Friday, November 7, 2003

SMT designer goes Art Deco

By LAURA STEWART
NEWS-JOURNAL FINE ARTS WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH — Huge wooden sections were scattered like giant child’s blocks around the vast warehouse that is Seaside Music Theater’s Scene Shop: a curving staircase, broken into three parts; the low stage that will support a baby-grand piano; the soaring fragment of curved wall that will suggest a library.

But in Bob Fetterman’s mind, those pieces already formed a set that will be “swellegant.” It’s a dramatic blend of swell and elegant, with a jazzy Art Deco, Busby Berkeley flourish matching the swank mood of Cole Porter’s “You Never Know,” the Seaside musical opening today.

“When Lester (Malizia, the show’s director) saw my sketches, that was his word for them,” he said. “The curving staircase has a broad landing for dancing, and a curving library wall that’s 16 feet tall. It goes on stage right, to the left of the top stair.

“The show opens in the Paris hotel suite of Baron Rommer (Ayal Miodovnik) at 7 p.m. in the summer of 1929, and goes on into the evening. So, as we head into twilight, the tall windows behind the stairs reveal a little night scene with a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower,” said Fetterman, Seaside’s resident scenic designer as well as its production and facilities manager. “Some of this was in the script — it called for certain doors, archways, the staircase.

“But I based my design on how the show flows — the different levels are desirable because they break up the actors’ compositions, and the baby grand will be on a platform eight inches above the floor,” he said. The show’s combo — bass, drums and piano — will be tucked behind the staircase, partly hidden so the Paris skyline can form a backdrop to the madcap farce that takes place on the set.

The 1938 musical’s humor comes from its plot, with the Baron exchanging roles with his butler Gaston (Ben Franklin) to fool a lady who herself has switched places with her maid. Ida (Kahliah Rivers) and Maria (Jennifer Swiderski), the maid, turn the tables, adding to the witty confusion. Also contributing to the fun is the fact that after a 78-show run on Broadway, “You Never Know” was nearly forgotten.

Porter went on to write such Broadway hits as “Kiss Me, Kate,” “Can-Can,” “Silk StockIngs,” “Around the World in 80 Days” and “High Society,” along with an enormous song list. It includes “I Love Paris,” “Begin the Beguine,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top” — and one song Fetterman recognized when he began his research on “You Never Know”: “Let’s Misbehave.”

But the revival Seaside is presenting features two songs that were dropped from the original before its 1938 Broadway premiere: “By Candlelight” and “I’m Back in Circulation.” The new production features “From Alpha to Omega” — a song that also had been in Porter’s earlier musical “Fifty Million Frenchmen” — “You’ve Got that Thing,” and “For No Rhyme Or Reason.”

It’s an effervescent look back to pre-Depression era Paris, a time and place dear to Porter, who lived there then, and to Fetterman. “The show is set in 1929, the time of High Art Deco.

“I love Art Deco, the clean lines of the deco style, and that helped me — I really enjoy designing in this style,” Fetterman said. “I started my research by reading the ‘You Never Know’ script and listening to Cole Porter’s music, then I looked at books of designs from that period. I kept thinking about the fact that this is the Baron’s hotel room, in the Ritz, and that it should have a masculine quality.

“But, because Porter’s music is so flowing, I built in the curves,” said Fetterman. “I had met with Lester and Brian O’Keefe, who is doing the costumes in brilliant jewel tones, and knew this would be a classic farce with a gracious mood, dancing, champagne glasses and all that.

“After the initial research, I always sit down and do a sketch of what the set will look like to the audience, and an aerial view,” the designer said. “It will basically be all wood, fabric and aluminum — ‘swellegant.’ I personally will be painting a portrait of the baron in the style of Tamara de Lempica that will go over the fireplace.

“She is the quintessential Art Deco artist, whose work is very angular, very urban — most have some sort of cityscape behind and their colors are cream, burgundies, blacks, reds or greens. It’s my personal project, starting tomorrow, and it will take me, probably, three days total,” Fetterman said. “I really love Art Deco, and Lempica. All my research materials for ‘You Never Know’ came from my own library shelves.”

If You Go

WHAT: Cole Porter’s “You Never Know,” the second of three shows in Seaside Music Theater’s 2003-2004 Winter Season.

WHEN: Tonight through Nov. 23.

WHERE: SMT Downtown, 176 N. Beach St., Daytona Beach.

TICKETS: Single tickets are $27-$34; for tickets or more information, visit www.SeasideMusicTheater.org or call (386) 252-6200 or (800) 854-5592.