It is hard to overstate the impact Ming Cho Lee has had on the world of theater design.
你怎么称赞李名觉对戏剧设计界的影响都不为过。Michael Yeargan, a student of Mr. Lee's at the Yale School of Drama in 1969 and now co-chairman of the drama school's design department, recognized that at the 2005 Tony Awards ceremonies, where Mr. Yeargan was honored for set design.
迈克尔·耶尔根(Michael Yeargan)2005年参加托尼奖颁奖典礼领取舞台设计奖时意识到了这一点。1969年耶尔根在耶鲁大学戏剧学院就读时师从李名觉，现在是该戏剧学院设计系的联合系主任。"When I went backstage and looked around me," he recalled, he noticed that five of the six Tony winners standing there had studied with Mr. Lee. "I suddenly realized what an influence he had on all of us."
他回忆说，“我走到后台，看着周围的人”，注意到站在那里的六位托尼奖获得者中有五位曾师从李名觉，“我突然意识到他对我们所有人的影响有多大”。
The schools of drama and architecture at Yale are staging a retrospective exhibition honoring Mr. Lee, who has been a member of the drama school faculty for more than four decades.
耶鲁大学戏剧学院和建筑学院正在举办李名觉回顾展。李名觉已在戏剧学院任教40多年。
"Stage Designs by Ming Cho Lee," on display at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven through Feb. 1, features more than 90 models, sketches and photographic reproductions for more than 60 theater, dance and opera productions by Mr. Lee, who received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement last year and a National Medal of Arts in 2002.
“李名觉舞台设计展”(Stage Designs by Ming Cho Lee)在纽黑文市的耶鲁大学建筑学院举行，持续到2月1日，展出李名觉为60多部戏剧、舞蹈剧和歌剧设计的90多件作品，包括模型、草图和逼真的复制品。李名觉去年获得了托尼奖终身成就奖，2002年获得了国家艺术奖章。Arnold Aronson, a professor of theater at Columbia University who wrote the introductory wall text and publication for the Yale exhibition and who is writing a book on Mr. Lee that will be published this year, said Mr. Lee had trained more set designers than anyone else.
展览简介墙和出版物上的文字是由哥伦比亚大学戏剧教授阿诺德·亚伦森(Arnold Aronson)撰写的。他正在写一本关于李名觉的书，该书将于今年出版。他说李名觉培养的舞台设计师比其他任何人都多。"And his influence goes beyond set design," Dr. Aronson said. "Costume and lighting designers, playwrights, directors, architects, artists have taken his classes. His aesthetic and ideology have seeped into the very fabric of American theater."
“他的影响力超越了舞台设计，”亚伦森博士说，“服装和灯光设计师、剧作家、导演、建筑师和艺术家都上过他的课。他的审美观和思想方式已经渗入了美国戏剧的构造中。”Mr. Lee, who has also taught at New York University and has held classes and workshops around the world, is not passing along a particular style of design, Dr. Aronson added. Instead he offers "an approach, a commitment to the idea that art has the possibility of changing the world, that art must make a statement."
李名觉也在纽约大学教书，还在世界各地开过讲习班。亚伦森博士补充说，他不是传授某一种设计风格，而是提供“一种方法，传递一种信念——艺术具有改变世界的可能，艺术应该表达立场”。Born in Shanghai in 1930, Mr. Lee studied landscape painting as a teenager, which, he said in a recent interview, had taught him "not to use much color" and "gave me a real foundation for watercolor." These studies, he added, also showed him how to be "real without being realistic."
李名觉1930年出生在上海，十几岁的时候学过风景画。他在最近的一次采访中说，学习风景画让他明白“不要使用太多色彩”，“为我学水彩画奠定了扎实的基础。”他补充说，这也让他知道如何“具有真实感而不照搬现实”。When he entered Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1949 with little command of English, he could not understand his first lecture, and decided, he said, "to take every drawing class I could get my hands on." In them, he said, "I would get A's, which balanced the D's I got in freshman English. They saved my life."
1949年他进入洛杉矶西方学院学习时，几乎不会说英语，第一节课完全听不懂，所以他决定“去上能上的所有绘画课”。他说，这些课“我能得到A，它们能平衡我在大一英语课上得的D。它们救了我的命。”Mr. Lee moved to New York in 1954 and worked for Jo Mielziner, the designer of sets for plays including "The Glass Menagerie," "Death of a Salesman" and "Carousel."
1954年，李名觉搬到纽约，为乔·梅尔齐纳(Jo Mielziner)工作。梅尔齐纳是很多戏剧的舞台设计师，包括《玻璃动物园》(The Glass Menagerie)、《推销员之死》(Death of a Salesman)和《旋转木马》(Carousel)。Mr. Lee also worked with the set designer Boris Aronson (no relation to Arnold Aronson), who Dr. Aronson said introduced nonobjective art movements into the American theater, providing "an important counterpoint to the poetic realism of Mielziner."
李名觉还跟舞台设计师鲍里斯·亚伦森（Boris Aronson，与阿诺德·亚伦森没有关系）合作过。亚伦森博士说鲍里斯·亚伦森把抽象艺术运动带入了美国戏剧界，提供了“一种与梅尔齐纳的诗意现实主义相反的重要方法”。"For Boris, Lee has said, designing for the theater was not just a question of design but of the play's relationship to history, society, politics, religion — to life itself," Dr. Aronson said.
“李名觉曾说过，对鲍里斯来说，戏剧设计不只是设计的问题，而是这部戏剧与历史、社会、政治、宗教以及生活本身的关系，”亚伦森博士说。The Yale exhibition, which was organized by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and based on three earlier exhibitions, traces these influences and experiences, largely through some 65 models made by Mr. Lee for sets.
耶鲁大学的展览是纽约公共图书馆为表演艺术组织的展览，它以之前的三次展览为基础，主要通过李明觉为布景创作的约65个模型来追踪这些影响力和经历。From 1962 to 1973, Mr. Lee was the principal designer for what is today the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park program at Central Park's Delacorte Theater. He also designed sets for the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Martha Graham Dance Company, regional theaters like the Arena Stage in Washington and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and many others.
从1962年到1973年，李名觉是如今的公共剧团在中央公园戴拉寇特剧院举办的“公园中的莎士比亚”(Shakespeare in the Park)项目的主要设计师。他还为其他很多剧院设计过布景，比如大都会剧院、科文特花园的皇家歌剧院、玛莎·葛兰姆现代舞团，以及一些地方剧院，比如华盛顿的阿瑞娜剧场和洛杉矶的马克·塔佩剧场。The models are mostly one-eighth-inch-scale and one-quarter-inch-scale and some half-inch-scale models of sets, in full color, not only containing scenery, but often lights, actors and audiences.
这些模型大多是1/8英寸或1/4英寸，有些是1/2英寸，全彩色，不仅包括布景，还包括灯光、演员和观众。Among the most important, Mr. Lee said, is the model for "Electra," a 1964 Public Theater production at the Delacorte Theater. The model has three stone sculptural pieces on a metal framework that represent the walls of a courtyard.
李名觉说，其中最重要的一个是为《厄勒克特拉》(Electra)制作的模型。该剧是公共剧团1964年在戴拉寇特剧院上演的戏剧。这个模型有三个石雕，镶嵌在一个代表院墙的金属框架上。This set was the first with "a completely nonliteral abstract design, though at the same time it was real, an emblem, an icon," Mr. Lee said. "It wasn't an illustration of a place, it was the pure expression of the play."
李名觉说，这个布景是第一个“完全非写实的抽象设计，虽然它同时也具有真实感，但它是一个象征，一个标志”，“它不是对一个地方的描绘，而纯粹是对这出戏的表达。”Similarly, his designs for two sets from the Metropolitan Opera's 1973 production of "Boris Godunov" feature multiple religious icons as well as what he called "fairly real sculptural pieces" that represent a cathedral wall and a stone wall.
同样的，他为大都会歌剧院1973年的《鲍里斯·戈都诺夫》(Boris Godunov)设计的两个布景也含有很多宗教标志以及他称之为“非常真实的雕塑”，这些雕塑代表大教堂的一面墙和一面石头墙。Mr. Lee said more recent models for the two parts of "Angels in America," produced at the Dallas Theater Center in 1996, "are very different from ‘Electra.' I'm no longer interested in making things abstract, I'm using super-realism."
李名觉说为1996年在达拉斯戏剧中心上演的分两部分的“《美国天使》(Angels in America)设计的模型”与“《厄勒克特拉》很不一样”。“我对制作抽象的东西不再有兴趣了，我用的是超现实主义风格。”In Part 1, the rear wall of the set's great hall contains light switches and various medical controls, representing a hospital, while it is also painted with a blue sky and white clouds; this design thus combines multiple locations and images into one. The set for Part 2 is what Mr. Lee described as a "pretty abstract" East Village tenement, painted a "dirty blue" that could represent heaven.
在第一部分中，布景中大厅的后围墙上有电灯开关和各种医疗控制装置，代表一个医院，不过上面还画着蓝天白云，这样的设计能把多个地点和场景融合在一起。为第二部分设计的布景是李明觉所说的“非常抽象的”东村住宅，它是“深蓝色”的，可以代表天堂。The exhibition also brings Mr. Lee's career full circle: Beside theatrical models, it also contains 24 of his watercolors, painted from 1949 to 2007; none has been shown before. These include 1950s scenes of Los Angeles and New York and lyrical, almost abstract seascapes of Bar Harbor, Me., from 2007.
此次展览还全面展示了李名觉的艺术生涯：除了戏剧模型，还包括24幅他从1949年到2007年绘制的水彩画，这些水彩画之前从未展示过。其中包括20世纪50年代洛杉矶和纽约的场景以及2007年缅因州巴尔港的抽象海景。"I've devoted a good part of my life to teaching at Yale, and when they said, ‘Let's do a retrospective at Yale,' I welcomed it," he said, adding he hoped the exhibition would help visitors better understand set design, which he called "neither fish nor fowl."
他说，“我大半生都在耶鲁大学任教，所以当他们说‘我们在耶鲁办个回顾展吧'时，我欣然同意。”他又补充道，希望这次展览能帮助观众更好地理解“不伦不类的”舞台设计。