Taking a famous literary work and putting it onstage as a Broadway musical is bound to draw fire from critics and purists, and A Tale of Two Cities is certainly no exception.
“If you’re doing something that’s derived from the classics there is almost no way past the critics because the past belongs to the critics, and they will always tell you how it should’ve been done,” remarks Tale scenic designer Tony Walton, a 51-year veteran of the business. He also notes: “Shows that are accessible in a big way to a popular audi-ence seem to carry within them the seeds of seething fury for the critics.”
After playing to less than critical acclaim, the Broadway production closed last month. Despite the lukewarm reception from critics, however, the production stood as a reasonably entertaining epic that tackles its tale of love, loss, and sacrifice, set in London and Paris against the backdrop of the French Revolution. The musical, which may be revived as a touring production, achieved a sense of majesty, making a tragic tale feel a little more uplifting in spite of its ultimate direction. It was also unusual for the two-level sets that were rolled on and around stage by cast members and repositioned for different indoor and outdoor scenes, which made for strik-ing scenery and helped to maintain the rapid pace of the show.
Walton’s set design was intriguing, and it was borne from a mind with vast experience in theatre and film, including Mary Poppins. He had actually stopped working on big Broadway musicals for many years because, as he told the producers when they approached him, “It’s not as much fun as it used to be.” But they guaranteed it would be, and after a few false starts in Florida before coming to the Great White Way, it was fun, according to the designer.
The impetus for creating the rolling, skeletal set pieces for A Tale of Two Cities, which were metal but painted to look like wood, came about due to “several predicaments,” remarks Walton. “The fact that it was so challenging was one of the factors that made me decide to come on board. Most big musicals have anywhere from eight to 12 sets, and this required 48 set changes, so I knew we couldn’t go any kind of realistic route. There would be nowhere to put it. I think within those 48 we only have two of them re-peated at all, so that was a challenge. Two other key aspects that were central to it were that you had to be clear at all times whether you were in England or in France, because it switches back and forth between the two, and at one point you’re even in both places simultaneously. And a lot of the story takes place upstairs, so I had to have structures that allowed people to be above other people. I realized that I had to come up with something that would serve for both London and Paris and therefore couldn’t be specific to either one. But in some way it had to be stylized and generalized so it could serve as either city by just the addition of an iconic sign piece or by changing the nature of the background radically so you knew whether you were in London or Paris.”
The sets themselves proved to be a challenge for veteran lighting designer Richard Pilbrow, who, according to Walton, has been more focused on global consulting for theatre construction recently. “You have to have something pretty interesting to lure him back to lighting. I always try to come up with a lighting challenge that seems impos-sible to solve, and then he’ll get interested,” quips Walton. “In this case essentially what we’ve got are six bird cages, if you like; six structures in which action takes place. There are lots of ricky-racky verticals and horizontals and caged tops to stop the light getting in. He had to come up with a way of lighting the actors that wouldn’t just be from out-side the units, because it would throw shadows from the bars on the performers. So he came up with a system of radio-controlled lighting within the units, which is really beautiful, and all of the accents and dramatic moves were done with the main overhead or wing lighting. That was a huge challenge.”
Another big challenge was helping the cast members find the marks for the rolling units, which was achieved through black light. “There are a few positions that are marked by tiny light bulbs dropped into the deck, which only people standing over them can see,” explains Walton. “The final move with the guillotine is achieved by going to those little illuminated spots in the otherwise pitch darkness, but for the rest of the show the actors and stagehands, when they’re involved, are aiming for blacklight marks — tiny, UV painted boomerangs that are stuck all over the stage — and there’s an amazing color code to them because there are 40 or so different positions. It’s hard to get 40 different colors; sometimes they’re in spots and sometimes they’re in stripes.” The busy cobblestone design of the stage floor, visible from the balcony, helped to hide the UV markings.
What is most fascinating about the scenic design is how little mechanization it relied on, unlike a majority of big budget Broadway musicals today. The intention with this production was to minimize that. Walton says that there were a few mechanized pieces in the wings or to bring furniture downstage, “but all of the main architectural units are moved manually. It was a decision as soon as I started out that it would be great to get the kind of visceral energy of the company into the movement from scene to scene, especially as much as anything, it’s about them. It’s A Tale of Two Cities and the citizens, even though it zeros in on a much more intimate story. When they bring the pieces onstage, the citizens actually remain there — playing cards, or lolling about drinking or dozing off — so we are always in some degree in amongst the citizens of the two cities. The actual physical energy of their moving something is much more viscerally exciting than seeing something slide on magically because you think, ‘Oh, that’s magic.’ And you can’t figure it out, so you don’t bother.”
The scenic designer notes that the Broadway production had a smaller cast than the Florida rendition. He credits director Warren Carlyle with doing “an astounding job of manag-ing to integrate all of the people in different ways so that they were maximally used. And that was much helped by (costume designer) David Zinn’s work because another huge problem going back and forth between two cities was that frequently you don’t have time to change the cast from being French people to being English people. He had to come up with some extraordinary, generic costumes on which the accents could be added to make it feel as if they belonged in one city or the other.”
Another extraordinary aspect to the show was the fact that the author, producers and director/choreographer were first timers, which Walton felt was “a very daring, dan-gerous, gutsy thing to do. I’m all for that.” He felt the show had a freshness to it, and the talent and passion of the cast and crew was so strong that it was tremendously well focused.
“I think all of us acknowledged that it was a show with flaws,” concedes Walton, noting the scope of the challenge facing Jill Santoriello, who wrote the new show’s book, lyrics and music. “It’s hard to expect a first-time book writer to do one of the most difficult things in theatre, which is to write a book for a musical. It’s such an incredibly fa-mous piece, but I think whether or not one feels she used the Dickens voice, she certainly managed to get an astonishing amount of the story into a relatively short space of time, and that’s quite an amazing achievement on its own. The more one hears the music, the more strength it gains. The first few times I listened to it, when I was wondering whether to come on board, I found that it gained in strength enormously. By the time you end up working on a show, the score is in your brain, and it is usually driving you nuts. But this is one of those two occasions where it didn’t, and it is actually pleasurable.”
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