The reviews for The Last Word are starting to arrive. General consensus thus far seems to be superb acting that outstrips the body of the text. There are still several reviews yet to come in so we shall see how things fill out as time goes on. The design of realistic works tends to get little to no notice, and this is no exception.
On the plus side, Lippard keeps things moving at just the right clip for the play to make its points without wearing out its welcome. (The intermissionless show runs about 80 minutes). Set designer Michael V. Moore has provided an appropriately sparse and dingy office for the Henry-Len discourse. Equally appropriate are Lucas Benjaminh Krech’s lighting and Kirche Leigh Zeile’s costumes. Hail also to sound designer Gabe Wood for those wonderfully realistic computer noises.
These kind of works are truly where design and direction are best when invisible. To make anything that stands out too much would be intrusive and detrimental to the show. This play goes farther and perhaps begs the question as to the primacy of the text. The show is not strong because of the language. This is not unique to this play, but is none the less the case. The play is about the acting. The characters as embodied by these two actors are made possible through the direction, design and text, but in the final analysis these elements are fuel for something else and in no way the core of the thing itself.
For a bit of a tangent, the listing in the IOBDB has my name wrong, so now I have different listings in the archive under two different spellings of my name. It might be easier to not use my full name, but I like my middle name. I think there is a good sound and rhythm to the whole thing. Plus, I feel it is a little too biting without the use of the middle name. It also gives me something to complain about.
The lighting has only been described as appropriate. It’s good to know I did my job. Perhaps sometime I should do inappropriate lighting just to get notice. MacBeth in pink and lavender tones. Heh. Working at the NYU Dance department in graduate school we would light, between the two of us, over one hundred dances a year. When you do that much work you inevitably fall into cliche just to make it through. In addition, you begin to learn how the other person is going to light a dance. So we played a little game. We would challenge the other lighting designer to not use whatever we knew their reaction would be. “No blue backlight” or “No grey sky.” Sometimes we guessed wrong. Sometimes we caused the other to have a total train wreck. Many times though, we would end up with some very striking and unusual solutions to various problems.
It can be difficult to experiment in the professional theatre. On the one hand the work must be artistically interesting, so there is a degree to which one must push existing boundaries. At the same time, you are providing a service and a product to a client and thus the work can not be too esoteric. The design must be artistically satisfying as a designer, but first it needs to be what the client(producer/director) wants. The Last Word wanted to be a realistic space. The director was very clear that with the play we never wanted anything about the physical environment or clothing to feel “designed”. It had to flow naturally from the clear given circumstances of the text. For this particular piece that is the right and ‘appropriate’ course of action to take. It may be conventional in that regard, but it sure appears to be popular with the audiences.
Some works are more experimental by their very nature. This is true of both Ajax and Artfuckers. This weekend I am in tech for Operation Ajax and that work is far more abstract in nature than The Last Word. Navigating through these different and changing styles is truly exciting. While I might get bored only recreating the look of a fluorescent lit room, so too would purely abstract works begin to take their toll. The differing styles of dramatic storytelling, of acting and text and design all make for a fun and engaging body of work.
