Datebook: When audiences enter the Curran to see “The Jungle,” they’ll no doubt be surprised by the extent of the Geary Street theater’s transformation from a plush proscenium stage to a makeshift migrant camp built out of a patchwork of found materials. But this kind of radical reinvention – turning traditional theaters into immersive, site-specific fantasies – is the hallmark of acclaimed German scenic designer Miriam Buether’s work. She once called the most successful designs “those that don’t look like designs at all,” and isn’t averse to disrupting the actual architecture of a performance space to bring her unconventional visions to life.
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I think the key to site specific scenic design is knowing you want your audience actually immersed in the world you have created, which Buether describes is an aspect they wanted in this production of “Jungle”. A proscenium or a standard configuration separates the audience from the playing space, and thus also separates the audience from the world. This separation also creates more of a theatrical setting, where as an immersive setting pushes the world one step more, forcing you to suspend disbelief more directly than when separated. I think the benches in this setup is what really pushes the overall design. By changing the way people sit in the theatre space, they are directly interacting with the world. Additionally they are no longer able to sit passively, which is something Buether describes as an effect she wanted to create. I would be interested to see how Buether’s site specific style translated to How to Kill a Mockingbird, because that is not a show I would imagine to be immersive like this.
Some of my colleagues were recently asked by a director to make it possible to put the entire audience on the stage of their proscenium theatre, looking out at the original seats. In order to make this happen, they had to jump down a rabbit hole of capacity and egress rules. In the end, they needed no fewer than four local officials, an architect, and about $7000 in addition to the show budget in order to get the plans approved. Whenever a designer does something like that, uses an existing fixed theatre as a shell and reimagines the relationship between the audience and the stage, they create a multitude of obstacles that must be overcome. The theatre I was describing did not have season subscribers, so they saved the box office from having to navigate that issue, but they also cut their audience size down to about half the normal capacity. Designs like that are almost always fun and interesting, but for many theatres the disruption and added expense may not be worth it.
I loved reading about this show; I think this designer, Miriam Buether, had a really concrete concept for how she wanted the audience to react to the performance and it seems like she was able to execute her idea really effectively. I think if a designer wants to make a theater into an immersive environment, there has to be a really solid reason for doing so and I think that was the case here. All of her comments about the scenic design really support her decision to make the environment an immersive one. By making the set pull the audience in, Buether is able to hold the audience accountable and perhaps even make them feel responsible and able to do something to address the situation. I also really appreciate that part of her intention was to make the audience slightly uncomfortable but the way she did that was simply by bringing them more into the experience and not by anything overt. Just by being in the environment, the audience will feel uncomfortable, which I think is a very powerful tool that Buether employed.
The idea of dragging audience into the performing space, rather than just hoping the set catches their eyes is such an aggressive move to take by the scenic designer. The comfortable seats question got me interested, since traditionally the audience is always set to be comfortable as possible, and also neutral as possible to make sure the audience can focus on the show. But how about to deliver the metaphor through playing a little trick such as crowded or spacious seats? It will definitely impact the emotion state of the audience, whether is is better or worse. The relationship between the seats and stage has always been a wild card in production design level, trying out the different combinations to achieve the desired effect is a brilliant start in my opinion. This reminds me that in several children's play I have been to, there were actors doing the sweep through the audience seats in the chasing scene. It worked great when the audience think they were not part of the show but turned out wrong and created a great thrill and hype.
I feel as though this scenic designer is thinking about theater in a very important way. So much art is never created out of fear. Fear is one of the greatest silencers. Yes, many seating options are lost, there are many practicalities which make some of these decisions harder to commit to, however as the artists, I feel it is important that we do ask these questions, and we do try and reinvent, constantly, to create truly meaningful theater. This does not necessarily mean redesign spaces, although audience immersion is an extremely important skill to have, which affects one's experience greatly. Something I really liked in this article, was the discussion of lighting the audience. When we see “drama” occur in ‘real life’, we are there, we are present, and the honest, gossip loving or curious self watches, and is engaged in a way watching conventional theater doesn’t seem to affect us. Lighting the audience, making a world in which they are members, strengthens the illusion we create, and will also make the message we send more prominent in their minds.
It’s interesting to read an article about transforming proscenium spaces into site-specific reinventions, especially in someone who has such a strong professional career. I think we often see the beginnings of these kinds of ideas emerging from our mainstage scenic designers. I know we have the conversation nearly every other show of “Why put it in thrust, only to cut all of the sideways seats”. Which is a fair point, since all it really does is create a new proscenium further downstage. But I do think the idea of breaking past the conventions of the architecture of a traditional theatre is worth exploring. I don’t see any of our shows really having the budget to do the kinds of radical transformations outlined in this article. But I do see a desire from particularly this crop of scenic designers to push toward that. I wonder if there aren’t ways we can be better facilitating that educational experience.
I really enjoyed reading about her work and reading her responses to some of the questions. I think that what she said at the end about being less frightened in approaching changing the theater building in itself is one of the interesting points in this conversation and I am a little sad that she does not elaborate more on this point. However, I have never seen this show but seeing photos of her work and hearing her explain what she did is really cool to see. There were no actual photos of the designs but I could see what she was trying to do. Scenic design is so cool and so hard and I have a lot of respect for the people that do it as a job because it is so intense and I feel like it can honestly be harder than other areas. I hope that I get to see a play she worked on in the future because I want to experience the immersiveness that she was talking about.
I think this designer handled immersive theater in a very effective way. She knew she wanted the audience to feel as though they were really sitting in a migrant camp, and made purposeful decisions to increase that feeling. I thought her point about lighting the audience was really interesting- I know that even just sitting onstage during Cabaret was enough to make me consider how I was behaving and reacting a lot more than I would at any other show just sitting in the audience. I think that this is an example of immersion done very well, and that her set construction was very effective. I also think that it’s not the right choice for every situation. Sometimes it’s okay to do a traditional proscenium stage and leave audience separation- attempts at immersion for immersion’s sake generally fall flat because factors are left unaccounted for. Designers can’t just put the audience onstage and call it done, they need to have a reason and fully think through all the components that stem from that decision.
This article made me think a lot about our warehouse shows and I think that the practice Buether discuses about really considering the audience and how included she wanted them could be a really useful thing for any scenic designer going to the warehouse. Being successful with site-specific design and audience integration takes so much more conceptual work and justification than just putting a set onto a proscenium stage and following tradition. The level to which the audience feels that they are a part of the show makes a huge impact on how deeply they internalize the meaning of the work. Some shows are meant to be presentational and lighter, while some exist to really hold a mirror to the audience and demand a response. I really enjoyed the way in which Buether embraced the technical challenges and give-and-take that creating immersive spaces has. I also wonder how this approach applies to shows where this kind of immersion may stand out in a negative way more than desired. I would really love to actually be an audience member in a show that Buether designed to be able to further understand how her work effects that experience.
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