The Montresor exteriors pay indirect homage to late-19th-century flat painted scenery.
In Vang Vieng, a river town about three hours up the road that's become a backpacker's haunt, the flat farm scenery of lowland Laos transformed into a bizarre landscape of enormous, mountain-sized rocks that tumbled across the river plain like geological dice.
In keeping with their original venue, they both have a simple eighteenth-century look to them: painted flats for scenery, and costumes more akin to the daytime clothes of wealthy or aristocratic contemporaries of Handel than to the extravagant dress that opera singers of the day would have worn.
Richard Cerullo's flat, slightly wobbly scenery lived up to the economical Amato standard.
I remember that when we finally crossed The Minch back to the mainland, the sea was glassy flat and the scenery was mind-blowing.
When her father retired to Bath and most of the Steventon household effects were sold, a set of theatrical scenery flats was included in the auction.
When the audience walks in, the stage is in disarray — white dropcloths shroud randomly scattered items; scenery flats face this way and that; there's a ladder, a work light, a Coke machine.
Seen in silhouette through the scenery flats backstage (the versatile, mood-perfect set is by Michael Vaughn Sims), the performance proceeds with the usual stuck doors, missed cues and forgotten lines.
The sets, by Boris Kaminsky, are a particular source of joy, revealing the detailed charm of the painted-flat, illusionistic 19th-century scenery.
The crosscutting action sequences read like padded script, and the detailed but flat descriptions of characters and scenery could double as memos to the casting and production departments.
