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G1242
Paintings: G1242
Title
Stage design for The Ides of March
Artist
Date
1963
Dimensions
height: 45.8cm
width: 35.5cm
width: 35.5cm
Other materials
Hessian/burlap backing, painted cardboard and card, staples
Provenance
Bequeathed to the Garrick Club by Frances Hughes, October 2022.
Other number
E0134
Exhibition history
A Brish with the Famous, Embankment Gallery, 1978
This artwork is a design for the set of the play 'The Ides of March', adapted from the novel of Thornton Wilder by Jerome Kiltry in 1963. It is a series of shapes cut out from card and carboard, all painted white, and stapled together, to look like a series of doors and arches for a minimal looking set. The artwork is mounted with a backing of organge hessian, within a silver box frame. On the reverse of the frame the writing says: "John Gielgud/ project: Ides of March, 1963/ Haymarket theatre/ Abstract from Thornton Wilder's/ novel by Jeremy Kiltry".
The play was jointly directed, by Kiltry and John Gielgud, and was performed at the Manchester Opera House and the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It starred Gielgud as Ceaser, Marie Lohr as the Lady Julia Maarcia, and Irene Woreth as Clodia Pulcher. It was a modern take on the months leading to Ceaser's death, which saw Gielgud dressed in a toga over a lounge-suit. Gielgud apparently employed the designer of windows at Tiffany's New York, Charles Gene Moore, to design the stage design and costume. In an interview for the The New York Times, Moore states: " I wanted everything in the same colour (...) and I covered the sets in burlap (...) well the night before we opened we realised the scenery was just the worst thing i'd ever seen in my life".
The play was not a success and the audience booed on the opening night. There is very little mention of the play in Gielgud's autobiography.
The play was jointly directed, by Kiltry and John Gielgud, and was performed at the Manchester Opera House and the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It starred Gielgud as Ceaser, Marie Lohr as the Lady Julia Maarcia, and Irene Woreth as Clodia Pulcher. It was a modern take on the months leading to Ceaser's death, which saw Gielgud dressed in a toga over a lounge-suit. Gielgud apparently employed the designer of windows at Tiffany's New York, Charles Gene Moore, to design the stage design and costume. In an interview for the The New York Times, Moore states: " I wanted everything in the same colour (...) and I covered the sets in burlap (...) well the night before we opened we realised the scenery was just the worst thing i'd ever seen in my life".
The play was not a success and the audience booed on the opening night. There is very little mention of the play in Gielgud's autobiography.
