Artist James Mesple was an obvious choice when the Chicago City Ballet needed sets for its new jazz ballet, ”Chicago,” which premieres Friday at the Chicago Theatre.
In his 19 years here, he has painted several hundred canvases, all using Chicago as a subject.
”This didn`t make designing the `Chicago` set any easier, though,” he said in his soft-spoken way, explaining that the project faced a number of restrictions up front.
”I was told the ballet would be on tour for five years,” he said.
”This meant the set had to break down, assemble and travel easily and had to function in auditoriums with limited facilities-and was to have only three scene changes. And, of course, it had to say `Chicago` to anyone who saw it.” Nine months later, Mesple had solved the problems with a 100-by-50-foot backdrop of the city skyline and Lake Michigan horizon, which could be hung on any stage and then rolled up for traveling. He`d conceived, too, of 13 movable triangular modules, each 4 feet at the base and ranging from 6 to 10 feet high. The modules, being three-sided, could be easily turned 120 degrees onstage, resulting in three total scenery changes.
How did he hit on the idea?
A DAILY SPECIAL
”I was sitting at Ann Sather`s Restaurant alone one morning, wondering how I was going to solve the set problems and staring into my coffee,” Mesple explained. ”I remember nervously turning a table tent-those three-sided holders put on every table to announce the daily specials. They`re triangular, plastic, about 6 inches high. Suddenly I looked hard at the one in my hand. It was neat.
”Since it was a triangle, you couldn`t see anything but the front side when it faced you directly. That`s when I made the connection: `This is perfect,` I thought. `Put it on wheels and it can be used for three different scene changes.`
”This was all happening 12 days before my one-man exhibition at Hokin-Kaufman Galleries was due to open. I`d been working, getting ready for this show for two years.”
Once he`d decided on the structure, Mesple sat down with the Chicago choreographer Joel Hall and listened to Richard Adler`s music (”Damn Yankees,” ”Pajama Game”), then called on another creative element: memory. ”I heard three parts in the music,” he says, ”and they all sounded very `Chicago` to me. I was reminded of our seasons. Our weather is the essence of our city: We have so much of it, and it changes continually.
”I sat down to do working drawings,” he explained. ”They literally help you think. I learned to do them from a fellow artist and from a teacher- Thomas Hart Benton and Fred Shane, respectively, when I was at the University of Missouri.”
THROUGH THE NIGHT
And from there, he got down to the nitty-gritty of energy and concentration. ”I worked 12 to 15 hours a day sometimes,” he said. ”I have no doorbell-that`s on purpose. And I turned off the phone so I could concentrate. Sometimes, while I was working on this project, I drew the blinds so no one would know I was home. Occasionally, I`d find that I had worked all night long and hadn`t noted the passage of time. I`d think only two hours had passed, but find out it was really six hours later and that I was starving and exhausted.”
His ideas gradually evolved into complicated paintings.
”I combined the hot, jazzy elements of summer and fall-that`s yellow and green plus russet and orange-because the colors were logical together,” he said. ”Then I added Chicago trees plus wild onions (the word ”Chicago” is a variation on an Indian word for ”wild onion”). And I added some of the leaves that architect Louis Sullivan always used on his buildings here-on Carsons and on the Auditorium.”
Mesple purposely made his cool, blue winter side more abstract than the others, because he wanted it to stand for several different things. ”I thought of Chicago blues and Chicago jazz. And I thought about the blue, cool winters we have, all crystalline snow and frozen water, beautiful, but gutsy and earthy.”
The spring side is a surprise: Mesple wanted it jubilant and celebratory, and used Chicago skyscrapers and buildings: Sears Tower, the Water Tower, the Wrigley Building and the like.
”When I think of spring, I think of Chicago,” he said. ”Our buildings are like city flowers that keep springing up from the earth.” –
