love letter to theatre folk

TEN CHIMNEYS

By Jeffrey Hatcher

Northlight Theatre, Chicago

Directed by BJ Jones

Scenic Design by yours truly

Costume Design by Rachel Laritz

Lighting Design by JR Lederle

Sound Design/Composition by Joe Cerqua

THE PLAY

Set on the Wisconsin country estate of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, known as Ten Chimneys, it is 1939, and they have arrived to rehearse for the Broadway production of Chekov’s THE SEAGULL.  Drama erupts when the actress hired to play Nina, a young Uta Hagen, arrives a few days early.

Alfred’s doting mother, Hattie, lives on the estate fulltime, assisted by Alfred’s half-siblings Louise and Carl, who look after the place and their mother, but are burdened with the fact that their older, successful half-sibling, holds the financial cards. Hattie only has eyes for her oldest son, Alfred, even to the point of constantly antagonizing Lynne, his wife of 15 years now. The Lunts are well established theatre luminaries, and have chosen to forego another “champagne and caviar” fluffy comedy (written by longtime friend and collaborator, Noel Coward), in favor of attempting the Chekovian masterpiece.

In a parallel to what’s happening in THE SEAGULL, Uta is attracted to Alfred, who, though interested in the young Uta, tries to convince his partner/wife Lynne that nothing is happening between them.  Scene rehearsals get mistaken for protestations of love, and the drama of the play and the drama of the lives of the real artists intertwine.  Though at first rather opposed to the youthful Uta staying on, Lynne realizes that there are greater dangers to her partnership with Alfred, and Uta may be the thing that helps bind Alfred to Lynne again.

The final scene takes places several years later, just after the end of WW2, on the evening that the Lunts decide to reopen the acting studio on the estate.  We learn of the ups and downs of the run of the SEAGULL, both on Broadway and on the subsequent tour. An older, more wizened, Uta appears and speaks of the wisdom the intervening years have given her, realizing that the character of Nina in SEAGULL is far more complex than any of them had realized.

MY THOUGHTS ON THIS PLAY

This play is really fascinating to me in that it’s a play about quintessential theatre-folk. The Lunts epitomized Broadway royalty (there’s even a theatre on Broadway that still bears their names.). But it shows the human, and familial side of life. It delves into issues of  the personal costs of being an artist and the fear and frustration of those who want to be, but who are not. The way Jeffrey Hatcher has paralleled the story of the Lunts and Chekov’s seminal work ABOUT theatre artists is clever, and witty, and pulls on so much of the desire to BE a part of something bigger than yourself.

OUR PRODUCTION

What was exciting (and a little nerve-wracking) to me about working on this show is that it takes place in a  REAL and ACTUAL location, and that location is only about 90 miles from the theatre where we’re performing it. The estate, TEN CHIMNEYS, has become a museum of sorts, and for the first meeting about the show we went and toured it. so…. we got to see the ACTUAL way it all looked, and how they used the things and places around them. To get to do that kind of FIRST-HAND research is rare in the theatre, but that comes at a price… some of the audience KNOW this place, and woe be the designer who gets even the tiniest thing wrong… at least to those of the “faithful”.

The first act takes place outside the pool on the estate, while most of the second act takes place INSIDE the acting studio they had built on the grounds of the estate. This means that there are some fervent logistical challenges as well.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the firsthand research and how we pulled and adapted ideas, but for now…  here are a couple quick pictures.

Northlight Theatre stage showing some of the audience... and JR (the lighting designer) in the corner.

the same stage from far audience left