Richard III @ BAM

"'Tis A Pity..." (see below) was actually our second BAM play of the season.  The first, Richard III, was equally educational for different reasons.

Most reviewers, understandably, focused on Kevin Spacey's performance in the lead role.  In England, they liked it...over here, not so much.  I know several people who sat closer to the stage who thought his performance was overblown...from the nosebleeds, the performance read as "big," but no bigger than you'd think Richard would be.

But while Spacey's performance is certainly the heart of the play, it was the STAGING, and the SET DESIGN that really blew me away.

It began like this -- almost entirely in front of the proscenium, a series of five identical doors lining both sides of the stage, with several identical doors across the back, and whitewashed wood floors running from front to back.  Above the walls and doors, blank white space...seen at the link below.

Image of initial set

Then, later in the play, the blank space above the doors was used to project fast-moving sky.

Between every scene, the lights shifted, the furniture was moved, sometimes only a little bit -- but each completely rearranged the stage picture.  With barely any change, the world changed.  Every time.

Then, at the act break...the back wall of the stage just...slid away.  And those rows of doors on either side became this sort of "infinite corridor" of doors, and you realized the stage was raked...it was AWESOME.  So for the second half of the play, we had a new, much BIGGER world to play with.

Partial Image of Set, second act

And again, lights and the arrangement of a few set pieces and blocking just kept changing (and changing, and changing again) the size and spacial relationships and intimacy of each scene.

It was a true lesson in the importance of design, and how design can work in CONCERT with the text to support and amplify what's happening in any given moment.  It was...deceptively simple.  Incredibly well-thought-out.  Not "flashy."  It was like the difference between a dress off the rack at Target vs. Couture.

It was a reminder, to me, of just how CRUCIAL everything else is, all the other minds are, who come together to make a production happen.  And it reminded me of Greg Allen's "25 Rules" for making theater, which appeared, years ago now, in Chicago's PerformInk...