The scenic design process is well underway for Ayad Ahktar's "The Invisible Hand." Directed by Allen Nause, it opens in September at Seattle's ACT Theatre. Read more about the upcoming production here, and take a look at some of the emerging ideas in model form below.
My friend and frequent collaborator, director Valerie Curtis-Newton, has made the Stranger Genius Awards Shortlist! Congratulations, Val!
Read all about Val's abundant genius in the Stranger's profile of her, and look below for a slide gallery of some of my collaborative work with Val over the years:
From Brendan Kiley at The Stranger:
Matthew Smucker's set design is diabolically and deceptively tense. He's assembled a disheveled academic home circa 1960—books everywhere, African and Asian artifacts, abstract-expressionist paintings—but has built it so we're not looking toward the traditional flat wall, but sitting in one corner of the room looking into the V of the opposite corner. Like the play, the set seems sloppy and homey at first, before you realize it's coming right at your head.
Read more of the review here.
From Seattle Actor:
I’ve seen this show many times, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more expertly performed, masterfully directed production. Director Braden Abraham makes everything that happens on stage feel both inevitable and still surprising, a night that will change everyone’s view of life and living. The performances are awe-inspiring at the same time that they feel perfectly realistic and emotionally authentic. The scenic design by Matthew Smucker is beautifully and intricately detailed in precisely the same way that these lives will be revealed in all their individual specifics. Above all, the performances of these four actors are perfectly balanced, fully crafted, never predictable and deeply moving. This is not one of those shows where an audience can decide which one of these people we are most like; we are each and every one of them in ways that we can only define in our most intimate introspection.
Read the whole thing here. And see more reviews here and here.
From the Seattle Rep's Blog:
"Coming over to George and Martha’s house for an evening of fun and games? Here’s a glimpse into our scenic designer’s process of figuring out exactly how that iconic living room should look.
Matthew Smucker designed the set for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, his second Edward Albee show at the Rep. (His first was Three Tall Women in 2010.) When asked about what it’s like to design an Albee play, he said, “I find Albee’s writing to be utterly real and utterly absurd simultaneously. The best designs respond to this tension.”
One of the ways Matt captures this tension is in the almost over-the-top accumulation of stuff in George and Martha’s home. He describes the set below:
Nick and Honey are trapped in this room with George and Martha. The audience is too. Hell, George and Martha are even trapped in the room with George and Martha. We need to feel the baggage of their relationship, the weight of the history they have together.
The heavy box beams of the ceiling loom overhead, a bookcase stuffed to the gills with academia threatens to spill out onto the floor, the walls of the space are coated in a thick layer of nicotine. The furnishing are a mix of 1920’s through 1960’s era pieces, all contained in the shell of a late 19th century home. The visuals of the space play up the sense of accumulation and confinement."
Read more of the interview here. And look at a great behind-the-scenes gallery shot during a dress rehearsal here.
From Paul Mullin's Blog Just Wrought comes this 2010 interview:
MULLIN: How crucial do YOU feel an early, robust relationship between playwright and designer(s) to be? I.e. am I full of shit and if so, why?
MATTHEW SMUCKER: An early relationship seems like a swell idea. But in my experience, it isn’t the typical model of how plays get made. My primary interaction is usually with the director, who serves as a conduit of playwright’s vision but often also as a buffer. They are the chief interpreter, whether they fancy themselves auteur or consensus builder or cat herder or usually somewhere in-between. The times when I truly have felt the “early, robust relationship” with a playwright, it has been with a playwright directing the play they have written/are writing. And this has been great—I see my responses to early drafts (or to source material, if it is an adaptation) mutate and become fully integrated into the final creation. The play on stage is better because the collaboration is deeper. If the hypothetical playwright and director are separate individuals, it seems like the real robust relationship that should be proposed is not just playwright/designer, but rather playwright/company. In this case “company” constitutes all of the interpretive artists—director, actors, designers. The playwright isn't just writing for an abstract actor/director/designer, but with them.
Read more of the interview, as well as thoughts from designers Etta Lillienthal and Gary Smoot here.