecs paintings transport artists to give shape to the inarticulate longings he captured with his brush.
The Editors
Photograph: Siegfried Layda, Moulin Rouge at Night. © The Image Bank.
ABOUT THE DESIGN
When I began researching the art for our Belle Epoque issue, my hunt was for images that capture the atmospheric and emotional qualities of Martha Clarkes dance-theater piece. Because Lautrec embraced Paris in his work and art, it seemed to me that the city itself is as much a character in our production as the actors and dancers are, so I wanted the photographs to be of Paris life.
Photography was just beginning in Lautrecs time, and images by photographers like Eugène Atget and Nadar struck me as a bit too reserved and quiet for this material. I ended up looking instead at the 1930s and 40s and the incredible photographs of Robert Doisneau and Brassaï. The Doisneau photograph on page five has long been a personal favorite,
stemming from my love for the Eiffel Tower. And I felt Brassaï, with his pictures of nocturnal Paris, the demimonde world and café life so familiar to Lautrec, best evokes the moodiness and ambiance of our production.
I was so inspired by our subject matter that the rest of the magazines design came together quickly. I decided to make the titles decorative in the spirit of the poster artists of Lautrecs era, and I chose an off-white paper stock for its warmth. The combination of the bright green color with the off-white paper plays the new off the old, just as Belle Epoque is a contemporary take on an artist from the past.
Tamar Cohen, Art Director
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