What Does "No Set" Look Like?
Posted February 5th, 2009 by Marketing Intern
In his stage directions for "Our Town," Thornton Wilder famously stated: "No curtains, no scenery." To Thornton Wilder's contemporaries, seeing a empty stage was shocking--yet today, audiences are fairly used to blank stages. Indeed, to a modern audience, a stage with only a few chairs and a table seems almost amateurish.
Yet without using Wilder's (carefully dictated) empty stage, how does one effectively convey Wilder's themes of loss and the transient nature of human life?
John Musial has a few ideas.
By hanging objects from the ceiling, Musial makes the blank stage appear as not only a definite choice, but as a somewhat precarious and delicate one. However, while the set rendering (as seen on the video) looks quite beautiful--indeed, almost peaceful--the "detrius" that is beginning to be hung from the ceiling seems slightly more foreboding.
Even the cast can't resist glancing up at the ceiling, half in awe, half in hope of a warning sound when the piano comes loose.
How, then, do we calm our fears about death, dying, instability? Through community--through talking to one another and realizing our interconnectedness.
Don't have a place willing to untangle these ideas? Come join Lookingglass for a night. We've still got a few tickets left.
Yet without using Wilder's (carefully dictated) empty stage, how does one effectively convey Wilder's themes of loss and the transient nature of human life?
John Musial has a few ideas.
By hanging objects from the ceiling, Musial makes the blank stage appear as not only a definite choice, but as a somewhat precarious and delicate one. However, while the set rendering (as seen on the video) looks quite beautiful--indeed, almost peaceful--the "detrius" that is beginning to be hung from the ceiling seems slightly more foreboding.
Even the cast can't resist glancing up at the ceiling, half in awe, half in hope of a warning sound when the piano comes loose.
How, then, do we calm our fears about death, dying, instability? Through community--through talking to one another and realizing our interconnectedness.
Don't have a place willing to untangle these ideas? Come join Lookingglass for a night. We've still got a few tickets left.
Here's a question...
Do you think that showing photos of the set gives away too much?
The set rendering is a moment in the play that is supposed to be a "reveal," as John states in his description of the set. Does posting the photo above give away too much?
Will the wonder and awe that the audience feels when they enter the theatre somehow be decreased by having seen this photo?
OR, will the audience better understand what the set represents? If I were someone who didn't know anything about Lookingglass, coming into the space for the first time, the set looks like the ceiling of a well-stocked antique shop (Architectural Artifacts, anyone? Or the phantasmagoric House on the Rock?). But if I watch the video and understand that there are more than 600 props, costumes and set-pieces that have all been a part of a Lookingglass production, I gain a different perspective.
Pre-knowledge of the set places the play in a different context for me, one that is important for the full appreciation of the ingenuity of the design.
To say nothing of whether or not a potential ticket-buyer might see this taste of the set and be intrigued enough to purchase admission to the show...