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Geeking out on the "Composer" set

posted by Karen McKevitt on Wed, Dec 1, 2010
in Our shows , Scene shop

 

Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead features any number of things for a crafter/DIYer to geek out on. In a previous blog post, I wrote a little bit about the marionette orchestra and Phantom Limb, who were also featured in an SFGate.com article. But when I found out about the set, which is based on Victorian toy theatres, my crafter geek-o-meter went to 11.

As Jessica Grindstaff of Phantom Limb (they also conceived the set design) tells it, she and Erik were in Amsterdam when Lemony Snicket talked to them about adapting his book for the stage some two years ago. In Lemony Snicket’s story, each instrument has an alibi, the story of which is acted out on stage. Says Jessica, “I couldn’t imagine a way to get all the stories in one place.”

But then she saw a toy theatre based on a theatre from the 1780s, and then the idea stuck. Each alibi, or story, has a different backdrop printed on flats that slide on- and off-stage, just like in the theatre of that era.

What are toy theatres? Also called paper theatres, they date back to the 19th century in Europe and were souvenirs from or sometimes advertisements for the local theatre or opera. They were sold as kits and assembled at home, with the scenery, props, costumes, and characters all printed on paperboard. In this way, people could act out the plays, opera, or even vaudeville acts they saw at the theatre. Many people colored their stages and added decoration. This is like the way kids buy and play video games based on the latest blockbuster film. Theatre in the Victorian era, after all, was as popular as today’s movies, and the audience, especially children, wanted to be a part of it.

The Composer set is based on toy theatres, even down some of the background “actors” that appear onstage during ballroom and parade sequences or the birds that flit through the air. “I love the simplicity,” says Jessica. “In a way, the set is a puppet too, a giant puppet.”

Jessica is an avid collector of toy theatre paperboard sheets known as “penny plain” or “twopence colored,” though they sell for thousands more pennies today and have enjoyed a resurgence in the past couple of decades among collectors and artists. Julie Taymor used toy theatre puppets in her film Frida, while a toy theatre is featured at the end of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and there’s even an entire toy theatre film of Dante’s Inferno. Closer to home, the Museum of Performance & Design in San Francisco is currently showing an exhibit of toy theatres.

But seeing a toy theatre as a full-size set in our Roda Theatre is quite a visual treat. Check it out for yourself!

Geoff Hoyle as the Inspector against the toy theatre-inspired set. Photo by kevinberne.com.