Subtlety is perhaps the most forgotten element of lighting in the modern theater. Today with professional theater companies one style of lighting dominates the visual scene. It is agressive lighting designed to force a scene with strong, vibrant colors and hard directional angles. This style of lighting is undoubtably a hybridization of the entertainment lighting that evolv
ed with rock and roll crossed with the Jesus Christ Superstar to Wicked transition that took
over Broadway three and a half decades ago. With the advent of computerized control decks, moving lights, digital projectors, dichroic color mixing, and later LED fixtures, lighting designers embraced an over-the-top, intensity driven style designed to overpower the audience. This style of design can only be described as replacement lighting, where the natural emotions created by a production are forced out by a combination of sound and lighting.
Don't get me wrong, there is most certainly a place for elaborate, intense and overpowering lighting. The last scene of Next to Normal where the entire stage became engulfed in blinding light (created by over 300 250watt incandescent bulbs) was exactly what that produced needed at that moment, but not every scene, not every song needs to remind us of Oprah or CSI. What I am talking to is the tendency to homogenize the emotional response of an audience by locking down focus and creating a sensory overload. This is not theater.
This is definitely a problem that I see all the time in bigger shows. There is a temptation in larger shows to throw more lights at a problem or situation to create a desired effect instead of really considering what those lights are actually doing. I think it's a huge mistake and in some ways, it's a shame that these enormously complex plots are so feasible; the greatest art is born out of the need to deal with restrictions.
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