Theatrical Set Design

Theatrical

“As plays started making homes in specific theaters, the ability to build more elaborate sets became more possible.”

ArtDiction | 46| July/August 2018

Set Design

By Phillip Utterback

Theatrical sets offer a unique

opportunity for set designers to show their skills in further developing the artistic visions of the director and playwrights. While preparing a set for a show, the director and designer must decide how much the set is going to play a part in the development of the show. In some cases, the set offers little more than a place for the action of the play to take place; but in many cases the set creates a setting as well additional opportunities to further the themes of the play.

When theater started at ancient Greek Bacchus festivals, the sets were almost, if not completely, non-existent. Following Aristotle’s unity of place, Greek plays generally occurred in only one location. As the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods of theater arose, the plays were able to use the balconies and trap doors to expand the impact of sets. As technologies advanced so did the capabilities of set designers.

As plays started making homes in specific theaters, the ability to build more elaborate sets became more possible. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats created a set that was proportioned so the trash dump was sized to human-sized cats. The original production of Sunset Boulevard featured the golden-gilded house of a movie star that was levitated to allow two scenes to occur simultaneously. An Inspector Calls featured a rain curtain allowing it to rain on stage; while

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time relied on elaborate lighting designs.

Over the years, sets have provided greater opportunities for set designers to visually reveal the main idea of the play. When Sunday In the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim’s dramatic telling of George Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte,” was first produced, the painted characters were placed on stage as cardboard cutouts. As technology developed, the painted characters became canvases with digital animations responding in real time.

Set designers continue to use their craft to further develop the themes of the plays they are working for. In some cases, the sets might be simplistic, like a set for Waiting for Godot, where the stage might be empty but for a couple chairs. In other cases, the play could require a unit set that highlights the quest, and failure, to find the American dream, like most productions of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Perhaps the set is utilized to compare different points of view, like Hamilton, which uses a rotating set to show how America is at a turning point while the stagnant England’s set remains still. Regardless of how the set is used, there is little question that set designers provide an opportunity for the audience to view the play in a visual aspect that the acting and script cannot do by themselves.

ArtDiction | 47 | July/August 2018