There’s far more to setting the stage than arranging furniture
Since our theater at Cape May Stage has no curtain, we purposely use scenery to help tell the stories in our plays. While some sets may serve as visual jokes, they are more often metaphors for the central theme.
When we produced a farce called “Boeing, Boeing,” our central character, a male pilot, was manipulating the schedules of three stewardesses — and romantic interests — while he flew around in circles to avoid getting caught. To accentuate the play’s frenetic pace, I asked our set designer, Robert Martin, to incorporate circles in his set design.
He, in turn, arranged the walls on the stage in a semi-circle, placed a circular coffee table on top of a circular rug and used a round bean bag chair that was true to the period.
Similarly, our set for the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Proof” told the story of a math genius and her mentally ill father, so the set was unbalanced and mathematical equations were scribbled all over the siding of their house.
The play’s title refers to both a mathematical proof and the story of a young woman proving that she was the one who solved the equation. The set alone introduced the audience to their world before a single word of dialogue was spoken.
For the comedy “Art,” we wanted a set that created a world of pretension where the “art of the deal” was more important than the art itself, which we accomplished by having a white painting fly on and off the set like a circus performer.
We also explored three characters’ friendship, which was at the heart of the story, by creating three different looks for their Paris apartments.
My favorite metaphor in set design over the years was for “A Walk in the Woods,” in which Director Marlena Lustik collaborated with set designer Shawn Fisher to use papers that had been run through a shredder to stand in for the trees alluded to in the title.
The papers were filled with “top secret” information in an arms negotiation and at one point tiny shreds fell from the sky, representing the leaves on the paper trees as well as the possibility of renewed hope for peace.
I am currently working with set designer Josh Iacovelli on a play called “Vanities,” which toys with the double entendre of vanity as a piece of furniture and vanity as an act of behavior. Our plan is to have one huge vanity across the entire stage with Japanese lanterns surrounding the mirror as light bulbs.
We will also have three normal-sized vanities where our characters will change before our eyes as we tell the story of three women navigating their friendships from high school to sorority times in college to adulthood.
And through it all, their vanity mirrors provide reflections of who the women think they are or are expected to be, rather than who they truly are.
“Vanities,” our season opener, runs from June 4-28 at Cape May Stage. Come see how we set the stage for a fun and reflective night at the theater by calling (609) 770-8311 or visiting capemaystage.org for tickets.
– By ROY STEINBERG/For the Cape May Star and Wave
Roy Steinberg is the producing artistic director at Cape May Stage.
