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Monday, December 9, 1985
Daily Nebraskan
Page 11
AtIb s
O
et designer bring
abstract
to st
age
By Lise Olsen
Senior Reporter
Thomas Umfrid, the resident UNL
theater designer, has designed and
helped construct Shakespearean bal
conies, see-through walls, indestructi
ble wicker furniture and Chinese
temples.
He says he spends six or seven
nights each week designing and help
ing to construct scenes.
His office speaks for him.
"It's a mess," he says. "You should
have warned me (about the photograph
er)." Small scale models of some of the 60
sets he has constructed in the 10 years
of his professional career are carefully
stored on the shelves. In one corner, a
filing cabinet bursts with drawings and
paintings of scenes, stages and furni
ture. A large drafting table dominates
the room.
On an adjacent desk sits a scale
model of Umfrid's most recent effort:
the eerie gray balcony scene from this
year's University Theater production,
"A Christmas Carol" complete with
mobile mini-shelves, chairs and tables
made of toothpicks and graph paper.
Each of these models and sketches
have been transformed bv Umfrid. tech
nical designers, stage crews and others
into full-sized scenes, props and back
drops. At 34, Umfrid has designed scenes
for operas, plays, musicals and dances
in New York, New Mexico, Minnesota,
California, Missouri, South Dakota,
California, Michigan and the Nether
lands. Umfrid, an assistant professor, has
been UNL's resident designer since
1979. He has designed 19 sets for the
theater department and three for uni
versity operas.
He designed sets for all three uni
versity plays this year. For "A Stone's
Throw," a play about a reclusive family,
Umfrid designed a junk-filled house
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Dan DulaneyDaily Nebraskan
Umfrid
with closed-circuit TV security and
barbed wire barriers. For "Ghosts," the
story of a woman's attempt to protect
her late husband's reputation, Umfrid
built a house dominated by the wicked
man's portrait. He also cluttered the
stage with dead leaves, symbolizing the
widow's mental disarray.
Umfrid said he enjoys watching
audiences struggle to understand the
meaning of such bizarre stage ele
ments. "We try to give you abstracts,"
Umfrid said. "You, the audience mem
ber, can fill in with your experiences."
Umfrid has designed four different
sets for University Theatre productions
of "A Christmas Carol," which has been
presented in 1979, 1982, 1983 and 1985.
Because the script used this year
focuses on Scrooge's psychological
transformation, the set has a dream
like quality, Umfrid said.
"Scenes are sharp in the middle and
blurred at the edges," he said.
Umfrid spent last year working with
world-renowned stage designer John
Conklin in New York City on a grant
from the National Institute for Music.
An elaborate "nightmarish" set
which he designed in New York for
Shostakovich's "The Nose" is Umfrid's
favorite. "The Nose," which was per
formed by the Manhattan School of
Music, is about a man's nightmare that
his nose escapes his face and turns into
a civil servant. The opera was originally
censored by the Russian government
and remains rare. The production was
well-received by New York critics,
Umfrid said.
Last year, Umfrid traveled with Con
klin to design sets for the Netherlands
Opera in Europe, the San Franciso
Opera and Connecticut and Massachu
setts operas.
When he builds a set, Umfrid said, he
starts with the performer and works
out. Umfrid said he researches the
period of the pieces, reads the script
closely and consults directors, actors,
lighting experts and technicians as he
designs.
"Theater is a very collaborative
effort . . .A designer is not a person
who sits in an ivory tower and does
pretty pictures," Umfrid said.
A set should help the actors define
their roles, Umfrid said.
"A good stage design is a passive
partner," he said. "The potential for all
that acting has to be in the design."
A set should also be familiar with
architectural history and current and
historical events. UNL theater scenes
are often conceived and built in four to
six weeks, Umfrid said. Elaborate
scenes can take years to perfect, he
said. Basic set design depends on the
size of the stage, the style of the piece
and the dramatic form, Umfrid said.
"But once you know the rules, you
can break them," Umfrid said. 'There's
no cookbook fashion recipe for design
ing a set."
Umfrid graduated from California
State University-Long Beach in 1974.
Back then, Umfrid said, he wanted to
be a performer. He wanted to sing and
dance.
"Then I started working backstage
and discovered I had a flair for it," he
said.
Umfrid took his newfound enthusi
asm to the University of Minnesota in
Minneapolis where he earned his mas
ter's degree. He often worked in Min
neapolis's Guthrie Theatre.
When he graduated, Umfrid worked
at the University of South Dakota. After
two years he moved to Nebraska. But
even after six years he doesn't call
himself a "Nebraskan."
Umfrid said he's proud of UNL's uni
versity theater, although he, like other
professors, worries about the Universi
ty's ever-tightening budget.
Sometimes, he said, he wishes his
work load was lighter.
Umfrid is scheduled to design four or
five University productions next semes
ter. He will also design a set for the
New Mexico Repertory Theatre in
February.
"That's too many," he said. "It puts a
strain on my ability to be both an effec
tive educator and practitioner of
design, as well as maintain my profes
sional profile on a national basis."
Despite reputation of Grove,
Waite draws a small crowd
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Andrea HoyDaily Nebraskan
Waits shares the spotlight with his lead guitarist.
John Waite had an unusually hard time
motivating the crowd gathered to see him
Thursday at the Royal Grove.
Concert Review
Regardless of the types of national record
ing artists the Grove has booked since its
renovation (B.T.O., John Cafferty and the
Beaver Brown Band) the crowds have been
one reason for the quality shows. When there
is a packed house of excited fans, stadium
fillers usually forget where they're playing
and have fun.
This was not true Thursday night. Waite
was the first national recording artist in a
long time not to pack the house, and the
absence was felt.
At first Waite did seem mildly interested,
beginning the show with a fog entrance. But
the excitement soon died. The small, pre
dominately younger crowd seemed unfamil
iar with the former Baby's first selections and
even Waite's hits "Every Step of the Way" and
"Missing You" only brought a small rise from
the crowd.
Review by Mark Davis,
senior editor
Beantown's Del Fuegos
'set the whole house on fire'
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Dan Zanes
David CreamerDaily Nebraskan
Boston sent its musical A-team, The Del
Fuegos, to Lincoln on Thursday night. The Del
Fuegos are the best Beantown minstrels to hit
the scene since The Standells wrote an ode to
the Charles River called "Dirty Water" and
wrapped it around the greatest fuzztone riff
in history in the mid '60s.
Concert Review
After a garbled, generic dose of new wave
power pop by Lincoln's Lunch Cats, The Del
Fuegos, led by vocalistguitarist Dan Zanes
burst into "The Longest Day" from their 1984
debut LP of the same name.
Zanes, looking like a haggard Ishmael
fresh from a whaling expedition, sings in a
slightly nasal, whiskey tenor suitable for
drunken shanties in any New Bedford saloon
while the band keel hauled the dance floor
with the best from their two albums.
The Del Feugos take their influences
seriously.
Organ parts bubbled and popped around
"Backseat Nothing," and power and pride
reminiscent of The Standells charged "Our
Town." A riff to rival "Louie Louie" chimes in
on either side of the verses for "Nervous and
Shaky."
The music comes in all hot and excited
from the garage and sets the whole house on
fire.
The dance floor was full. The band seemed
happy.
If we're waiting for this when we wait for
our men to come home from the sea, it's worth
every minute.
Review by Ch&rles Lieunmce,
senior reporter