Fringe Theater

I saw many shows over the course of this trip, I think the final count will be around 15. The level design and production of those shows varied from simple plays to speaker blasting musicals. One of the show that I watched was Lift. It was a show from fringe theater, a performance that has less money backing it than many of the popular theater performance like Phantom of the Opera. Just because it was not as popular does not mean it was a bad play or performance. The play was about a guy who really likes someone he met on the lift in the subway and working out conversations that all happened in his mind I think. It was hard to follow at times on what was going on because there was nothing implying if it was in his head or not. And I didn’t know what truly was happening until after the show when someone who talked with one of the actors explained it to me. The play may have been hard to follow at time but the lighting was fun. There was use of plastic long cylinders that lit up with different colors and at different times depicted different locations and moods. With the lighting be as it was the designer did a good job of utilizing just a few fixtures here and there to light the entire performance. Several of them where moving lighting fixtures that transition to different location and looks with ease. However with the use of the moving light I felt distracted at times by the movements in the lighting. Over all Lift was a good experience for a performance giving me more to think about as a lighting designer. I also saw the performance of Girl on A Alter it can also fit into the category of fringe theater as well. This performance was much different but also used very few lighting fixtures. Like many other lighting design in London, I have found that there is a lot of side light used instead of front like. Something that came to mind during this show was how effective side light can be and, with second row seats, how important good seats may be. If you sit in the far back of the same theater it may have been hard to see some of those moments but being so close you don’t need that much light to be able to see all of the expression on the actors faces. This was a interesting thing to think about, because many of the show that we have seen use this technique. Some of the show I felt like I was missing things because it was to dark, but I also remember being very far from the stage in the back of the theater. I am wondering if lighting designer think about who can easily see the action on stage and who can not and if that effects the cost of tickets or how they design? After seeing all of the theater performances here in London I will definitely apply some of the technique that I have acquired and use them in some of my future designs.