Jump to content

Margaret Harris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Margaret Harris
Born
Margaret Frances Harris

(1904-05-28)28 May 1904
Hayes,Kent,England
Died10 May 2000(2000-05-10)(aged 95)
Years active1932–2000
Awards

Margaret Frances HarrisOBE(28 May 1904 – 10 May 2000) was an English theatre and operacostumeandscenic designer.

Biography

[edit]

Early years

[edit]

Harris was born inHayes,Kent, the fourth child and second daughter of William Birkbeck Harris, a Lloyds Insurance clerk, and his wife Kathleen Marion, née Carey. With her older sisterSophie Harrisshe studied at the Chelsea Illustrators Studio in London in the late 1920s. A fellow student wasElizabeth Montgomery,and the three formed a theatre design partnership known asMotley Theatre Design Group.

Career

[edit]

The first full-scale production on which they worked wasRomeo and Julietfor theOxford University Dramatic Society(OUDS),John Gielgud's debut as a director. The great success of this led to an invitation from Gielgud to design Gordon Daviot'sRichard of Bordeaux,which opened at the New Theatre in St Martins Lane, London, in February 1933. The production was a huge success, achieving cult status, with playgoers queuing round the block every night. It is widely recognised that the success was partly owing to the Motley sets and costumes, which captured the essence of the period in an artistic rather than a slavishly historical sense, and were much admired for their beauty and lightness. This early recognition led to a busy and highly successful decade during which they became Gielgud's regular collaborators, working with him on such productions as his celebratedRomeo and Juliet(1935), in which he alternated the parts of Romeo and Mercutio withLaurence Olivier,and hisHamletof 1936. They also formed a partnership with the celebrated French directorMichel Saint-Denis,whose production ofAndré Obey'sNoah,starring Gielgud in the title role, they designed in 1935. Saint Denis went on to found theLondon Theatre Studio(1936–1939), a radical new theatre school which incorporated courses in theatre design taught by the Motleys. This was the first time theatre design had been taught within a drama school in the UK, and their students includedJocelyn Herbert.In addition to their teaching and theatre work, the Motleys also opened a couture house in 1936.

At the beginning of World War II, Margaret Harris and Elizabeth Montgomery travelled to the United States to design a production ofRomeo and Julietfor Laurence Olivier. They stayed in America until the end of the war, designing numerous successful productions onBroadway.Margaret Harris also worked for a time with the furniture designerCharles Eameson his moulded plywood aeroplane parts.

Returning to England in 1946, Margaret Harris and her sister Sophie taught theatre design at the newly foundedBristol Old Vic Theatre School,which had been set up byMichel Saint-Denis,George DevineandGlen Byam Shaw.Following the closure of the school in 1948, the Motleys continued to design extensively for both opera (at London'sSadler's Wells TheatreandEnglish National Opera) and theatre. Their work at theShakespeare Memorial Theatrewas much admired throughout the 1950s. In the early days of Devine's newly foundedEnglish Stage Companyat theRoyal Court Theatre(founded 1956), the Motleys designed numerous productions. Margaret Harris became Head of Design atSadler's Wells Operain 1962.

In 1966, after the death of her sister Sophie, Harris founded theMotley Theatre Design Course,a one-year post-graduate level course which ran until 2011. She continued to design, mostly for the English National Opera, until the late 1970s, and remained as the director of the Motley Theatre Design Course until a few months before her death on 10 May 2000 atDenville Hall,two weeks before her 96th birthday.

Honours

[edit]

Harris was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empirein the1975 New Year Honours.[1]

References

[edit]
  1. ^"No. 46444".The London Gazette(Supplement). 31 December 1974. p. 11.
[edit]