Good Reviews!

The Whipping Man is getting very good reviews.  Always nice.

As a set designer though, you shouldn't necessarily expect to set your set in any review, good or bad.  (I've mostly been pretty lucky.)  Here's my take on how reviews work:

1)  A review will always identify the theater venue and company, the show, and its creators (playwright, composer, etc.).  If the show has credentials - Broadway, megahit, recent film staring Justin Beiber, Tonys, whatever - that gets mentioned toward the top.  And there's at least a brief explaination of what the show is about and its type: musical. drama, comedy etc.
2)  A review will always discuss the acting.  Almost always the direction.  The amount of detail depends more on the space allotted to the text, than to any other factor.

And then... I figure the  reviewer has room for one more thing...

3)  If the show is a new work, then the reviewer needs to spend much longer explaining the story than for, say, Hamlet.  This usually exhausts all available ink.

But then - all in a rush...

4)  The reviewer will try to throw in a fast mention of set/lights/costumes/props (ha! as if).

If the new show happens to be easy to explain or if there is extra room because the actors' names are short, the reviewer may elaborate on production values or on some other aspect of the production that catches his or her fancy - maybe the remodeled theater lobby.  Online critics get more room (blog-inches and pixels for words not being in short supply), but mostly they forget that fact or follow the traditional formula or get tired and want to go to bed.  Once in a great while, a reviewer will get excited about a set or costume or lighting effect and will steal words from the other stuff.  If a "technical" aspect of the production pops to the top of the review, then the critic really loved or hated it!

So far The Whipping Man is getting good mentions for the playwright and play, the actors and direction, and "production values" have been discussed mainly online.  (Nicely.)  In print though, there was apparently only room to discuss the fire drill.

Sigh.

Public domain image.

In fairness to the critic, maybe the fire drill was added as in-fairness-to-the-actors?  They were very cool about it, actually.  

Art Weekend - Kimbell Art Museum

REVISION: Due to copyright confusion, I have removed the images from this post.  If you're curious, please look online (just Google TM the mentioned paintings and you'll find LOTS of copies). Link to following POST.

Saturday was the opening for The Whipping Man, so I spent most of the day in Fort Worth.

The Impressionist show at the Kimbell Art Museum was, um, impressive.

Its great strength was in Renoir's work.  Some very beautiful paintings.  Probably my favorite was his Portrait of Madame Monet.  She was reading, her arms and the paperback book she read making an angular frame for her pale face and dark hair, while the blue and cream-floral-embroidered Turkish kaftan she wore seemed to merge with the blue wall and cream-floral-and-bird patterned sofa...

Her pose, with the stiff angularity of the kaftan and her central placement, reminded me of icon paintings, M. Monet as a little blue Madonna; while the similarity of color and pattern between costume and setting simultaneously melted her figure into the background as in Whistler's Symphony in White or Klimt's Adele Bloch portraits.  (In the actual painting face, hands, and book appear whiter, hair darker, so that they pop out more than in REVISION they do in e-versions.) 

Truth is... I'm not really a big Renoir fan.  There's something about his soft-focus and the pastel-like fluffiness of his brushwork that drives me nuts.  I think it's just that I can't see the world like that: for me it's crisp edged and defined, not... mushy.  Personal taste.  Plus I prefer the bolder colors of the Post-Impressionists, really, or the Expressionists, or even the Fauves.

One of the fascinations of this particular show is how the collectors who gathered these paintings for the Clark Art Institute could have such a refined taste that, even in choosing works by other painters of the period, could choose those individual paintings that most closely matched the aesthetics of the Renoirs... and not just any Renoirs either, those from his "middle" period, rather than most of his late work.  Very refined sensibilities.  But I do agree with Mr. Clark in loving his favorite canvas, Renoir's painting of onions:

Highlights of this show, for me, were Renoir's Sleeping Girl, Berthe Morisot's The Bath, and a gorgeous light-dissolving pointallist landscape by Pisarro titled Saint-Charles, Eagny.

Afterwards, the enchilada dinner on Joe T. Garcia's patio and the opening of The Whipping Man.  More on that later...

Reminder: The Whipping Man Opens Saturday!

Just a friendly reminder that my show The Whipping Man opens tomorrow at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth.  Tickets should go fast since this play was an off-Broadway hit... and, besides, it's terrific.

(Don't look too hard at the set in this photo - not done yet.  Waaaaay cooler now it has texture, destructo-scenic-paint etc..)

Photo courtesy of Circle Theatre

HERE's more at the Dallas Morning News.

Spring Sunshine

Makes it much easier to draft.

Well, no, but it makes it more fun to look out the window as I draft.

The Whipping Man opens Saturday at Circle Theatre.  Get your tickets now!  Should be a good show.  And there are several good museum shows in Fort Worth at the same time - make a day of it.  The Kimbell Art Museum has "The Age of Impressionism," which will be very popular, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art has one of early Sargeant paintings that I really want to see.

Meanwhile I'm drafting on Boeing, Boeing for WaterTower Theatre, reading Mistakes Were Made for Circle's next show (which needs a speedy design), and just received a new version of Ruth to read for Kitchen Dog Theater (ditto).

Public domain image

Punch Lists and Tech

Last night was the Tech run-thru for The Whipping Man.  (Going to be a terrific show, I think.)

So today I had to email my notes on what the set needs to finish up.  Usually these notes are no big surprise to the carpenter and painter - everyone can see, for instance that the downstage (DS) columns still need to be clad and painted.  There can be little picky surprises though as the set designer tweaks things to bring the bigger composition into balance, as the director needs changes, or as practicalities get made to work smoothly.

The Whipping Man is in pretty good shape actually: only a little carpentry still to go and, although the painting left is big (the stage floor) it's straightforward.  Floors tend to happen last, after all the carpentry and carpenters are out of the way!  On this show a big part of the painter's job is "dirtying".

Believed public domain photo of fire damage

This is the sort of fire damage look I want to suggest... without being able to make such a dangerous mess, since one actor is barefoot.

Painting Day

I'm off in a few minutes to Fort Worth to meet with The Whipping Man's painter and to help paint and "dirty" the set.  Should be fun!

At this point in the play there's been a civil war and a fire and a bit of a roof collapse and I doubt any of the characters have been wiping their boots on the door mat, y'know.

HERE's a sneak peek at that set.  And here's a picture of what the rest of the city of Richmond would look like:

The Civil War ruins of Richmond VA, public domain photo Wikipedia

A Sneak Peak

...At the next Circle Theatre show, The Whipping Man.

Circle Theatre production of The Whipping Man, set design Clare Floyd DeVries