The Front Page

Early on in my first lighting class (plainly called Lighting Design 1), we were assigned the task of taking a simple set rendering of The Front Page, xeroxed for our convenience, and make two light renderings for it. One using only white, the other in color. Simple enough. What light renderings are in my case are simply drawings to aid the director and other production staff of a performance in understanding what the lighting designer envisions for the stage. This is, of course, something I had never done given that, before college, the last art class I had taken was 8th grade (I believe I got a B or B-). The way I've learned to do light renderings is to simply take the set rendering, scan it, and print it out on some sort of black paper and then draw on that with colored pencils. It would be better if I used gouache, but I am even less skilled with paint than I am with a pencil. Regardless, light renderings are something I actually really enjoy doing. They just make more sense to me than drawing in the normal sense. When you draw normally, you're starting with a world full of bright, white light and adding shadow to that. This is, of course, the exact opposite of reality where light illuminates the darkness of the world. As a lighting designer whose purpose comes down to doing just that, I think it's understandable that I'd think that way.

As for the assignment, I was really happy with the results, given that it was my first ever attempt at doing such a thing. Although the rendering was from a design for The Front Page, the play didn't matter: it was just a set to use. As such, the actual "design" of our renderings was irrelevant. Really, the guest lecturer, David Finley, was looking for how well we could interpret the behavior of light. For my own purposes, the black and white rendering was a night time look, with a single desk of this office lit up by its own lamp. Most of the light comes from the bright moon outside, streaming in through the windows. I was very timid with this drawing, not wanting to make an overly obvious mistake. In his critique of my two works, Dave told me it was the more successful of the two, which I tend to agree with.

The Front Page - Black and White

The next rendering, the color one, is set in the early morning of the same night. Unlike some people in my class, I decided not to really "design" my renderings, rather, I chose the sources of light (morning sun, overhead lamps) and tried to show how it would actually look. The color is all a bit off, but I was still reasonably happy with it. Looking back at it now after growing an incredible amount (if I say so myself) as an artist, it's funny to look at the little mistakes made or even how I may have made it more difficult for myself by making it realistic.

The Front Page - Color

Things like this are why I love where I am right now. Even though I was up for God knows how long working on these two small drawings that weren't even supposed to be all that time-consuming, I was still happy to be doing it and to be learning. Any time that I've suffered or stressed here at Purchase, I can look back at these and remind myself that I'm doing something that I love.

It's nice, it really is.

The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams

In humans we can find truly remarkable coping skills, but these sometimes are just not enough. Such is the case with the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, a man so disturbed and haunted by his demons that his mental breakdowns happen like clockwork, driving him always to return to the hospitality of Maxine. At her small hotel on the coast, Shannon looks forward to the one thing that can set his mind at ease: the hammock that hangs on the verandah. He is isolated by his vocation and by the religion he has difficulty standing behind and for this he has trouble maintaining his sanity. He is desperate to develop some sort of actual connection with a person other than the young women that become infatuated with him. In them, he finds no solace beyond––or even in––the bedroom. Despite being where he most enjoys relaxing and recovering, Shannon continues to spiral into the wastes of his own depression. He hopes that Miss Hannah Jelkes could be the one to finally save him, but she too is scarred by lack of human contact and cannot make him whole again. Ultimately, his time at the Costa Verde follows closely that of Hannah’s grandfather, Nonno, as he tries to hang on, but still succumbs in the end.

Death is much in the forefront of everyone’s mind at the Costa Verde Hotel. The very trees and plants echo the fears and thoughts of Shannon and Hannah. They are like flowers at the end of their life, once filled with vibrance and passion, but now fading to grey. Its petals curling, browning on the edges, the flower is only a dried shell of its former self that barely hints at the beauty that once was held on top of the stem. The day mimics this behavior, starting out brightly in the afternoon and gradually dimming to the darkness of night as Nonno finally passes leaving Hannah alone in life. It is not only that Shannon is fading from life, but rather that he is losing or has lost everything he once cared about. His innocence, too, has long been stripped of him; once a naïve minister, he sees the world as it is, even searching for the fast decay of the tropical world that he has spent so much time displaying to those who become interested. Everything about this former minister and Miss Jelkes is being corrupted as the flower dies and begins to decay, eventually losing all sign of life.

Starting in the hot afternoon of the late Mexican summer, Shannon is still fighting for his own life. The world around him is hot in the blazing moments before sunset. The sky is a clear hopeful yellow, just barely beginning to dim. The whole verandah, though surrounded on all sides by a dense rain forest, is fully illuminated, not yet shaded by the change of day and growing desperation of the people at the hotel. The sky begins to darken as the sun sets, showing its full range of color for the last time before it sleeps. It is vibrantly orange and pink, slightly hazed over hinting at the storm to follow. The storm comes with all its fury, tearing at the little hotel ripping away the remnants of color and brightness. In its wake, darkness takes over the stage, the world is transformed, leaving Hannah and Shannon as completely separate entities even as they try to connect. They are divided into pockets of their own isolation and decay, as, like the flower, the sky twists and greys. The vivid colors of day and of life have faded by now and they are left in the dim glow of the moon, surrounded by the faint purple and blue swirls of the night. Beyond the actors on stage, the hotel is barely noticeable with only a little color hinting at its former life. Deep shadows in Shannon and Hannah’s eyes show their pain and desperation as they falls prey to human fragility. As the last vestiges of life fade away and Nonno dies in his wheelchair he leaves Hannah alone with her own small, colorless halo of light that fades away as the flower wilts.

The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen

Oddly enough, the life of the great Master Builder Halvard Solness is actually surprisingly sad and unfulfilling for a man so envied. Despite all of his incredible successes leading him to be practically unrivaled in his field, he lives always fearing the end. The “end” being the end of his career and his success, which he views as his only worth in life. This fear is brought to the forefront of his mind daily as his own inadequacies manifest themselves even in the very office from which he designs his breathtaking works. Youth––meaning both the obvious Ragnar Brovik and young people in general––are a constant threat to the aging Solness. However, this is not the only cause for concern in the life of the Master Builder. His own drive and what he feels he has done to become and still must do to remain the man that he is is constantly weighing and wearing him down. This unfortunate, paranoid man, wary of the crown he has sacrificed so much to earn, must always push to be even greater than most would say he already is.

Halvard Solness is a man with a constant need to improve himself and show the world what he can do. With the advent of the young Hilda comes increased pressure and encouragement, which excite Solness and cause him to once more strive even more for the same glory they both feel he achieved 10 years prior. Hilda’s beaming admiration causes his ambition to, like water, heat up and rise higher and higher into the sky, collecting and forming into a cloud of his own ego and aspirations. It builds and builds with each of her playful prods and with all her encouragement. The storm brews within Solness, urging him on to even greater goals than the tall church tower that brought the girl to him. Eventually, the weight of it all becomes too much for this quickly darkening and imposing cloud to contain as all of his hopes and dreams crash far back down to the earth below.

By virtue of the desires of Miss Hilda Wangel, the clouds of the world of Master Builder Halvard Solness are in a constant state of darkening. Although there is never a really clear sky in this world––the Master Builder being highly ambitious in his own right even without the young Miss Wangel––at its start, it is fairly calm. The dim grey sky is overcast when Hilda knocks on the door, casting Solness and all others in a paleness that softens their features and shadows. However, once she begins talking to Solness about the kingdom she is owed and her castle in the air, the clouds start to grow. The world takes on an altogether richer and more vibrant quality as the clouds gather. At first, it starts out simply hinting at color peeking through the grey sky. As time progresses though, the deeper blues and violets begin to filter through the clouds in increasing intensity. With these deeper colors come deeper shadows and greater definition of the people and their surroundings. Together it shows this as a world progressively more fanciful. As Hilda brings Solness closer to the eventual resolution, the darkening and deepening continues until the sky is nothing but a singular massive rain cloud culminating with the Master Builder’s fateful last climb up the scaffolding of his new home. In the last few moments of the play, after the man’s final descent from both the heights of the tower and from glory, the sky begins to clear and the color recedes once more.

All the Rage by Keith Reddin

The world is a harsh place, that much is clear. Whether through a suspicious husband, reckless use of medication, or supposed dangers imposed on your family, problems reveal themselves constantly. There are any number of ways of dealing with these difficulties that you might face each day. You might, like Tennel and Helen, leave your life behind and try to find something else in order to really discover yourself. Or, like Sydney, simply snap at a moment’s notice and direct all your anger at whoever has crossed you in a single instance of extreme violence. Collectively, these characters make a statement about our society and how it impacts everyone; our greed, our desire for quick fixes regardless of the dangers involved, and our desperation are laid bare. The characters are marked by a sense of build-up, that each of their actions is leading up to a great moment as a result of the society they are a part of.

Pressure is building, waiting to burst through like magma surging upwards through a volcano. The hot, molten lava undulates beneath a thin layer of rock and earth that cannot hope to restrain it for long. Soon, it breaks through the surface, erupting in a brilliant red-hot column or, rather, in the form of a gunshot. This volcano manifests itself differently in each of the characters. Some, like Warren, have a little more integrity to their earthen barrier, breaking after years of suspicion and finally only after a moment of extreme duress. Alternatively, Sydney is more of a constantly flowing and sputtering behemoth, so volatile that nothing survives his swathe of destruction.

Understandably, this world lends itself to a constant air of tension. Even in the silence of Norton’s office, this off-putting tension is prevalent. It is stifling and makes everyone within it uncomfortable. Everything is bathed in a slight––but unnatural––red hue, which, when combined with the harsh lines that strike chaotically makes it impossible to sit contentedly, enjoying what life has to offer. The very ground emanates heat as the world works to test and stress these people. As each person reaches their own point of rupture, this heat grows until it is truly sweltering. In the immediate wake of these eruptions, there is a period markedly cooler than the rest, though these only last briefly before the heat once again rises to the surface seeking yet another victim.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Central to Streetcar is the idea that it is a part of human nature that desperation leads us to cling to whatever scraps remain of our lives and to our very grip on reality itself even if, in doing so, we lose sight of that reality. At its opening, the harshness of this is already beginning to show despite the dimness of the evening. The few street lamps are sharp and penetrating, their edges bearing down on everyone beneath. It’s not unrealistic, rather it’s very much natural. It feels like a mirror, reflecting to the world the truth. For Blanche, this reflection is too much to bear, only recently having been forced to come to terms with what her life has become. The mirror is dehumanizing, it doesn’t obey the wishes of the one looking at it, but shows them for who they are; each defect illuminated for all to see.

"Blanche Arrives"

As Blanche attempts to slip back into her habit of deceitful self-preservation, a change is beginning to occur; the world softens to her, even if only very slightly and temporarily. The mirror is now fogging up from the steam of her bath. She is like a child in her nursery, her mobile is the paper lantern she hides beneath, its gentle glow protecting her from the world she has receded from. Though washed with this warmth, there still remain shadows hinting at her lies. Her constant reminder of the past, the Varsouviana, inevitably shows the truth. The mirror, warping, now more like one found in a funhouse, distorts the world in her moments of hallucination. Purple and green replace the normal ambers of the Quarter, casting Blanche into confusion. The warmth disappears and the shadows grow where they defy all reason, freakishly streaking her face with no regard to her protector lamp.

"The Varsouviana"

At the resolution, Blanche is broken; the mirror shattered as her actual circumstances and her imagined life collide. With no real sense of what is real and what is merely a ruse or delusion, the shadows come out again more exaggerated than ever. They turn the men into giants and dwarf Blanche. There is an awkward hue, not quite right, to everything seen, the normal colors of day having been replaced by those altogether more vibrant, though garish, colors of Blanche’s mania.

The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Although Willy Loman has spent most of his life working and striving to become a successful, well liked man, in the end, his legacy is a $20,000 life insurance policy and the lies he tells himself and everyone around him. It is not that these are the lies of a bad person intent on deceiving, it is what he needs to do in order to try to live up to the expectations he sets for himself. Unfortunately for Willy, he’s not particularly talented at either selling or simply making people like him, but he still thinks he needs to act like he is for the sake of his sons’ as much as his own. The lies he tells create a self-perpetuating cycle of deception that ends with the lies becoming so ingrained in his mind and those of his family that not only are they practically instinct, they become confused with reality as Willy slips farther and farther into his dementia.

"Reality"

Growing and crawling over everything in its path, the lies Willy tells are like a creeping vine expanding uninhibited in a foreign wilderness. Everything that is too slow to escape it eventually is overcome as all light is blocked out by the sheer density of Willy’s illusory dream life. In the course of his life, Willy’s deceit grows from exaggerating his own success and skills to always trying to hide Biff’s and Happy’s failures. Linda and the boys loved him so fully for his character and devotion to him in their early days that everything he told them––how he is a “well liked man,” his great aptitude for salesmanship, and even the compliments he gave them––took hold like that vine, ultimately deciding their fates. Willy pays the price for creating these untruths and manipulating reality through giving his life in a final delusional act of sacrifice; he kills himself at least partially thinking that the money from his life insurance policy could leave a greater legacy than he ever could.

"Fantasy"

The two worlds of Willy Loman, those of reality and the fantasy world of the past, are at first highly separate entities. The former is characterized by the oppressive vines of Willy’s lies streaking the stage and beginning to take over. The world at these times of the present are cooler with Willy’s age and increasing inability to function; its blues filling the deep corners of the stage. Contrasting these scenes are those of the past Willy inexorably falls into. It is not consumed by heat, rather it is simply distinctly warmer than the Lomans’ real world, back before he started losing hold of his life. This world is hazed over and does not have the distinct lines of the other. Gradually, as the stories Willy tells completely take over his life, the two worlds come closer together until they are almost indiscernible. This is marked by a general darkening of the stage. Finally, with his death, darkness finally consumes the stage as the good intentioned but misguided salesman succumbs to his weaknesses and the lies he has told all his life.

Really? A lullaby?

I just listened to Brahms' Lullaby for the first time in I have no idea how long and what struck me most about it is how much it put me on edge. Even though I immediately remembered how calming it is and recognized the characteristics of the song that make it so, it reminded me of something that I can't quite put my finger on and whatever that is just isn't settling with me properly. It's as though I have it associated with some bad memory that I've repressed, not that I really think that's the case. Just, for some reason, this beautifully soothing song is making me uneasy. Essentially, it feels the same as when, lying awake at night, I remember everything that I need to do or try to remember what it is I forgot to do.

This really is strange.