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Grace Cahill

Evans Jarnefeldt

UHON 3540

26 March 2017

Playing Together Ensemble Essay

Mise-en-scene is defined as the process of setting a stage, with regard to

placement of actors, scenery, properties, etc. to seemingly create a certain feel or cause a

certain reaction from its audience. While in New York, we experienced multiple different

interpretations of this concept, each portraying it in a vastly different fashion. Analyzing

how the ensembles of Sleep No More, The Lion King, Miss Saigon, and the Puppet

Kitchen workshop embrace this concept, the following essay will illustrate how the mise-

en-scene of a production enhances the audiences ability to connect with it.

Sleep No More has the most unique mise-en-scene with its confusing, spread out

set and interactive method of the production. Even though I was confused the entire time

because I have never read the play Macbeth and thus, I had no idea what was going on at

any point in the show, it was clear that the setup and detail on every floor and every set

piece was meant to continue the story even if there wasnt an actor present to interact

with it. The characters moving from place to place and having the ability to interact with

an individual aspect of the performance was also unique to this production. Sleep No

More was set up so the audience can follow, participate, and/or watch whatever they felt

most drawn to, enhancing the audiences ability to connect with the production. I say this

because the audience can choose what they want to focus on as opposed to a traditional
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Broadway style show where one is stuck in a chair watching everything. As Stephen

Nachmanovitch states this (the disappearance of the distinction between the audience

and the performers) is more likely to happen at informal presentations where there is no

stage and no fixed seating to impose a dualistic split between active performers and

passive audience (101). Simply put, the production Sleep No More used mise-en-scene

to allow the audience to interact with what most interested them in the play allowing

them to uniquely connect and be a part of it.

The Lion King used mise-en-scene to allow the audience to connect with the

performance in a more traditional way. While many have seen The Lion King, the

expectedness doesnt detract from the connection between the audience and the show.

Knowing what to expect, is its own form of connection. The Lion King created this

feeling of family and unity in their opening and concluding scenes by having the variety

of animals come together to recognize the birth of the new lion cub. These two scenes

stood out because of their mise-en-scene. The animals were all arranged around the

massive cliff that came out of the stage and each set of animals were the source of focus

during their entrance into the scene. The spectacular staging, costumes, and props

grabbed the audiences attention and connected them to the production from start to

finish.

The play Miss Saigon, similar to The Lion King, used mise-en-scene to grasp the

audiences attention. What stood out the most in this play were the sets and staging. The

play opened in this whore house called Dreamland, which was this little hut in Saigon

that was run by the Engineer. Similarly, Kims house, the US Embassy in Saigon, the
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helicopter, the run-down house that Kim and her son live in, the streets of Bangkok,

Chriss house in Atlanta, and finally the strip club in Bangkok where Kim works, all

contain great detail and connect the plot of the play to the feeling its supposed to evoke.

However, aside from the detail and feeling of the staging, the transitions between scenes

added to the production. The different sets were usually changed in the midst of songs,

but the performances continued with the change. These seamless scene changes also

added to the mise-en-scene due to the ensemble mesmerizing the audience and making

them unable to look away, connecting them to the production.

The Puppet Kitchen Workshop was another unique experience connecting

ensemble and mise-en-scene. At the Puppet Kitchen, we were broken up into groups of

three and tasked with constructing a puppet out of two sheets of paper and then

performing certain activities as a group in the Bunraku style of puppetry. This experience

forced one to rely on their group members because each individual was responsible for

one element of the puppets movement. While this experience did not have any staging,

scenery, or props, the concept of mise-en-scene can be seen in the deliberate movement

each individual makes the puppet perform. Part of the definition of mise-en-scene is the

placement of actors, which may be able to be applied to the movement of the actors

(puppets) as well. In order to create the illusion that the puppet was actually doing what it

was supposed to be, each member had to be extremely specific and exaggerated with

their movement, otherwise the audience might not be able to connect with what the

puppeteers are doing or trying to convey. Overall, this working together to perform with
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the puppet (ensemble) illustrates particular aspects of mise-en-scene, which allow for the

audience to connect with the performance.

In Stephen Nachmanovitchs book Free Play, Nachmanovitch describes how

through subtle but powerful entrainments, the audience, the environment, and the

players link into a self-organizing wholethe skin boundaries become semipermeable,

then irrelevant; performers, audience, instruments, the room, the night outside, space,

become one being (101). The connection one makes to the performance/experience is

achieved through the coming together of many different elements to form a single object,

mise-en-scene. Sleep No Mores ensemble and mise-en-scene allowed for a more up-front

and unique connection between the audience and the production, while The Lion King

and Miss Saigons ensemble focused more on specific aspects of their mise-en-scene,

such as the costumes, staging, and sets, to forge a connection between the audience and

the production. Even the Puppet Kitchen, had this unique ability to connect the audience

to the performance through the mise-en-scene of the individual puppets actions. Overall,

through these different experiences the concept of how ensemble creates mise-en-scene

can be seen in the connection that develops between the performers and the audience.