The V&A's new Theatre Galleries: An encore for lost treasures
It took 90 hours of conservation just to get the burgundy Christian Dior dress that Vivien Leigh wore in the 1958 production of Duel of Angels into a fit state for its showcase at the new Theatre and Performance Galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
With one week to go before the galleries open to the public, original Sex Pistols T-shirts are still in their protective covers, and Michael Annals' set model for Long Day's Journey into Night, at the National Theatre in 1971, is not yet properly lit. Stretched across a mannequin is Mick Jagger's flared cream jumpsuit with metal poppers, designed by Ossie Clarke for the Rolling Stones' 1972 European tour. Brian Eno's flamboyant black silk costume, with feathered sleeves, worn on stage and on the inside cover of Roxy Music's 1973 album, For Your Pleasure, adorns another.
The galleries are currently reached via a temporary wooden door, and inside technicians are still busy stringing up Victorian marionettes with invisible wire. Visitors are to be greeted by a giant latex rhinoceros, which made a brief appearance in Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Royal Court in 2007, and will at some point perish and disintegrate.
Elsewhere, a cancellation notice dating back to 1811 names and shames the unreliable actor Mr Berry as the culprit behind a cancelled performance at Edinburgh's Theatre Royal. There's an impractical but beautiful tutu, designed for Balanchine's Bugaku, worn by the choreographer's muse, the ballerina Suzanne Farrell, with overlapping chrysanthemum petals that make it impossible for the dancer to see her feet. There's even an original wooden Star Trap, a device through which actors would be shot at high speed on to the stage at their own peril. They were commonly used from 1800 onwards, but were banned in the mid-20th century for safety reasons.
The V&A's new Theatre and Performance Galleries replace the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden, which closed in 2007. When its bid for £2.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund was turned down, leading figures from the theatre world, including Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave, led a campaign to save the site. Eventually, the V&A, which owns the collection and housed it, undisplayed, before it was transferred to the new Theatre Museum in 1987, stepped in and found space to rehouse it in a fresh way back in South Kensington.
The 250 objects are devoted to theatre, and also include memorabilia from the worlds of ballet, rock and pop, opera and pantomime. The display is designed to take visitors on a journey through the creative process of performance, from the initial conception to opening night – rather than a chronological trip through the origins of theatre and its development. "Nobody knew what to expect, but the response from colleagues in the museum has been very positive," says head curator Dr Kate Dorney. "The last hugely successful display we did in here, which explored British theatre design, largely through set designs, saw 140,000 visitors in a year."..
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With one week to go before the galleries open to the public, original Sex Pistols T-shirts are still in their protective covers, and Michael Annals' set model for Long Day's Journey into Night, at the National Theatre in 1971, is not yet properly lit. Stretched across a mannequin is Mick Jagger's flared cream jumpsuit with metal poppers, designed by Ossie Clarke for the Rolling Stones' 1972 European tour. Brian Eno's flamboyant black silk costume, with feathered sleeves, worn on stage and on the inside cover of Roxy Music's 1973 album, For Your Pleasure, adorns another.
The galleries are currently reached via a temporary wooden door, and inside technicians are still busy stringing up Victorian marionettes with invisible wire. Visitors are to be greeted by a giant latex rhinoceros, which made a brief appearance in Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Royal Court in 2007, and will at some point perish and disintegrate.
Elsewhere, a cancellation notice dating back to 1811 names and shames the unreliable actor Mr Berry as the culprit behind a cancelled performance at Edinburgh's Theatre Royal. There's an impractical but beautiful tutu, designed for Balanchine's Bugaku, worn by the choreographer's muse, the ballerina Suzanne Farrell, with overlapping chrysanthemum petals that make it impossible for the dancer to see her feet. There's even an original wooden Star Trap, a device through which actors would be shot at high speed on to the stage at their own peril. They were commonly used from 1800 onwards, but were banned in the mid-20th century for safety reasons.
The V&A's new Theatre and Performance Galleries replace the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden, which closed in 2007. When its bid for £2.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund was turned down, leading figures from the theatre world, including Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave, led a campaign to save the site. Eventually, the V&A, which owns the collection and housed it, undisplayed, before it was transferred to the new Theatre Museum in 1987, stepped in and found space to rehouse it in a fresh way back in South Kensington.
The 250 objects are devoted to theatre, and also include memorabilia from the worlds of ballet, rock and pop, opera and pantomime. The display is designed to take visitors on a journey through the creative process of performance, from the initial conception to opening night – rather than a chronological trip through the origins of theatre and its development. "Nobody knew what to expect, but the response from colleagues in the museum has been very positive," says head curator Dr Kate Dorney. "The last hugely successful display we did in here, which explored British theatre design, largely through set designs, saw 140,000 visitors in a year."..