Creating an Endless Void??

[jacquilantern76]

I'm a HS lighting designer lighting Waiting for Godot, and we are doing it rather strangely. We are going to have the audience seated in the back of the stage on risers facing the pit areas, where the actors will be performing. The house will be behind the actors. The purpose of this massive space is to create "an endless void of loneliness" (thanks Director) and the seats/sconces/portals will take away from that. Any ideas on how to give the illusion of an immense empty space, without showing any of the various chairs/portals/doors that could take away from the atmosphere?

 

[SHCP]

I do not have a good solution for you, but your post reminded me of our fall play "Our Town" this season.

The director wanted to do theater in the round, except for the fact that we have a proscenium house, and putting the audience on stage would: 1. Cut our audience area by two thirds by seating them on stage on risers. 2. Create very uncomfortable seating compared to our very nice theater seats. 3. Seriously hinder our lighting scheme (how to light the actors without lighting the audience) and 4. Most importantly, BREAK fire code for the space, since she wanted to block the front of the stage with seating.

When I explained my concerns, she did what she always does. She gets upset that I am not able to pull her vision out of my behind and put it on stage just the way it looked in whatever trade magazine she just looked at when she got the idea. I gave her several options, trying my best to at least accommodate the "Concept" of what she had in mind. But since she could not have that EXACT thing, she then started sending me show images from sets of entirely unrelated shows. I should have stopped her right there, but still, I attempted to give her what she was asking for, even when clearly she no longer had a specific idea. In the end, I made a set that I was not happy with, and the show was not something I was very proud of. (And yes, "Our Town" does not normally even have a set. I did explain this. An empty stage was too scary for her with the actors she had to work with)

When your Director asks for an "endless void", or something really hard to create in a concrete way, then the first thing to do is to get the Director to provide an example that you can see, or to get the Director to be extremely specific. maybe he just wants it as dark as you can make it. You may spend a ton of time on something that is never going to match what is in the Directors head.


Good luck to you.

I'm a HS lighting designer lighting Waiting for Godot, and we are doing it rather strangely. We are going to have the audience seated in the back of the stage on risers facing the pit areas, where the actors will be performing. The house will be behind the actors. The purpose of this massive space is to create "an endless void of loneliness" (thanks Director) and the seats/sconces/portals will take away from that. Any ideas on how to give the illusion of an immense empty space, without showing any of the various chairs/portals/doors that could take away from the atmosphere?

 

[jacquilantern76]

SHCP - I did try to get him off of this crazy in the round thing - all of the reasons you listed apply to us as well, adding on that our apron is uncharacteristically large and thus down light is made nearly impossible. Hard to explain this significance to a Director.
He doesn't seem to know what he wants either, other than that it needs to be a big space and create loneliness. He asked me to solidify that concept in a tangible setup. My vision is a smokey house with instruments on trees casting beams into "oblivion", and pointed inward to create a perspective effect. My concerns are chiefly that fog machines are loud and the "what's in your head looks crappy irl" idea. So just asking if anyone has ever had a similar setup, massive empty space effect.
Nice to know Directors are similar in their unrealistic expectations

 

[MarshallPope]

As long as you can contain light and bounce to the stage, and have some brightly lit set pieces on stage or maybe visible lights from the house, the house architecture shouldn't be that apparent, since your audience's eyes will adjust to whatever is brightest.
If nothing else, maybe you could hang a scrim in front of the house? That would probably kill the effect, though.

 

[gafftaper]

These are random thoughts I would experiment with: Get the house as dark as you can. Go in there tomorrow turn off all the liights and see how dark it is. Can you make it feel darker than that? What happens when you turn on a few stage lights. What can you do about it? Can you cover the entire house and seats with something black? Black fabric everywhere would absorb light and make it even blacker. I would experiment with lots of really sharply focused ellipsoidals at high intensity, Perhaps you can make the darkness feel darker by making the stage feel lighter. I would try avoiding warmth in the light, so experiment with using CTB color correction gel, No color Blue, or no gel at all Fresenels and PARs will spread out and allow light into the house. Keep the lighting angles steep to avoid light bouncing off the floor into the house.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

So a giant, proscenium sized infinity mirror? Not sure that's doable .

I would follow the advice from @gafftaper. The "theatre in reverse" shows I have done let me light the empty house seats in interesting ways. I guess I don't really see how creating an empty void with the house is ultimately more effective that creating an empty void on stage, but I've learned better than to openly question a directors design concept.


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[gafftaper]

So a giant, proscenium sized infinity mirror? Not sure that's doable .

No. But.... there's nothing cooler looking than Cheese cloth with colored light in it. How about long strips of cheese cloth down the walls of the theater with colored light on them and darkness in the center. Could be sort of the same effect on a massive scale.

However note that all these ideas with fabric are going to be expensive.

 

[JChenault]

There is a dance piece ( The changing Room ). by Twla Tharp which might be of interest. The stage is all black, and in the back of the stage there is dense fog that the dancers appear out of.

You might try some fast dissipating fog with a chiller, mounted up high. With any luck you might get thE effect of looking into a fog bank that just has no end.

 

[ruinexplorer]

My biggest concern is that, as with all audience on stage concepts, you will still need to be providing emergency egress through the house as stage exits are generally not enough for a full audience. This means that all of your emergency exit lights will remain lit, making it difficult to completely make your house dark (you can't cover those).

The best thing I would consider is very stark, directional lighting on the performers, mostly back and side lighting, blinding your audience as to what is beyond. Adding haze could add to that if you are able to keep the continuous haze or fog curtain as previously suggested.

 

[lwinters630]

I agree with Ruinexplorer. I call it relative darkness, if there's a bright tightly focused light coming from the back of the house shining towards the audience then their eyes will be blinded to all the darkness around it. much like when you're focusing lights in the catwalk you look up there and you are blind and just see that white spot, everything else turns dark.