Over the years, I've seen some really, really impressive scenic design work onstage. Quite often the best work blends so erectly in with the rest of the action that it's easy not to notice. Every now and then, though there's a set that's so beautiful that the design almost becomes a character up there onstage with the rest of them. I'm thinking most prominently of the work of Takeshi Kata, who has done some truly beautiful things for various stages in Wisconsin. Having seen a second stand-out show featuring the work of Keith Pitts, I'm every bit as impressed with his work.
Pitts evidently teaches design at Lawrence University in my hometown of Appleton. He designed the rich steampunk Around the World in 80 Days that Milwaukee Chamber did a while back. For Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's production of Art, he's put together something beautiful and quite minimalist.
Art is the story of a man who buys a painting that is, on first glance, a blank white canvas. That he paid a fortune for the painting becomes the central point of conflict between himself and the two other men who make up the cast. Pitts put together this beautiful white set that's strikingly clean. As the audience walks in it is entirely white but for a complex network of thick black lines all resting at parallels and right angles to each other. The furniture is largely straight lines and a lot of white as well. It's very, very beautiful. Rare that one gets to see a space onstage that aggressively pristine and . . . I almost want to use the term symmetrical but that's not what I mean.
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Each character gets a color that then paints that white space. The gentleman who bought the painting is played by C, Michael Wright. He's blue. That is to stay that he wears a blue shirt clearly visible beneath his suit. Whenever he's onstage there are squares behind the set that light up blue. His friend who is most upset about the purchase is played by Brian Mani in red. There is red clearly visible beneath his suit. And then there's Tom Klubertanz . . . the nervous, ingratiating character who is represented by yellow.
And you'd think that this kind of powerful association between color and character would be really, really glaring and annoying, but it really, really isn't. Part of the reason for this is because the actors put in such a good performance that they're not upstaged by the design, but I get the feeling that a lot of it also has to do with a designer who knows exactly how far he can go with a look to make an impression without being too overpowering. It's really, really impressive work that's a tremendous amount of fun to see story of three men's friendship play out on.
(I also love how the painting itself gets put away. There's a really clever element to the design that allows the painting to blend in with the rest of the set when it's not in use. In the picture below, Wright is inadvertently pointing at that space, which pretty much looks exactly that same as it does here when the painting is put away. Very clever design. And so brilliantly clean.)
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre's production of Art runs through August 25th at the Broadway Theatre Center's Cabot Theatre. A concise review of the show runs in the next print edition of the Shepherd-Express. For ticket reservations, call 414-291-7800 or visit Milwaukee Chamber Theatre online.
