Hale's own Paris Opera House
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Jessika Berg works on an organ for the "Phantom of the Opera" at the Hale Center Theatre on Feb. 18. (Rick Egan / The Salt Lake Tribune)
All sides of 'Phantom' seep into Hale's own Paris Opera House
Theater » Arena-style venue is slowly being transformed into a grand opera palace.
By Roxana Orellana
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 02/20/2009 02:24:28 PM MST
West Valley City » The footsteps and shadows audience members hear and see lurking above and around Hale Centre Theatre aren't the work of a ghost.That's just the dramatic evidence that the theater has been transformed into the Paris Opera House of the late 1800s for its production of "The Phantom," which opens Feb. 24 and plays through April 18.
"It's something we've never done before," set designer Kacey Udy said of the show's construction. "We really wanted to give patrons a feeling that the Phantom is all around us. Intimate as [the theater] is, you are so close to the action. We want it to take it further."
The 24-by-28-foot round stage will be transformed into an opulent Parisian opera house, as well as the dark catacombs beneath, for Maury Teston and Arthur Kopit's 1991 musical, which is based on the same 1909 French novel by Gaston Leroux that inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, the more familiar "The Phantom of the Opera."
Planning for the production began five months ago. Crews built set pieces at the theater's warehouse, and when HCT's most recent show, "Cash on Delivery," closed Feb. 14, "Phantom" props moved into place for a week of rehearsal and testing before the show's opening night.
Among the first items to be tested, and tested over and over again, was the show's iconic, 500-pound chandelier. The device, which comes into play at the end of scene one, won't disappoint, Udy said. The large, sparkling golden lamp has been engineered to be dropped on cue every night -- or between 80 and 100 times by the time the show closes. It was constructed on a suspension system to offer the illusion of hitting the ground rather than recoiling on itself and imploding.
Building and rigging the chandelier was just one of the production's challenges. "There's lots of scene changes and a lot of locations that in the way it's written needs to go really fast from one to the next," Udy said. And then there's the challenge that's particular to the cozy nature of the West Valley City arena theater, where the front row of seats is so close to the stage. "Here you are, two feet away," he said. "You have to make sure the details are perfect."
The production will feature ballerinas -- on pointe -- to add authenticity to the Paris opera house choreography, and specially designed Phantom masks, created by a makeup artist who specializes in horror films, to depict the character's changing mood from scene to scene.
Technical elements created for the show include a 20-foot spiral staircase, a three-level suspended catwalk and a fly-in set piece that extends from the catwalk to the pit below the stage for the Phantom's mysterious entrances and exits. Other set pieces -- including an arched column with more than 10,000 hand-beaded plastic crystals and a restored organ gold-leafed for the production -- will add even more glitz.
"We are embracing the whole theater," Udy said. "Instead of just being onstage in front of you, [actors] will be in places above you, around and behind you and really make [the Phantom's] theater, our theater, the Paris Opera House theater."
Director John Sweeney, who 15 years ago acted in a Boston-area production of the show, said he likes to think of himself as the only person in America who has acted in and directed the show in-the-round.
"In this show, the difference is that you go into a lot of the story that was written in the early 1900s and tell how it is that the Phantom became the Phantom," Sweeney said, comparing this musical story with Lloyd Webber's musical.
"You actually get to see the Phantom as a little boy," Sweeney said. "Suddenly the Phantom becomes more human, versus what he is in other stories where he is almost like a villain. You get to see why he has been shunned from society and why he lives alone in the catacombs of Paris. When you say: 'What is evil in this story?' it's really our own misconception of what evil is. We think the Phantom is evil because he is different, and the reality is he is not evil, he is just misunderstood."
Both musicals draw on the plot by French novelist Leroux: The disfigured Phantom recluse, Erik, meets a chorus girl, Christine, and becomes her music tutor in the catacombs of a Paris opera house. Erik's passion for Christine and her voice leads him to sometimes reveal his desires for her -- and for the opera house -- in violent ways.
Similar to the set designer's challenges, Sweeney had his own puzzle, as it wasn't possible to hide the Phantom's deformed face on the theater's arena stage. He also had to make sure actors were telling the story to the whole audience, and not just standing around in just one place.
"Acting in this theater is a combination of theatrical and film acting, because film acting is so intimate, and in some ways, this stage is very intimate," Sweeney said.
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