An expansive, large, communal celebration of life… That is how composer David Malloy describes War and Peace. But, as is so often the case with all things Tolstoy, there is another side to the story as well. And so, Malloy has also talked about how he admires the great novel for how it “zeros in on these very intimate moments,” and the “minute interactions between two human beings” that run through its pages.
Happily, for theatre lovers, Malloy captured this duality in his widely celebrated electro pop opera, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” which is based on a seventy-page sliver of the Russian writer’s monumental work. Love, betrayal, scandal and enlightenment are all interwoven in this multi-genre musical.
Providing a visual setting that encourages this multifarious show to flourish in a recent production at the Donmar Warehouse theatre is a brilliant and very diverse lighting design by Olivier and Tony nominated designer, Howard Hudson, who described his creative endeavor this way:
“The show is real a collage of different styles of music, which meant palette-wise we were able to go from a more restrained classical look to moments of intense color that reflected the more electric, contemporary moments in the score. So, whilst the show was predominantly relatively desaturated – dropping at times right down to moments of simple candlelight, there were other moments when we had sections of intense neon green, or bright saturated pink in block color, or solid red for the opera.”
Helping Hudson achieve his vision for the show were three Maverick Silens 2X Profile fixtures from CHAUVET Professional, which were used for backlight, high side light and wall scrapes. Given that the Donmar’s relatively small size (251-seats), every fixture in a rig there “has to work very hard,” noted Hudson.
The Maverick Silens 2X Profile units were more than up to the task. “They offered us a really sophisticated quality of light within a compact unit,” Hudson said of the fixture. “The color mixing was very even, offering a great selection of tints through to deep saturated colors with the brightness we’re all used to today. The frost selection provided everything we needed for a hard-working fixture on a busy musical. Moreover, I was really impressed by the zoom range, which gave us a beautiful clean beam of light to cut through the rest of the rig.”
Another key feature that Hudson appreciated was the fixture’s quiet operation. “As with any space the size of the Donmar, the noise of the rig can become a real issue,” he said. “We were able to put the Silens fixtures in their ultra-quiet mode, which I was really impressed with. Even the usual more subtle sounds such as lenses moving within the lights or shutters coming in and out was removed. It was as if they were not there!”
Collaborating with director Tim Sheader and scenic designer Leslie Travers, Hudson also adroitly adapted his lighting to account for the theatre’s thrust stage. “When you have the audience around the three sides, you have to think much more sculpturally,” he said, adding that “ the actors become more three-dimensional in a way.” In a musical inspired by a novel that delves deeply into the multi-level universe residing inside each character, lighting actors in a 3D way seems very appropriate, indeed.
For more information, please visit www.chauvetprofessional.com
