Amy's View - Spectacle

Spectacle

Stage, set, costume, and lighting are all considered aspects of spectacle. In order to address these elements in the context of Amy's View, it may be helpful to evaluate the original production, in which design was headed by Bob Crowley and lighting by Mark Henderson.

The stage is proscenium style, with "a series of receding proscenium arches as if the Berkshire home were itself a stage," all which help to create the visual effect of actually looking in on "Amy's View". "The curtain pulls up and opens like an ever-widening camera lens," which is an interesting concept, as the play is metaphorically a "series of snapshots from a woman's life." The set is repeatedly described as being "cozy", which helps the audience feel at home with the characters, while the distance of the actual stage still allows viewers see the performance through an outside perspective. However, as the play takes place over a period of sixteen years, there is a challenge when attempting to show the passage of time. Crowley flawlessly tackles the issue by putting "us in a deceptively basic, wide rectangular sitting-room set in which only the slipcovers change through the years." Set, and especially lighting, also play a large role in creating the atmosphere of the play. The casual set gives us a sense of the everyday human nature presented in the play, but the increasingly sharper and dark-contrast lighting gives us the additional sense of "passage of time and the end of innocence." This is most certainly important in the transition from Act 3 to Act 4, where we move from Esme's home to the dressing room of her current theater production. The mood here is much more urban and almost sends us "into another genre, the backstage drama" simply through altering visuals.