On many occasions, an audience’s first impression of a play is the set. In the more traditional production, the show will start with the curtains closed in front of the stage. Often, as the curtains open, the set will actually get a round of applause if it looks particularly lavish. Many theatres now seem to have done away with their curtains and you are faced with the set as you take your seat.
Anton Chekov was an innovative playwright whose plays are still regularly performed. They were written as a penetrating depiction of life in pre-revolutionary Russia. As such, they normally lend themselves to realistic theatre sets particularly for the interior scenes. You will often see original period furniture and you can be sure that the designer will have spent a great deal of time researching how houses would have been decorated.
A recent production did away with the set all together, though. The flats that normally form the walls of a room were completely absent. Instead the stage was virtually bare. In fact, even this is a theatre set of sorts. One of the pieces of set on the stage was the props table which is usually hidden in the wings. It contains the hand held props that are used in the performance.
At Keeley Hire, we don’t mind whether you go for a traditional theatre set with authentic props or something avant-garde. We have over half a million props and are sure that we can enhance your production, given the chance.
