Hello there:
I don't know HOCUS POCUS, so I can't give you specific staging ideas, but this is not an uncommon set and staging technique so I can give you at least an idea of how this is done.
If you've only worked on a small stage, this might seem difficult, but there are lots of plays with what is called \"unit sets\"; that is, a single set that has multiple locations, each on different parts of the stage. Broadway stages, and other professional and non-professional stages (Regional, college, old vaudeville theatres used by community and professional companies, and others) are quite big enough to fit such sets without any problem.
What is usually done is that, as you said; two rooms are built on stage, one on stage right and one on stage left. Depending on the show, these rooms might be connected, as they were in a show I directed where adjoining hotel rooms were side by side, allowing the action to flow back and forth between the rooms or to take place in both simultaneously; or they might be entirely separate locations, as in Crossing Delaney which has two main playing areas - an apartment and a book store - plus a central area which became at various times a park, a street and a restaurant.
When sets are built like this, usually the lighting is designed to be able to light each side of the set separately. This allows one side to be dark while the other side is lit, focusing the audience's attention on the lit side. Or the whole stage could be lit, illuminating both sets, so that action can happen in both at the same time.
It is easy for the action to take place simultaneously in both rooms. The playwright indicates this in the script and, through stage directions, lets the director and actors know what characters are in each room. The dialogue is then written simultaneously - that is, the lines are written in the order they are said, but the action takes place in both rooms. So X may talk to Y in the hotel room, while A talks with B in the study. But the dialogue in the script is written, perhaps, A B X A Y B X A B X Y. That is, it is written in the order the audience should hear it, but there are two separate conversations going on. This is tricky to write and to act, but it can be simplified by the common practice of separating chunks of action and conversation in each area by chunks of silence or silent action, allowing the audience to shift their focus to the other area - kind of like a tennis match.
The actors, when rehearsing, need to be careful that their lines come in the correct order, not overlapping (unless they are meant to, as it is sometimes written), but that their individual, separate, conversations come across as coherent and continuous, as though their pauses come naturally in the course of their action. Timing and lots of rehearsal is the key to all this. The end result is that the audience sees two separate scenes going on, with two separate conversations, but somehow is able to focus on both and to understand them without any problem.
I'm not sure exactly how this works with HOCUS POCUS but that should give you some idea... I hope this helps,
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1 year, 1 month(s) ago