We are now about five weeks into our preparations for “Into the Woods.” The roller skating trees I feared disappeared quickly, but then reappeared without warning a week ago. I still am concerned that we may have serious injury and that the whole thing will look just plain silly; but onward we go.
How did it happen? Initially, we were able to convince the director that we could produce rolling tree units with human operators that could animate the branches and give the trees life. The reason she wanted the trees was sound. The forest was to become a character in the story, directing and influencing the characters as they tried to make their way through the forest. This plan would allow her to accomplish that same feeling with far less risk of injury. She reluctantly agreed.
Onward we go. The director continually requests more complexity, texture, and dimensionality. All good things, but not cheap in terms of cost or labor. We are an academic theatre, so labor is free, but limited in skill and hours available. Additionally, our budget is woefully inadequate. We are in a new larger space, but our budget suffered the same 15% cut that the entire university was subject to despite our new larger need for money. We have no stock, or soft goods in scale with the space since this is our first production here. And since it is the first, the expectation is that we will dazzle the audience with what we are capable of with our fancy new theatre. We know this going in, so our program director has begged (and I do mean begged in a degrading way) and gotten a bit more money. The masonite to cover the floor so we can paint it and materials to make a plain black portal completely devour the extra funds. Now, we still have an essentially empty space and the same old budget we started with. Onward we go.
Oblivious to the cost of what she is asking, the director keeps asking for more and I keep drawing. I am sent back to revise everything at one point to alter the overall look. She wants a less lyrical look, more scary/gothic, less romantic. Fine, no problem, but perhaps this should have been said a few weeks ago before I think I am on the right track and spend two weeks sketching?
At last the technical director produces an estimate for the cost of the set. It is a mere 50% over the budget for the ENTIRE season, and not all of the costs have been accounted for yet. There is shock, surprise, and emergency meetings. The technical director and I are NOT surprised. And go to work cutting. The director gets a weird attitude and declares “I never wanted that anyway” several times. We cut the Prince’s horse, the carriage, scale back on a moving ground row that would travel as we went in and out of the woods, major cuts are made to the trees that are to frame to portal. Then we get to the living trees. With an “I told you so” tone, she points out the trees made as costumes for skaters would be far cheaper than the mobile scenic trees. She is right. We re-hash the safety issues, and get her to agree that if adequate skating skills do not exist in the casting pool, the trees will be on foot, and not on skates. (Why didn’t we think of this before? The speed and fluid progress of skaters was so attractive to the director she would not let go of the idea of wheels prior to our budget “surprise”.)
You might think that I would be totally unhappy about this compromise. I’ll confess to having a pretty ” we are all going to hell in a hand basket” attitude for a few days. Then as I was drawing the tree that holds the spirit of Cinderella’s mother for the third time, I had a new thought. We already had people dressed as trees. Why couldn’t one of the tree/actors be Cinderella’s mother instead of building something additional that would need lots of special effects help to make it seem magical? I quickly found the director, technical director, and costume designer and asked them the same question. All agreed it was a win/win/win/win. Less scenery, no additional costumes, an original solution and stage time for some one who would’ve only been an offstage voice. My secret bonus, one less chunk of scenery to draft and paint!
This idea also has an added conceptual bonus. Since we decided that the forest had a will of its own, the scenic trees began more and more to take on human qualities as I drew them. Branches looked like arms, thick roots like legs, knot holes shaped like eyes. I had never objected to the forest as a character idea. But until now the forest was only being mischievous, or “nebby” as they say here. Now there is a connection to the characters in the play. If one of the trees held the spirit of Cinderella’s mother, the other trees could hold spirits too. The Baker is burdened with a curse inflicted on his parents and then passed to him. Wouldn’t their spirits want to help him? Of course they would. Now the forest has a real motivation, and has something at stake too. THAT is the thing that will make the idea work.
So am I happy? Not that simple. I guess I would say I am rooting for the idea to work now. I have enthusiasm for the project again, despite the fact that I hope the skates are ditched and we go on foot. I am still nervous about the budget, and the skates. But onward we go. . . .
