The shape-shifting ‘Empathitrax’ stage is a work of art. Meet the man behind it.
Theater enthusiasts have witnessed many of Christopher Haig's set designs. The sets for PTC's "Empathitrax" are his latest creation.
Walking into the Suzanne Roberts Theatre for Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of Empathitrax, audiences find the curtain already up, revealing the set of the play they’re about to watch. It’s a stark, vast apartment that transforms the 2,800-square-foot stage into an intimate space for the proceedings about to take place.
Large windows that could show a vast landscape are instead filled with views of confining skyscrapers; walls that reach the full height of the stage make the apartment feel smaller. A massive couch lies center stage. There is minimal decor.
The play,by Ana Nogueira, explores what happens to a couple when they have access to a drug that lets each feel what the other is feeling. It is a deep contemplation of depression and how one’s surroundings and relationships interact with it. Set designer Chris Haig wanted to help the audience feel the isolation and oppressiveness at the heart of the show. In the end, the sterile apartment undergoes a fantastic transformation into a new, beautiful world.
“The script doesn’t necessarily read like you have to go into that world,” Haig said. “I think other productions have done it where they stay in that apartment and it’s just through his description of what’s happening that you create that world.” Instead, director Nell Bang-Jengsen wanted to have the full reveal into this other world, which Haig was excited to design.
The reveal is stunning, as the apartment flies up into the rafters, towering trees appear alongside a rocky cave, creating a picturesque locale. Two stationary trees, made of a wood and chicken wire frame, take center stage.
Haig, a Norristown native, has been designing sets in the Philadelphia region for the past 20 years. Throughout his childhood, he acted in local theater productions and then studied theater at the University of the Arts. On graduating, he transitioned to set and prop design.
Haig’s first jobs were at Simpatico Theatre and Theatre Horizon, where people at the helm were his friends and knew his set design skills. The close-knit aspect of Philadelphia theater has helped him keep working, Haig said. ”The theater community in Philadelphia is just like none other. Everyone knows each other, and we’ve all collaborated. We support each other; it doesn’t feel as competitive as other towns.”
Haig joined the Arden Theatre Company as its props supervisor in 2011. He left the Arden last year to return to freelancing and has since worked with People’s Light in Malvern, InterAct Theatre Co. in Philadelphia, and, of course, Philadelphia Theatre Company.
Empathitrax runs though March 5 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, but Haig is already hard at work on his next two projects: Man of La Mancha at Delaware Theatre Company and Chicken & Biscuits at Bristol Riverside Theatre.
The Man of La Mancha set “will be a very realistic Spanish prison with stonework, and all the textures that come with that,” he said.
Man of La Mancha runs April 12-30. Chicken & Biscuits runs May 16-June 4.