Thepurpose of this paper is to implement how various lighting aspects work in playThe Time of Your Life. TheTime of Your Life was written in1983. It was set on 26 November2008. The story that takes place in SanFrancisco.
It is the play of the timethat is afternoon and night of a day in October 1939. The main theme of this play is to look forgoodness everywhere, bring out of its hiding place, and let it free whengoodness found.Theplay begins with Joe buying newsboy’s all papers.
Joe offers a glass ofchampagne while Kitty Duval walks in. Wesley plays the piano, Harry dance, Joerefuses to dance and Kitty dance alone. Joe and Mary L. are discussing theirnames and Joe’s background. They flirt each other, Mary leaves the bar and Joebecomes depressed. Kitty is crying in the hotel and tom rushes into the bar.
Joe tells Tom to give them to Kitty, so she stops crying and Tom leaves. Toysmade Kitty cry harder, so Tom and Joe leave the bar to see her. Tom and Joe enter at the New York Hotel whereKitty is crying. Young sailor enters and try to insist Kitty to buy services,but see Joe and Tom. Joe, Tom and Kitty plan to go to Half Moon Bay and have ameal.
Nick tends the bar, Tom dreams about Kitty and Joe studies map of Europein the evening. Kit Carson teaches Joe to load the gun, but he shows hisrevolver to Kit. Joe help tom to get the job of a truck drive and Tom leaves fora job. At the last all seem happy because they hear news that Blick has beenshot dead. Joe leaves and everyone waves when a patriotic song plays and thepinball wave its flags.
In themodern society, play like The Time ofYour Life is intentionally made to educate and gives differentthoughts. Regularly, play containdifferent elements of design, script, music and or dance. One of the critical design element islighting that works in coexistence with the performers and the ideas of theaterdirector. The physical parts of thelighting work with staff, plan, scenic components, and theatrical space.Theprincipal capacity of theater lighting is to enlighten the stage to amplifyclarity of the performer by audience.
Itwould be wastes of time for lighting designer, if audience cannot see theperformer. Clarity influences capacityto consider spoken speech. Lighting alsocreate mood that allowed audience to react on appropriate emotion. Use of bright red light over the stageconveys an unsafe tone.
The main ideaof lighting clue is to flags a movement to happen onstage. It is also helpful to denotes a noteworthypoint in the play. Lighting can bringattention or pull attention away from something subsequently setting up areaand time.
As an example, to indicates an afternoon day we use light blues. To demonstrates evening, we use dark blue andpurple.It ishard to make indication of something, if intensity, color, pattern and focus isnot cooperating carefully. So, light isat the center of the performer’s environment.
The important of light in thetheater is to enlighten the performers by making them visible to the audiencein all area of the stage. Each scene cannot be light same way because itrequires diverse lighting strategies that can help to enhance the sentimentsand messages of the play. The following way I would use lighting toenhance the three different scenes in the play The Time of Your Life. Scene one is at the New York Hotel.
An actor walks into the stage from downstageleft carrying a large toy carousel. The set behind them have colorful paintingand the sound of different people indicting the hotel. There is just one problem that audience mightnot notice that there are people in the stage due to strong painting.
So, to make sure that audience recognizepeople are there and it the hotel scene, there need to be some indication ofcolors which remind it is hotel. Using the light source behind the performersdoes not enlighten the face but helps to separate the action from the colorfulpainting behind them. It also helps tocreate the haze and highlight the head and shoulders. To select the areas, the casting the shadowof the performer is helpful. It ishelpful because it creates the movement using the follow spot.
Using the strong or high intensity colorsallows audiences to follow the movement of performers because light does notappear on the performers face.Using the red and navy blue will shifthotel atmosphere from warm happiness to cool sadness. It will change because when actors enter atthe hotel, they see kitty crying. So, red represent the happiness that actorsare going to see the kitty but navy blue represent the sadness that they seeKitty is crying. Follow spot area is litwith warm tone light and area where Kitty is sitting on bed is lit with cooltone light. The dimmers of the controlboard can be utilized to accomplish an entire arrangement of choices from anextraordinary of the warm shading alone and to the other extreme of cool coloralone.
A gray and white colors appear tothe fundamental around the table and bed. Inthis scene, the lighting is relying upon to make some rationale as far asreasonable lighting for hotel room. The main attention this scene will be tofocus attention at the bed, the door of hotel room. The door is extremely important to this scenebecause performers appear from it. But for long time on the bed, it is valuableto focus on that bed and loose exterior area such as door.Scene two is at the Nick Pacific StreetSaloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Place.
Wesley is at piano. Harry is on the stage dancing. Kit Garson is asleep on his folded arms. TheDrunkard comes and goes to the telephone. Nick comes to take Drunkard but Nickgets behind the bar to serve whisky to Drunkard. This scene will be light withyellow. Yellow will make the bar environment warmth, confidence andcheerfulness.
Yellow will give moreenergy. In this scene, a light frombehind is helpful. It will allow toventure a performer shadow that appear over the performer when he moves towardsand far away from the lighting source. The effect of the face is not natural when it is only the lighting angle for performer moving behind thebar. While a little light from underneath will reflect light, and help to softenthe harshness of the light from above.
Inthis scene, light from behind play important role on visibility, modeling,selectivity and shadows. Light from behind will help to show that they are inbar and help to identify what they are doing. First, I will light the performer for visibility and second, I willlight for mood and atmosphere. In thisscene, mood might overpower visibility. So, general lighting will comprise of strong color yellow and movingeffects like gobo to represent that performer is dancing at the bar. By utilizing the follow-spot and automatedlighting fixture, I can control and cut through the mood lighting. It will help to lighting properly toperformers, anywhere they are on the stage. Such as lighting on right sidewhere Wesley is at piano.
Lighting on the middle where Harry is dancing. Lighting on left side where Kit Garson issleeping and lighting behind where Drunkard and Nick are moving. Actthree they are in Nick’s place at evening. A Society Gentleman and his wife enter in bas wearing evening clothes.
Will is at the marble game and nick is behind the bar. Joe is looking the book of the map at thetable. Tom is dreaming of love withKitty and leaning against the bar. Arab,Wesley and Harry are gone. Kit Carson is watching Willie.
Orange and red willbe the colors of this scene. Orange andred are color that make the illusion that people are in the bar at evening. Warm lights make evening as natural.
Warm light will help to relax and indicted itis evening. Warmer colors like orange and red will echo the scene as eveningbecause of the color of the fireplace that is in backstage left side. Warm lights coming through down stage rightand left will be comforting and help performer into wakefulness. Evening is thereason, I will make the impact of warmth and comfort through lighting in theorange and red that are warm range colors. Usingthee incandescent lighting and a natural fireplace to create warmer and eveningatmosphere lighting.
Warm light isproper for cozy living space in the bar, where Tom is relaxing and becomfortable by leaning against the bar. If I use cooler lighting, I must focusdifferent area a lot and cannot make evening environment as natural. So, warm light look better with warm color isrepresent the bar and evening time.
Frontlight is the absolute most essential edge of the light on this scene. Front light enables viewers to clearlyobserve the performer and their physical communication. So, it is extremelyvital to the scene.
Front light might wash out face and overpower backgroundand lighting effect. But using othersidelight is helpful and does not overpower the background. As the edge bringdown, sidelight will have undeniable modeling impact on the performers face andbody. This is especially critical onbackstage where Tom is leaning against the bar and Nick is behind bar. Lightingwill passage over entire stage because light will be horizontal. It is conceivable to lose shadows by focusingthe floor and light will be apparent what performer stand in it. Conclusion,lighting is an amazing piece of the play, because the capacity of sensitivelyand precisely controlling light has driven the immergence of theater lightingas a more imperative component in play.
By doing this, I feel like lightingdesign includes the way toward changing the mental pictures and placing theminto practice. While designing The Timeof Your Life performers visibly lighting is given by spots in a naturalcolor. By designing the light of threedifferent scenes it helps to learn and recall what we have learn so far inclass.