Dramaturg's Statement

This is what I would bring to the first meeting with the director(s) and design people as a dramaturg.

The musical of Phantom of the Opera was taken by Andrew Lloyd Webber from the original novelization of Le Fantome de l'Opera by Gaston Leroux. This dramatic tragedy takes place in late 19^th century Paris, France. The opera house that inspired Leroux's Opera Populare was in fact the real life Opera Garnier. This includes the backstage, the theater itself and the underground lake. Supposedly another part of the inspiration was that the Opera Garnier had had and incident where their chandelier fell and kill a single person. In Phantom, the incident with the with the chandelier and the person dying are two separate events. One happens at the end of the first act while the second happens during the second. The play also has to echo the feel of late 19^th century Paris, France. This includes the grave yard.

In Phantom, there are references to light and dark. When referencing the PHANTOM, most of the references have to do with the dark. He even lives in the underground lake that rests below the theater. When it comes to lighting, when it comes to the PHANTOM the lighting should become somewhat darker if it is not already dark. This includes during the graveyard and masquerade scenes. The opera at the end of the show however does not need too many lighting changes. He also has an air of mystery about him. Most of the time when it comes to mystery of some sort, fog is most often used. I wouldn't say to add huge amounts of it, however I would add just enough to make it so.

RAOUL on the other hand is a lighter character. He should have a little bit lighter when it comes to a his lighting. Especially when it comes to the graveyard and underground lake scenes. If there is fog in the scene – whether or not the PHANTOM is there – it should lessen a least a little bit.

Now as far as casting goes, non-traditional casting could be accepted. The down side is that you would have to be careful as to how you cast. Casting with the main characters has to be fairly strict. What needs to be done is the characters have to cast because of how they act, not for such things as race but for their acting instead. If the roles were cast purely on race and not for their performance, then either way it would show a statement about the political aspects of the the performance and not about the talent.

There are are a few scenes that I see the most difficulty in trying to recreate on the stage. The first ones that comes to mind are any scenes that use the boat for the underground lake. It would be difficult in trying to perform such a task as to create the boat and having the steering of it be easy. In past productions of Phantom this problem has dealt with in different ways. There is a way for it to be dealt with, it is just the question as to how it will be done.

The other issue that I see is with the chandelier. This will again be difficult because because it would have to “crash” into the stage each night of the performance. It would have to be sturdy enough to handle it, but look delicate enough to look genuine. This has also been addressed in the various productions. It's an issue that's not really an easy one to solve, however it can be solved a couple different ways.