Scenic Designer Jean Rabasse on the Cirque-Meets-Broadway Production
Cirque du Soleil is known for its high-flying and visually impressive shows. With the new show, Paramour, they have brought their exciting aesthetics into the Broadway arena at the Lyric Theatre on 42nd Street, which has previously housed the mammoth musicals On The Town and Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. Despite sizable stage depth and wing space, it was still a bit smaller than a Cirque production space in an arena or under a big top. Ultimately, the company has created a spectacle worthy of the Great White Way, with majestic set pieces and amazing acrobatics meshing within the zippy musical numbers.
The story is simple: a superlative singer named Indigo (Ruby Lewis) discovered in a speakeasy by a powerful Hollywood director (Jeremy Kushnier) finds herself caught in a love triangle between him and the pianist (Ryan Vona) who performs and writes songs for her. As her first film, an homage to famous Hollywood musicals of the past, grinds into production, emotions run high and tempers flare as Indigo is forced into making a choice that could dramatically impact her career.
Stunning Sets
Expanding on its story, the production features some stunning set pieces: a golden speakeasy, an Egyptian set recalling one from the movie Cleopatra, a rural log cabin piece for the “Calamity Jane” number and a climactic New York City rooftop featuring a clever chase sequence conducted through the use of trampolines within the buildings. Paramour’s scenic designer Jean Rabasse says that the design did not take too long to create, being drawn over two months with the help of his two assistants in Paris. Adapting the design to the theater and also for the acrobats took additional months of time in New York and Montreal.
“Christine Peters, my associate designer was so great doing this job,” Rabasse tells PLSN. “Linking Paris to Montreal to New York was a good challenge. [While] I thought it would be easier to readapt a concept from the previous [Cirque] show Iris to Broadway, the reality was different. Cirque du Soleil and Scott Ziegler wanted to create a new show, a new concept. It was finally a total new design except for the rooftop set.”
Rabasse notes that, in working with director Philippe Decouflé, with whom he has collaborated in the past, “we always want to break the code of the show, of the staging.
“It’s mostly an organic way of creating a show, which is not easy with Cirque and Broadway. On Paramour, we wanted to have a glimpse of Hollywood, to talk about the Western, to make a tribute to the 50’s. We wanted the show to go from the ‘20s to the ‘50s.”
The rooftop set for the show’s big climax was the hardest for Rabasse to design because of its acrobatic nature. As he points out, working with Cirque du Soleil does not simply mean working with a director, but also with a choreographer, acrobatic content designer, trainer, artist, and engineer, each of whom have their own point of view. “It’s a nightmare for a set designer, but at the same time, it can work only if you have a good knowledge of the acro performances and of what an artist can do,” clarifies Rabasse. “So you are part of the staging. It’s so complex that you are the only one who can make a synthesis out of it.”
Tricky Transition
The most impressive scenic transition occurs between the Cleopatra and Calamity Jane set pieces. In the “movie” being made in the story, one of the sets the director wants to shoot after the grand Egyptian temple set piece is not ready, and his crew surprises him bringing in the Calamity Jane set, complete with log cabin and a two-story rolling platform that allows the acrobats to jump onto a seesaw and bounce onto a large cushion. Distracted by his own griping, the director does not see the magic occurring behind him, but the audience does.
Both the sets and the changeover are dazzling. “First of all, we wanted to play with references, playing and not giving an historic course,” explains Rabasse. “The big request was to do a huge quick-change, set and costumes. I also wanted to play with a painted drop, having full colored references of movie sets, and it was very helpful for doing those quick-changes. The references were a mix of different movies, Cleopatra from the [Joseph L.] Mankiewicz [version] but also from Cecil B. DeMille, and some from J. Gordon Edwards’ [1917] movie. For The Western, the major one was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, for acro, choreography, costumes, and set.”
The scenic designer explains that the set transition was easier for him than it was from the standpoint of the choreographers, who were dealing with a large number of bodies onstage. The large set pieces also created a challenge for lighting designers Patrice Besombes and Howell Binkley. “The stage was full of set and props,” acknowledges Rabasse. “It was a challenge to find room on the stage, so Patrice had to deal with it. The grid was full, and it was important to share information, concerns, and issues. We’ve known each other for a long time, which made things easier for all of us.”
Through the efforts of technical supervisor David Benken, Rabasse and his team learned how Broadway productions stock props and sets. “Everything is tight on a grid,” he notes. “It’s so clever that I don’t understand why we don’t use that technique in Paris. The side stage [spaces] are big in the Lyric, but not enough to store all our sets without the additional storage.”
Striking Videography
Another aspect of the scenic design is the use of projections designed by Oliver Simola and Christophe Waksmann, which took eight months to design. The projections both center stage and on the sides were used during key sequences, most notably Indigo’s Screen Test, in which she, in various costumes and with various actors, recreates famous Hollywood movie posters like Sunset Boulevard and Cleopatra, and The Dream sequence in which the director envisions ill fortune befalling his romantic rival. Waksmann praises Rabasse’s scenic design work and adds, “It gave us lots of different options for adding projections.”
While director Philippe Decouflé did not issue a particular edict for the projection design and trusted the duo, “he had some precise requires,” notes Waksmann. They decided to use two side video screens from the very beginning to be used for a chance to give the audience a glimpse into the orchestra pit at the start of the show. Hung beneath the box sets on either side of the stage, they might not be readily discernible to people sitting in the center orchestra seats in the first few rows, but they expand the viewpoints for everyone else.
Naturally, there was some concern over their presence since they lure audience eyeballs away from the stage. “We are always worried about the screens being distracting,” admits Waksmann. “That’s why we cancelled side projections on some parts of the show — during [the] Love Triangle [song]’s second part, for example.”
The best use of video in Paramour comes during the Movie Poster Montage sequence midway through Act I. As Indigo goes through her costume changes and poses with different actors for the poster creations, her poses and the blue screen work being done at stage left are projected on the side screens and a large screen at center stage. Given the fact that the audience could focus on the stage, the center screen, and the side screens, there could have been concern over how busy the sequence was.
“The bigger challenge was to get points of reference for the live cameramen in order to frame the action so it fits perfectly with the final poster,” counters Waksmann. “We tried several ways. It is a very complex job learning how to frame each poster correctly. It takes a lot of time and rehearsals. The actors also have to be very precise in their positioning. Little by little we decided to go for a time-coded music sequence so everybody knows what to do in the right timing. I can imagine that some of the audience could have concerns about what to look at, but it’s also what is funny. Watching how it’s made is also part of the process that makes the audience actively engaged.”
Dreams Come Alive
Another video challenge came during Act II’s opening dream sequence about the director’s revenge fantasies. As he naps in a chair off to the side, a juggler and various characters play out the dark scenario. “We worked with the juggler very soon [into the production] and we knew which technical process we had to use,” says Waksmann. “We were inspired by Norman McLaren’s work around movement, animation, and pixilation. The bigger challenge was to find a way of doing live what McLaren was doing in postproduction.” What he is specifically referencing is the visual look from McLaren’s short film “Pas de Deux,” which features silhouetted ballet dancers clad in white leotards twirling against a black background. It is one thing to achieve that in post, but quite another to pull it off live.
Waksmann and Simola worked closely with lighting designers Patrice Besombes and Howell Binkley during the production of Paramour. “We always work closely with lighting, because video projection also uses light,” Waksmann states plainly. “Sometimes we can help light a lot [of the set] while projecting over the set to add contrast to the set design. Sometimes we ask lighting to dim a little bit when it’s covering too much our projections. It’s teamwork. We have to help each other and work together.” None of the video screens were LED, and all the images displayed came through video projectors. The brightness is 250 Lux at the proscenium, 100 Lux midstage, and 400 Lux for the side panels.
The video screens are mainly the same types they have used in the past: the large mid-stage screen (“Studio” Gerriets, ref: 2124 0000, Perforation area: 7%, Perforation count: 37/in2, Perforation diameter: 1.25mm), the movie posters screen (RP Gerriets Opera gray blue), the center screens for the “Writer’s Block” number in the director’s office (RP: Gerriets; Front and Rear Projection Screen Revue Item No. 21250000), and the side screens and the movie posters center screen (a Glitter blue screen).
On the other hand, the live video cameras were new since that type of gear is always being upgraded. “Each year a new model replaces another so we had to go for a new model,” says Waksmann. They ultimately chose to use two Blackmagic micro studio cameras with 14/140mm lenses and one Sony PXW-X200 with a standard lens. “This was a very difficult choice to do because of all the constraints it [the Blackmagic] added. But it was finally okay for what we needed, and it had the advantage of having the lowest frame delay for lip synchro.”
Learning Curve
When asked about the biggest challenge that they faced on Paramour, Waksmann replies that it was “to understand how Broadway teams are used to working, which was a totally different way from ours. No video dedicated operator is operating the show. Everything is done with time code and cues are launched by the light operator, which is the first time we’ve seen that in our career. We’ve always had a dedicated video operator on every show we did in the past.”
Rabasse says that building a set for Cirque du Soleil is quite different than working on other shows. “Working on Broadway is fun and exciting, but working with acrobats requires a lot of technology, engineering, and a lot of patience,” he notes. (He got to do both.) “Working with the American crew was fantastic,” declares Rabasse. “I really loved them, especially Christine Peters the associate designer and David Benken our production supervisor. I love to learn and to share my experience.”
In pinpointing the biggest challenge of working on Paramour, Rabasse muses, “I guess for all of us, it was merging between Broadway, Cirque du Soleil, and [the vision of director] Philippe Decouflé — three different approaches to a show that had to work together. Exciting but not easy. In the end, it made Paramour very special.”
