Years ago, Steppenwolf Theater Company produced a forgettable drama called Summer Brave whose main attraction was a glorious reproduction of a rural retreat. This sprawling vacation home all but summed up summer with its comfortable veranda suggesting lazy afternoons spent in a hammock. It made you want to possess just such a place u ntil you realized that it's enough to drink in the fantasy from the safety of your seat. Being there would be, to say the least, a lot more complicated than simply "owning" the illusion.
But the magic of make-believe suggests an intriguing proposition, the idea of living inside a play, specifically a set. Talk about eliminating the fourth wall and helping to solve a housing meltdown as well!
Just as the fully-operative beauty parlor that provided the world of Steel Magnolias could have been employed off-hours as a complete, functioning styling salon, a lot of the interiors we see in shows could do double duty as, well, not homes for squatters but opportunities for audience members to literally become part of the play.
Here are some potent -- and, importantly, unmortgaged -- places you could summer or winter in, fall into or spring for, just by walking into the show and making it your home.
● One smart choice for "theatrical lodging" is, of course, a hotel suite, much like the luxurious rooms (and, most importantly, bath) offered the imaginary guests in Lend Me A Tenor, Plaza Suite, California Suite or Light Up the Sky. Everything is there for your comfort, including an illusionistic view of the big city. The problem is getting "room service" to bring food and drink. (Actually, a bigger one problem would be getting a dial tone in the first place.) Anyway stage food, alas, is only convincing from a distance.
● Another good choice is a show with multiple sets, like The King and I. If you can convince the tech crew to change the backdrops and fly the scenery, you can enjoy most parts of the palace, including the school room, the ballroom, the state dining room and the king's bedchamber.
Continuing the Rodgers and Hammerstein theme: If the world is a beach, well there's always South Pacific, where you'll enjoy your own private paradise, including a beautiful view of the island of Bali, barracks for Seabees, a seaside hut for Bloody Mary, and, of course, a private shower.
Then there's Captain Van Trapp's Salzburg villa where The Sound of Music bursts out of every room, or the ranch house in Oklahoma!, where the farmers and the cowmen still haven't learned to be friends. You could even enjoy a real nice clambake, the Maine attraction for Carousel.
● Practically any realistic play at Steppenwolf Theater and most at Goodman profit from a humongous budget for the set design. That ensures, if the show requires them, lavish furnishings, state-of-the-art lighting (from floor lamps, track lights and overhead illumination), working appliances and plumbing, and showroom furniture. (It's no accident there's an Ethan Allen store right next to Steppenwolf. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference inside.)
● The wonderful evergreen world of Wicked: Yes, thanks to flying props and rolling set pieces, you'll have all of Emerald City at your disposal, a classroom for animal instruction, and a hydraulic hoist with which to defy gravity with your new best friend forever. The yellow brick road will keep you on the beaten path, and the witch's lair is conveniently not included in this limited-offer time-share.
● If I could pick a favorite set to dwell in, it would be the original design for Mary Zimmerman's The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. This inexhaustibly interesting creation offered a cabinet of curiosities that mirrored the multifaceted mind of the Renaissance's most Renaissance man. Its only problem, evident when the show was revived (and lightning did not struck twice), was that the backdrop was so much more interesting than anything going on in front of it. But that's no drawback when you live there. You simply create your own just by existing on the premises. If you do it right, you can qualify for the high praise that's offered to fascinating meta-humans like Leonardo: "He was never less alone than when alone."
● The second loveliest illusion to inhabit would be the revolving island in Lyric Opera of Chicago's Madama Butterfly, a gorgeous, mountain-top Japanese villa with cherry blossoms, incense hangers, ornate balconies, magically lit interiors, and, of course, a turntable to constantly alter the view (of an empty opera house). Sure, it's too lovely an abode for the final ritual suicide that spoils everything, but that's art. Our business here is life.
● Of course there are also ugly sets to avoid like a telemarketing call: The interiors of Tobacco Road, with its tarpaper shack and leaky roof, would not please, or The Lower Depths, Gorky's portrait of a tenement that used to be a slum till it fell into hard times. Porgy and Bess may provide lot of open space for Catfish Row's "promenade" but it's still a hurricane-prone shantytown on a South Carolina flood zone. (The tech crew should be warned to trigger the waterfall and wind only during actual performances.)
Another bad bet on an off-hours home is Waiting for Godot, unless you enjoy watching a one lone leaf grow on dead tree fronting an empty horizon. Man of La Mancha would be a big mistake too, since it's basically a prison that will require all your imagination to pretend it's anything else.
Living on the set of Rent would be pointless: It's all about squatters to start with so that would just be gilding the lily. These are definitely sub-prime mortgages aching for a foreclosure.
But the good shows offer hope for the housing crisis. These affecting examples prove that the theater isn't just a temple. It can also be a refuge.
