BABBITT: Designer's Notebook
Some of Babbitt’s designers share their thoughts about creating a world in which the 1920s and the 2020s collide.
WALT SPANGLER, SCENIC DESIGN
As soon as I got the script and read that it’s set in a library, I started visiting libraries in person and online. When we landed upon the idea of a contemporary library, that seemed perfect, because one of the things that I love about Babbitt is how both the novel and the play begin with a celebration of skyscrapers. I liked the parallel to contemporary architecture in some libraries: wondrous, awe-inspiring spaces that suggest height. At the same time, this play has so many locations, and it became clear we wouldn’t have big set transitions, but something more fluid. It’s a very clean, modern space, and the furniture items that you see – a sofa, two armchairs, two ottomans, a couple of café tables, etc. – are the only things we’re using to create all the different locations. You can see the whole space the whole time, so we’re always aware of the present even when we’re in the past.
LINDA CHO, COSTUME DESIGN
Our idea was that all the characters except for George Babbitt are contemporary patrons in the library, in everyday street clothes. We’re not trying to re-create history, we’re re-telling it, always rooted in the present day. When they embody different characters within the story, we add a costume piece or two that evokes the 1920s: white with an accent of blue. The reason I chose that color is I was struck by the part in the play when Babbitt is given a tie of a different shade of blue. It immediately made me think of the work of artist Yves Klein, who uses an intense, unearthly blue pigment in his work. The use of this color in his work makes you reexamine objects you thought you knew and might take for granted.
MARK BENNETT AND WAYNE BARKER, ORIGINAL MUSIC
We’re mind-melding a series of worlds in this show – it’s very exciting. There’s George’s fantasy world as he thinks about Tanis, the world of 1920s as heard from “needle drops” of period recordings and baked into our original music in that style. Then there’s a more contemporary scoring for the world of our library landscape and our readers, and how they can be musically woven into the story. In many sections in this show, the music acts as a container. A pulse carries us through scene transitions, with little hints of melodies as we move from one place to another, and it’s the world of suspension and fantasy that Babbitt finds himself drifting into. We’re using a combination of cinematic and musical theatre techniques that amplify the themes in Joe’s powerful script, but still staying in the world of “a play with music.”
On a final note, this show is a delicious La Jolla Playhouse reunion for us! Back in 2010, Mark composed, and Wayne orchestrated, the score for the live chamber orchestra in Chris’s A Midsummer's Night Dream, and Wayne composed and performed the original live piano score for Joe’s and Chris’s Hollywood in 2016. We’re old pals and have been a part of a number of other Playhouse productions, workshops, and readings, but this is the first time we’re co-composing a score and we’ve had a great time! It’s lovely to be a creative duo working with Chris, Joe, our amazing design team and brilliant cast!
CHA SEE, LIGHTING DESIGN
I can’t wait to dance with the music. There’s something about lighting and music, we can accelerate everything or slam on the brakes – there’s that movement on how fast or how slow we want to tell the scenes. Since Babbitt is about a series of rebellions against the status quo, I wanted to explore the idea of lighting as a form of rebellion, and rebellion for me means breaking the expectation of the spectators – if you think you know what’s about to happen, maybe you don’t?
