Taming the Space

By Katie Rasor, Production Dramaturg

Ever since I saw Melia Bensussen’s 2008 production of Merchant of Venice, I’ve been fascinated by her inventive use of space and was dying to see how she develops her ideas in rehearsal. Upon arriving at the first day of Shrew rehearsals in the Garage basement, I saw that I would get my wish. Here we were in an oddly shaped, dark room that had been fashioned roughly into a theatre-in-the-round formation. Directing in the round always poses blocking challenges as there will invariably be moments when the actor’s backs are to some of the audience members. In the case of the space in The Garage, this issue was compounded by not one, but three large support columns entrenched on the stage. I couldn’t wait to see how Bensussen, the designers, and the cast would approach these obstacles.

Bensussen and set designer Jason Ries chose to embrace the space’s quirks and to build the production’s concept around it. The dark informality of the room lent itself perfectly to the Alehouse setting that opens the play’s frame story. By adding a dart board, a pool table, and a juke box, they created a modern day Boston bar. Ries even made lemonade from lemons by transforming two of the columns into the frame for a bar, and using the third as an anchor for the banquet table in Act V. In rehearsals, the actors’ and Bensussen’s collaborations uncovered creative ways to use the room, with characters hiding behind poles, climbing the stairs, even hanging from piping. 

The unusual layout of the room yielded another unseen benefit: it helped with the pace. In order for every audience member to have a good view of a round stage, the actors have to move constantly. Changing the angle from moment to moment is often the only way to assure that most of the audience can see most of the action most of the time. Bensussen’s fast-paced vision and judicious cuts already had the play going at a good clip, but the need to be seen put additional pressure on everyone to keep things moving--literally. By embracing the natural flow of the space instead of trying to force a more conventional stage out of it, Bensussen made her concept all the clearer and the production that much more exciting.

This, to me, is what the Actor’s Shakespeare Project is all about: finding a space and using it as a building block in creating a fresh, relevant production. Bringing the audience into an intimate setting where the acting and the text—not big budget gimmicks—are the focus and making it so that one cannot help feel but that they are apart of a living, breathing (and in some cases panting) moment.

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