The Shape of the Script

An audience bustles out of a packed theater buzzing with post-show energy. The crowd throws out the typical praises eagerly; “What a great script” or “The actors really got into character” might be heard as the crowd dissipates. It is the world that they have just left, the stage that has been transformed to represent the fantastical details of another reality, that creates the foundation for the script or actors that they compliment. How it is done and who is responsible remains a mystery, though, to many theatergoers.

Within the last few decades of theater, the importance of set design has taken on a new meaning, providing the physical backbone for many productions. Evolved dramatically from the bare amphitheaters of the Greeks and the slightly more complex, yet bare stages of the Elizabethan era, modern set design serves to represent the abstract and practical simultaneously in a way that cannot be achieved simply through actors, props, and lighting. Though it might not be the primary focus of a play, set design often provides the thematic backdrop, which serves to accent the actors’ movement and director’s vision.

Each placement of a chair and each color of a tile has a purpose; those aesthetic and practical decisions are made by the set designers. Their primary job is to decipher a script to support the director’s idea of how the play should be realized  atmospherically. Working with lighting designers, costume designers, and everyone else involved, set designers consider each aspect of a production’s aesthetic and make sure they come together smoothly. It is these often-unrecognized crew members that work to bring together the production and create a feeling of cohesion: they ultimately serve as the foundation on which the rest of the play is built.

DESIGN IN THE DETAILS

At its basis, set design creates a sphere in which the story can develop. “A lot of the fun is in the imagining…from taking the story and letting it play out in your mind…envisioning the world and seeing that world come to life,” says Chrissy M. Rodriguez ’15, the set designer for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players’ production of “Utopia, Limited.” In set design, basic details like location, object space, and movement are taken into account. But beyond acting as a physical environment, the set can also serve as reinforcement for a thematic undercurrent present in the script. For the theme of isolation prevalent in HRDC’s “punkplay,” the designers chose to set the action primarily in a three-walled box with only two entrances to provide passage.

What truly allows these elements to form a united mosaic is research. “The other day…I spent three hours in the Fine Arts libraries hanging around the stacks looking at pictures,” Madelynne A. Hays ’13, set designer for HRDC’s recent production “Eurydice,” says.

Research can also range from simple things, like looking at other renditions of the show to get a grasp of the mood, to more obscure, detail-oriented exploration like finding different variations and shades of marble flooring, like Rodriguez did for “Utopia, Limited.” After that research, designers might make sketches that eventually make up a basic groundwork, which in turn evolves into a scale model. The process is fluid and the model malleable as the set designer continues changing his or her vision to make it compatible with ideas from directors, actors, and other crewmembers.

Such attention to detail is crucial to the believability and validity of a performance. Meant to immerse the audience in the world of the play, set design is responsible for maintaining the fantasy of the production. Small mistakes like a misappropriation of the number of doors or the wrong type of tiling for a historical production can create a disconcerting break.

Rodriguez recounts a designer run where the cast of one of the shows in which she was involved performed the show using only the props, set, and direction they had at that moment. “I remember sitting down watching the show…and someone said ‘I’m going to the kitchen’…and they left through the front door,” she says. “From a logical view that doesn’t make any sense. If you’re going through the kitchen you don’t leave the house.” All it takes is a step out of the wrong door to break the illusion of a world for the audience.

It’s these small details that complete a performance, especially in adaptations of frequently performed plays such as Shakespeare’s. Many directors choose to modernize plays in an attempt to breathe new life into the script, and in doing so, they can accidentally restrict interpretation with a concept such as placing “Romeo and Juliet” into the context of a modern political conflict. Hays recounts a rendition of “Othello” where “the whole set was…glossy white, there were curtains that were white, and moving platforms” of the same color, which limited the theatergoers’ ability to view the play from their own perspectives. If the performance in question is an adaptation, it seems that the set designer must make the appropriate changes while maintaining the spirit of the original.

SPATIALLY CHALLENGED

Each stage has its own set of quirks, and it’s the set designers’ responsibility to utilize the space in a way that suits the director’s vision. When a designer decides the placement of objects, he or she must consider fly space—the amount of space above the stage where objects can be flown in via pulleys during the performance. The same sort of judgments must be made to allow for different sight lines, the varying angles an audience will see of the stage, props, and actors depending on where in the theater they are seated. Each aspect affects what audience members can and cannot see, which contributes to the aesthetic and emotional appeal of the play.

The stages on campus have different benefits and negatives that set the parameters in which a designer can work. “[The Loeb Ex] is good because of the black box. You can basically do whatever you want,” says Isabel Strauss ’13, a veteran set designer who has been involved with multiple HRDC productions. This could mean a strategy like placing the audience in the middle of the stage, as was done in the HRDC’s production of “Cain and Cain,” or creating a separate stage not entirely dependent on the physical constraints. This is in contrast  to a stage like that of the Agassiz Theatre, which has essentially no fly space, poor sight lines, a balcony, and a “bad grid,” which is located above the stage and hangs lighting instruments.

Handling space doesn’t end with the purely technical limitations of the theater, but also involves the position of chairs, platforms, and other physical objects on stage. The Loeb Mainstage presents a particular challenge simply by being massive: the theater can seat up to 540 people.

“The Glass Menagerie,” currently being performed by the American Repertory Theater, is staged on this particular set and provides a perfect example of how to utilize the space. On the right side is a leveled fire escape. A red sofa is stationed next to it with a table to the far left, and the backdrop is black. What is remarkable is the way that the empty space is filled and seems interconnected rather than riddled with gaps.

“Look at that. What do you see?” asks J. Michael Griggs, both the HRDC advisor and technical director of the Loeb, pointing at the flooring of the stage, which has been transformed into a mirrored surface. “Look at that reflection. The thing about that is, when someone wants a high gloss [surface]…we have to make it out of materials that are in pieces. Somewhere there will be a line or seam,” he says. “For this they wanted a perfect glass-smooth reflection. How do you think they did that?”

To achieve this, a pool of glycerin surrounds the main stage, creating a reflecting floor. The result is two stages: the physical one that the audience sees and the reflected one on the liquid. A stage is not always filled so much by placement of many objects, but by the strategic positioning and choices of a select few.

COLLABORATIVE CURATION

“In modern theater it’s the director’s vision…it’s the director’s medium,” Griggs says. The relationship between director and set designer is a complicated one. While the director holds the basis of the creative focus of the play, the set designer’s role is not simply one of a servant to the director in any successful production. Instead, it is a partnership of equals, the set designer being the translator and interpreter for the director.

“It’s definitely a collaboration. I told [the set designer] it has to have a surreal, ‘toon town’ look to it…she’ll come up with a couple of ideas to represent that, and we’ll talk it over,” Susanna B. Wolk ’14 says of the musical she is directing, “Wonderful Town.”

The roles in the production are distinct between the director and set designer, but they work in conjunction to create a greater sum than the parts. “The director wants to bring out the story out of the actors and the words,” Griggs says. “The designer…tries to communicate the story through the visuals.” The director is involved in the emotional response, while the other is concerned with the visual.

“I think about it as a form of curation. While a curator would pick where to set up…the paintings, the set designer sets up the show, which is the medium,” Hays says.

In many ways the physical movement of the actors is dependent on the set. When a director goes through blocking, the process that decides where actors will be when they perform, the location and ability of movement varies greatly depending on how sparse or intricate the set is. A set with levels at different heights that signify multiple locations will pose different challenges than one that is level.

Influencing the way the play is acted out, the set designer decides the arrangement of the set, which can continue or stop the momentum of the play. Props, stage entrances, and stage exits change depending on the genre and mood of a production; the designer must use the set and props effectively, without hindering actors’ movements or distracting the audience from the play itself.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

“We need more set designers…you can’t put on a show without a set designer,” Strauss says. “There are about five to eight set designers [on campus], but there are 25 shows.” As set designers tend to be overshadowed by the director, Harvard’s pre-professional resources in set design are relatively minimal. Griggs further mentions the lack of set design classes at Harvard—there are currently only two focused distinctly on set design, which Griggs teaches—compared to offerings at schools like Boston University, which has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in scene design. With set design relegated mostly to an extracurricular pursuit at Harvard, in some ways, Griggs says, students are put at a disadvantage when applying to Masters of Fine Arts programs, where set designers learn to hone their craft before setting out in the field. “People coming out of here are at a slight disadvantage,” he says. “Here you have to...do as much work as you can handle on stage, but you don’t get as much of that in-depth skill training.”

“Set design has come a long a way since it was first introduced,” Hays says. “New technologies and the rising importance of lighting…. opens up a whole new range of possibilities.” What could be an office or three beige walls can now be something more abstract and interesting. With the rise of the more technical elements, modes of set design other than theater have provided outlets for not just those with MFAs, but also for architects and engineers.

The smallest things, like the display in front of a store, to something grander, like the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics, would all be considered set design. Stages for performances other than plays also become canvases for set designers, though designers might alter their approach slightly outside the theater. Rodriguez notes the difference between theater and a dance show on which she worked. “There’s not really a physical structure...it means building a large prop,” she says. “Nothing is permanent.”

Some popularly televised and viewed events also rely on set design and represent a medium in which set design can evolve. “The Oscars this year were designed by a Broadway set designer, Derek McLane, who is a Harvard grad, so it was very theatrical in its presentation,” Griggs says. In such events, theatrical set design can be brought to a popular audience in an unexpected form. The common thread present between all these different mediums of set design is expressing the creative message.

There is one significant caveat that differentiates theater from its peers, however: Rodriguez notes the transportative nature of theatrical set design that is not always a part of other types of performance. “Other shows don’t aim in the same way to transport the audience…to a new world... [or] to tell a story,” she says.

—Staff writer Neha Mehrotra can be reached at nehamehrotra@college.harvard.edu.