Chicago magazine | Arts & Culture March 2020: Yu Shibagaki has had a prolific few months. On top of designing sets for two plays showing in Chicago in March — School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play at Goodman Theatre and Her Honor Jane Byrne at Lookingglass — Shibagaki worked on a third, How to Defend Yourself, which closed at Victory Gardens last week.
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I am not very well versed in the world of theatrical designers. That’s bad on me, but at least I have these blog posts to keep me more up to date. The reason why I bring this up, is because I was a bit shocked to see the image from APT’s The Maids. I saw that show, and I saw that set - so it’s interesting to be able to see the face behind the design. Hearing her speak about the number of projects she works on at a time makes me realize how much designers are usually multitasking. While they’re finishing up one process, they’re already on to another, or they’re juggling between two. Shibagaki is very devoted to her craft, and it shows. I really liked when she talked about how she was drawn more to concepts and psychological shows. Especially here, your design classes always push you to question - why this imagery? Why this choice? I think her work would be an interesting case study to push our design studies further.
I’m grateful to these articles/comments for forcing me to become more familiar with theatrical figures in all ranges of the art. What struck me about this article was how Shibagaki is much more focused on the movement of the actors and what the story needs and should have to progress and push the story rather than the theatricality of it all. Many of the most interesting and impactful sets I have seen have shied away from theatricality and spectacle and have found grounding in the real world, or at least in the incredibly developed world of the play. And it’s often the “quieter and more psychological” shows that have grounded themselves in their story or message, and have more of themselves to tell. The most effective shows and sets integrate with each other, so that both become indispensable to the other and create almost a dialogue between each other.
Articles about designers and their process are always fantastic, but to see an article on a female and POC designer is so incredibly inspiring. It’s really interesting that despite the fact that Shibagaki is a designer, she was initially drawn to the work of the behind-the-scenes production people. It’s really great that she reads the script and designs for the actors and to allow them to move about a space—I always imagine the scenery as a playground, a world for the actors, so it is great to read that she starts with that intentionality. As someone who is so invested in the detail of things, I loved reading that she thinks this way as well, even up to tech rehearsals. It’s also great to read that she still invests time and effort into making models, because I feel like with 3D rendering growing in popularity, this important physical and tangible aspect is getting lost. I’m intrigued by her tendency to work on more psychological shows, and her humble philosophy of creating scenery that creates a world (that it’s not all about the scenery!).
"I want to create a world where people don’t think about the set design." That is so important. Granted, it is nice to have your work appreciated and hear people comment on the set design, but the importance of that statement by Shibagaki is worth highlighting. I think often we, especially young designers, get caught up in thinking that the set design has to stand out. We want to create the most beautiful and impactful set that will be onstage. We want it to be so visually stimulating that people will be staring at it and commenting on it for days. But that is wrong. No audience member should be staring at the set while the show is going on. If that's the case, though beautiful, it was unsuccessful. A successful set design, and this goes for other design aspects as well, is one that transports the audience to the place where the action onstage is occurring and supports the story to a point where you forget that there is a set onstage and start feeling as though you are a fly on the wall watching something real unfold in front of you. That's why when we are making design decisions we have to constantly ask ourselves if this is something that we as artist want to see for the sake of seeing it onstage or if it needs to be there as a function of supporting the story and the world of the action.
Oh, how inspired I am, as always, to read about a woman of color, an East Asian woman no less, succeeding in the theatre industry. Even though I most likely will not be declaring scenic design, I still love to read about the processes of various designers, especially scenic. I looked up some of her work, and she has a lot of neutral tones, largely on the darker side, which is an aesthetic I can get behind. I feel like it is a style that is lesser seen in theatre because a lot of the times, designers are wowing the audience, or generally have a wider, more vibrant color palette. I think it's so cute that she was attracted to theatre because of backstage technicians because that's how I got into the business too! I watched a show that highlighted both the actors and the props master of the drama club, and I thought it was super interesting.
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