Looking at sets
Look at these two sets. I’m fascinated with sets.
The one on the top is for UW Drama’s current play, They Don’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! This photo is from a few steps up the center aisle of the Jones Playhouse during intermission.
I hadn’t noticed in-person, but in the photo it almost sort of floats. It reminded me of the set for The Case for the Existence of God at ACT last year, bottom photo, taken from the front row.That set really did just float there.
I still can’t articulate what that small, contained space with the lid off did, but it was affecting. Maybe it’s as simple as that. The two characters repeatedly meet in that little office until the drama boils over and the lid comes off.
In the UW play, it’s the opposite. The show is a farce (with heart and a real bite.) The characters repeatedly stray off the linoleum squares to play various manic scenes outside the apartment and to talk to you and me in the audience. It’s flat on the ground and connected to the world, not floating at all, when the show gets moving.
I think, in writing about sets, I’ve used the Yogi Berra quote before, “You can observe a lot just by watching,” but it’s really true about sets, so I’m saying it again.
The one on the top is for UW Drama’s current play, They Don’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! This photo is from a few steps up the center aisle of the Jones Playhouse during intermission.
I hadn’t noticed in-person, but in the photo it almost sort of floats. It reminded me of the set for The Case for the Existence of God at ACT last year, bottom photo, taken from the front row.That set really did just float there.
I still can’t articulate what that small, contained space with the lid off did, but it was affecting. Maybe it’s as simple as that. The two characters repeatedly meet in that little office until the drama boils over and the lid comes off.
In the UW play, it’s the opposite. The show is a farce (with heart and a real bite.) The characters repeatedly stray off the linoleum squares to play various manic scenes outside the apartment and to talk to you and me in the audience. It’s flat on the ground and connected to the world, not floating at all, when the show gets moving.
I think, in writing about sets, I’ve used the Yogi Berra quote before, “You can observe a lot just by watching,” but it’s really true about sets, so I’m saying it again.
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