Davy Jones’s Dressing Room
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Venturing into Dodger Stages, the massive new theater complex on (and mostly under) West 50th Street, is a little like descending into the belly of a beast. It may be a nice beast, with an artistic bent. But going deep underground for theater feels ominous. However, if you ever thought theater in a submarine was a bad idea – think again.
The Dodgers, the producing group that brought us “Titanic,” “42nd Street,” and “The Who’s Tommy” are returning – in splashy $23-a-ticket fashion – to their earliest, most idealistic mandate. Rather than be bullied by Broadway-sized budgets, they’ve decided to construct (just) off Broadway a spacious home for small but worthy ventures.
In building five new theaters in Midtown without quite knowing if the community can support it, the Dodgers’ mission does seem “Titanic.” But the structure itself has rather more in common with the iceberg. The tiny, visible fraction of the complex above ground level is a little brick marquee and box office on the edge of Worldwide Plaza, the office and residential complex on the site of the former Madison Square Garden.
Once inside, escalators head into the darkness; only a canted, projection-screen roof and a massive chandelier preside over the descent. There are two floors below, containing five different stages – two of them 499-seaters.
The interior decor is Early Aircraft Carrier: vast, with lots of metal decking and exposed piping. Yellow and white arrows painted on the floor look like runway directions, symbols point out bathrooms and coat-checks, and it’s all done in blocky “techno” script. The concrete floors and walls are those of a Lorimer Street bar.
Public spaces designer Klara Zieglerova has flung around a bit of startling chartreuse – reflected in a gilt-framed mirror, or upholstering a rococo sofa. The incongruity between the industrial surround and baroque touches feels distinctly reminiscent of one of her postmodern set designs. The deep central well, bordered on one side by a 21-foot-tall projection screen, is crisscrossed with steel catwalks and metal gangways.
I should admit to a love for this complex’s earlier incarnation: as the bedraggled Cineplex Odeon, where $5 could get you into “Reindeer Games.” It was only a few years ago that this part of Hell’s Kitchen was a little too hot for the tourist trade, and there was a reason the Odeon was usually deserted. But now, with Ninth Avenue a better bet for food than Eighth, the stretch of West 50th that leads to the new Dodger Stages is downright tony. Either luck or savvy got Dodgers in on the (ahem) ground floor of the area’s boom.
My first time down in the bunker complex, I met with the inaugural event himself: Basil Twist. His “Symphonie Fantastique,” an orgy of underwater abstract puppetry set to Berlioz’s music, will be the first production to open at Dodger. (It’s in previews through September 9.) Mr. Twist, who does have a little of the sprite about him, says the timing wasn’t intentional but “a christening does always involve some bit of water.”
The bit in question is actually close to 1,500 gallons, all running to the tank from a tap in the dressing room. Every night, Mr. Twist and his fellow puppeteers make a show that straddles performance art, dance, and music. Simply by undulating flags of color in the water or shining projections through it, the puppeteers bring Berlioz’s symphony to visual life in the tank’s 5-foot-wide window.
Such “rags and water” really can beat out the big-budget stuff for spectacle. Even Hollywood agrees – the most recent Harry Potter movie featured “Dementors” – creepy, faceless creatures meant to make your skin crawl – that Mr. Twist built using similar technology.
First at HERE Arts Center, then on tour, “Symphonie Fantastique” has been both a crowd-pleaser and a critic-rouser. As the first example of the Dodgers’ mission (and taste), it’s an auspicious choice. The luxuries of space and time have allowed the show to expand.
Though it’s basically the same choreography, Mr. Twist’s techniques have had to catch up to a larger tank. Backstage, those techniques look like a circus – with a mess of flying drops and puppeteers swooping around in harnesses. And, at Dodger, Mr. Twist will for the first time be selling tickets for seats backstage. For just $100, you can see how madly these ducks paddle.
Despite a recent spate of new theaters opening (the word “glut” has crossed my mind), the well-situated Dodger Stages will clearly be making a splash. And it turns out Mr. Twist isn’t the only imp trying to put the new stages under water. Fun little surprises like mains installed at the wrong pitch and mysterious seepings have kept the building process lively. At one stage, when discolorations on a wet concrete wall couldn’t be stopped, Ms. Zieglerova suggested they simply paint all the walls to match. They wound up with a nice look, streaky and cool.
If their inventiveness in the face of such problems is any indication, the Dodgers will be fine. It’s also a reminder that, even $23 million into a production, a little scene-painting never hurts.