Fluorescent lighting is Sweet

In 1998 I stage managed Sweet Self written by Zay Amsbury and directed by Josh Costello. We did this show in an ultra low-budget fashion, having quite literally no money. Being the Stage Manager meant I called places and then ran the sound cues. There were no lighting cues. We performed in the multi purpose room of a senior center. We had hideous orange plastic chairs for "scenery" and the fluorescent lights in the room were just on. I think we did a blackout at the top and at the end. The actors were all visible throughout the performance, sitting in chairs "off-stage" but still in plain view. The audience was configured in a 3/4 Round.

It was amazing.

The show was so strong and the dramatic tension so high that after the first scene one almost forgot about the fluorescent lighting and the orange chairs. It was there that I developed a certain philosophy of theatre and the importance of design. Now, I know there are exceptions to this, Robert Wilson being an immediate one that comes to mind, but for 99% of theatre productions I believe the following to be true. Any show should be complete and dramatically compelling when performed under worklights and in rehearsal clothes.

Now I also firmly believe that design is a necessary element to a work. It can illuminate and reveal aspects of the play and nuance that would otherwise be missed. It can create a visual focus upon which to organize the events of the play. It helps bring an audience into the world of the play such that they can fully experience that complete and dramatically compelling event. But, design is not the world of the play. Scenery and costumes offer up an interpretation of the text and the action. They operate as a kind of framing device for the play. Lighting and sound serve to mark the passage of time and weave into the text at a temporo-structural level. But the play is the words and the staging. And the actors must be seen and clothed(or naked) but these are all choices, and they are all design. Even if the choice is to use the objects found in the performance venue, that is a design choice.

I had dinner with Josh last night and we got into a three or four hour discussion of Romeo and Juliet. It was a great discussion focusing mostly on the death of Mercutio as the central turning point in the play and how that relates to one of the Prince's final lines and that to the entirety of the action of the play.

See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

What was so fun about this is that Josh has a strong understanding of Shakespeare, as evidenced by the writing on his blog. But more than that, having worked with him several times before I know how good he is as a director and thus it was not just idle chatter but strong ideas that could be transformed into dramatically compelling action.

One of the last plays we worked on together was House of Lucky at The Magic in San Francisco. That was a full production at a LORT theatre. A far cry from the multi purpose room of a few years before. Yet the show had started in that same room, with those same fluorescent lights and orange chairs. It had already proven to be complete and dramatically compelling. The addition of the lighting and scenery only added to the dramatic story telling.