Here are some more pictures of Windows produced last October by INTAR at the Workshop Theatre.
Written and Directed by Sylvia Bofill
Scenery by Jian Jung
Costumes by Oana Botez-Ban
Enjoy!
Posts Tagged ‘intar’
More Windows Pictures
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006Evolutionary Aesthetics
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006The process for Windows has been quite interesting. Two and a half weeks in the theatre from load-in to opening(tonight). Twice as much time as I have ever had to work on a show. As a result there has been a lot of time to evolve the visual storytelling. The basic idea that we had from the start is there, utilize color transformations as a primary source of visual storytelling. When working in a situation as limited as the one we are in(only 44 dimmers) I have found that color can be a very useful means of differentiating time, space and psychology while still being able to clearly and cleanly light the performers.
The play is very complex from a lighting perspective. As the text utilizes dance and movement along with language to move through its ever shifting symbolic dreamscape there is a need for rather sophisticated cueing. Transitions from one image to the next occur in many parts with different lights moving at different rates. The light board we are using is not designed to do “Part Cues.” It can do them, but the programming for it is difficult and convoluted as that functionality was added on after the initial release of the software.
We have two main color ideas, a set of lightboxes as the back wall and an overhead system of color scrollers and then all the various conventional lights. All of these elements need to move and transform at different rates. I made a distinct choice with this show to use only colors I had never(or rarely) used before. A few of the colors I had used once, but most were wholly new to me. It made for some interesting surprises. The entire palette was composed of very soft colors, colors that recede from the eye, that try desperately to mix with other colors. The general effect of that was a very colorful palette that is perceived like clear light. Exactly the effect I wanted. The trouble came with the inherent difficulty then of giving a kind of sharpness and crispness to the images. I really had to work the color balance to make it possible. The colors all wanted to fall in a pile of mush, so it was quite some effort to make them stand up solidly.
Since the colors on the lightboxes were new, it took me a few days to really get the precise control over them I needed to mix the necessary colors for each moment. Once this happened I was able to start working out the crispness and softness needed in the various compositions. Since light, and color in particular, is inherently relative, if one aspect of the color is not under total control the whole stage picture begins to fall apart. But having so much time in the theatre I knew I could afford the risk of these difficult and troublesome colors.
Wrestling with the color palette was trouble enough, but we were also evolving the style of visual storytelling and making substantial rewrites to the script. There are lots of live color transformations, but we also had to find the moments of clarity. We had to find the light as well as the moments of darkness. While the initial color idea has held throughout, the final compositions are nothing like what I had expected. This is one of the wonderful things about the rehearsal process. You come to the table with a clear idea, but also with the flexibility to transform that idea into something else. Then you turn off the head, turn on the eyes, and flow with the play.
I always love the unexpected moments. Often I will include things in a plot that I have no idea when or how they will be used, but that I know will be useful. These hunches can turn into some of the most exciting parts of the technical rehearsal, as they become integral to the visual language of the play.
The production changes every time it is worked. Working one scene changes its relationship to all the other scenes and calls their composition into question. So those scenes change and again the whole is transformed. It is an amazing and fascinating negotiation. A play is such a fragile thing. Every single aspect of a production intimately tied to every other. It can be like herding cats to pull all the various elements together. Sometimes a single element can throw the whole thing off. Sometimes the evolutionary process never quite makes it to a new and complete species. In this case it is a workshop production and the script was only set a few days ago. As a result none of us have fully processed what this thing is. It is a wholly conditional situation. It has been difficult, but a lot of fun to work on.
Windows Opens
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006Windows, produced by INTAR, opens Today, October 18th at The Workshop Theatre. 312 W36th Street, 4th Floor.
Ticket info here.
Sorry I have not been around, I was busy deconstructing my reality
Monday, September 11th, 2006My my my has it been a busy few days! The Children is gearing up. I have been in rehearsals the last few nights and I sure do like what I am seeing. The show is deceptive in its complexity. On reading it, one certainly gets a sense of the complexity, but it is only when it is on its feet and we work through the scene transitions that the true complexity comes about. There are a lot of elements. There are a lot of locations. The scenery has been designed with the minimum needed to tell the story. A few simple pieces that reconfigure in many different configurations. Still it is quite complex.
The story is taken from a 1980 horror film. The writers have kept the same sense of pacing, with the exception of the addition of the songs, and even there some of them keep that timing. But filmic timing and stage timing are two very different things. It is an interesting conceptual challenge to try and maintain the sense of a video crossfade or a cut followed by a tracking shot on a stage. The two are very different things. Once again proving that lighting and video are two highly distinct mediums, even though they both deal with the manipulation of photons.
It has been an interesting challenge all around to get at the right tone for this piece. Not just in terms of design, but in staging and acting as well. It is very easy for the play to fall into cartoonish caricature. There are times for that, but a balance must be struck with that on the one hand and the humanity of the people on the other. It is quite the group effort to make this work. One must be willing and able to set aside ego and put ones self in service of the text. Not the script, the text.
Design appears to me more and more a service industry. The job of the designer is to serve the text. In no way do I mean to slavishly adhere to every minutia the playwright puts in the script. For they are part of the service industry as well. In fact the script is not the text. It is a text, but not the final text that is placed in front of an audience. The ‘text’ as I mean it is often called ‘the production.’ But that term has economic connotations that I wish to avoid for the moment.
When an audience comes to a theatre they come to read a text. They come to read the text aurally and visually. The text is comprised of sound and word, of form and fabric, of light and shadow. The text is incomplete without the audience for only then can it enter into dialog with experience. The experience of the creators is of course intimately woven into every aspect of the text. But it is experience as terminus. A kind of death in order to allow for rebirth. In the experience of the audience, the text becomes whole and is able to negotiate the world. The text become a point of birth. A beginning. An origin. And so we return and begin again.
The play begins to deconstruct itself almost from the very beginning. It both plays to and against the stereotypes of its genre. It is aware of Scream but sidesteps the trap of excessive irony. It accepts the sincerity of the original film, but allows the absurdity of that sincerity to bleed through.
And it is fun.
The fun is important as I gear up for a Fall comprised of rather dark material. In October I will be lighting Windows a new play written and directed by Sylvia Bofill. Produced by INTAR at The Workshop Theatre the play follows three generations of Puerto Rican women through the mind of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It is a powerful meditation on loss, sadness and regret.
In November, I will be lighting a production of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone followed by an adaptation of Maurice Blanchot’s Madness of Day.
December will find me lighting Becoming Adele for Gotham Stages the producers of last spring’s Sake with the Haiku Geisha. And then the fun returns with The Nutcracker. If you have young children, I highly recommend this show. New York Theatre Ballet puts on one of the best children’s shows I have seen.
There are a few other things in the works that I will of course keep everyone updated on as the time approaches. So, there is a bit of a preview of what I am up to this Fall. I am excited about all of these projects and looking forward to the rest of this year.
