The stage at Artists Repertory Theatre was quite unique and had many positive effects on my watching the play. I have to admit, I have never encountered a stage quite like this one; this made the experience all the more exciting.
In some strange way, the stage was somewhat of a mix between a proscenium, ¾ thrust, and an arena-style stage. It had the arch in the back, where the actors still acted in, a thrust/platform that jutted out into the center with the audience on three sides, and on this platform, the actors performed on it in 360 degrees. It is easier to understand this knowing that this is actually a black-box style stage; using the black-box’s all-purpose variability to give this stage the best of all worlds. When the actors performed in the forested background, the proscenium arch was there to frame the action. And although the platform was made to be a ¾ thrust, the actors performed in all directions on the compass. I thought that this black-box style of stage was very effective, constantly switching up where the action took place, which in turn kept me on my feet. An example of this is in Act IV, when Masha kept walking in between the trees and Irina was with the Baron on the central platform. The audience paid attention to Irina and the Baron, while still wondering what was going through Masha’s mind, how she seemed so preoccupied wandering through the gardens.
While still being a relatively large space, the stage was still able to remain quite intimate during some scenes. The stage was large enough to accommodate the entire cast without the effect of overcrowding; an example would be the picture taking scene at the party, everyone was onstage but it didn’t seem like anything was being drowned out. Normally, smaller stages would not be able to fit the entire cast onstage without overloading the audience’s visuals and along with that, confusing their focus.
And during the one-on-one scenes, such as the ones between Irina and Tusenbach or Solyony, the sections of the octagonal platform seemed to point to and highlight the said characters. This sort of highlighting was able to let me focus solely on those two actors. Once again, I believe this was a very effective use of the black-box stage’s universal capabilities and further cemented the black-box stage as my favorite type of stage.
If the A.R.T. is able to do this with this stage, I am very excited to see what they can do with other productions (like a musical?). So I give the production crew props for making such an awesome stage that kept me on the edge of my seat, expanding my focus throughout the entire stage space.
~Chris McVey
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12 comments:
I completely agree. It was great where we were sitting! Especially during the scene between Olga, Irina and Andrey. We got to see their faces and reactions of Andrey yelling about his wife and the mistakes he made, etc. It was quite theatrical. I loved it.
Yes, I love ART's black box space--so flexible. This was a nice set-up for "Three Sisters." It felt very intimate, as you pointed out.
That's one reason why Chris and I didn't switch with you, Alisha. I, for one, really liked where we were sitting. It was high enough up we felt like an audience and not necessarily like a silent actor just sitting there. That really changes the mood and how we view the play.
I agree with Deanna, here. I felt the seats we were situated in were high/low enough for us to have a full, yet intimate view of all the stage.
it was a nice set up, but my seat (on stage left) was all the way against the wall and there were a lot of parts that I could not see. that was kind of sad.
For me, it did have a intimate feeling sitting in the front row on the right side of the stage. A lot of scenes I really felt the emotion; like when Natasha was yelling at Olga about the nanny/ Nana (I think she played Anfisa??).
I was squished against the wall too! I also had the problem of not being able to see EVERYTHING but I saw enough to understand it all. So that was fine with me.
Yeah, even though Deanna and I were flattened against the wall, it was actually not so inconvenient. In fact, I could see practically see everything, especially in scenes where characters were behind the divider in the bedroom. It made for a cool separation effect.
Hey! I said the same thing about the mix between arena and thrust during design elements. I was sitting in A1 where it was really noticable, making it kind of strange, a trying something new you aren't quite sure about yet strange. And I was right in front of Ali so I totally know what she is talking about. You guys got the good side of the stage.
I really liked how they made effective use of the space.
I didn't notice that until you pointed out that the stage could accomodate all the actors without it looking crowded. It must have been bigger than it looked
I liked your blog, I am interested to see what a musical would be like!
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