DESIGNER SEES EACH PLAY IN A DIFFERENT LIGHTING

Think about the sights and sounds of a theater: Stage, set, actors, music. But what about the more subliminal influences? What about the lighting?

Lighting designer Martin Aronstein “mixes and matches, combines painting and sculpture,” shaping not only the physical look of a production--but the audience’s response to it as well.

“Lighting,” began Aronstein, relaxing in his Valley home, “is either used for obvious or subtle effects. You can create moonlight streaming through a window--or a sunrise, a sunset, the reality of a room. You have the beautiful tool of dramatic emphasis. You can make the audience look where you want them to look, and not look where you don’t want them to. But your primary function is to illuminate the actors. They’re up there speaking words that have to be heard by an audience--and if you can’t see or hear, you can induce sleep.”

Still, he stresses, the lighting is seldom obvious: “One of my strengths, I think, is that I do subtle, tasteful lighting that fits the productions.” One exception to the rule is his current staging of “Pump Boys and Dinettes” (at the Las Palmas Theatre), which Aronstein acknowledges “is not the stuff I usually do. It’s more in the classification of a rock show: lots of dancing around in the musical numbers, with red, blue, green lights--all those strong colors I don’t normally get to use.”

The usual game plan, he added, “begins by my reading the script and visualizing how I’d like the play to look. Then I sit down with the plans of the set and figure out which lights I want and where I can have them. Then I say, ‘OK, the moon will come from this angle, the sun from this angle. The light on Hamlet’s face during the soliloquy will be a sidelight or a front light’--all of which creates different effects. And color is always at the back of my mind: Is it a ‘hot’ scene, with colors like red and pink--or cool blues, which tend to be more serious and introspective.

“Some plays are maybe a full legal pad (worth of notes),” he shrugged, “depending on the piece, depending on the intensity of the lighting. Take (Marsha Norman’s) ‘ ‘night, Mother’ and compare it to the show I did immediately after at the Taper, (Mark Harelik’s) ‘The Immigrant.’ That was all over the stage: in flashbacks, soliloquy; it was like a ballet. ‘ ‘night, Mother’ was probably four pages of notes: a beautifully written piece of theater, but not challenging for me.”

In terms of working conditions, Aronstein cites the Taper and the Los Angeles Theatre Center (where he staged “The Fair Penitent” and “Petrified Forest” last year--and is now at work on the Jan. 22 premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’s “Film Society”) as favorites.

“Technically, they’re very well-equipped, have got good hanging positions for the lights--and the people are wonderful. I feel like I’m respected, that I’m family.”

On the other hand, he is a free-lance worker, an often-painful status: “Just now, I was set to do an import of Russian puppets that was coming to the Ahmanson at the end of ‘Sweet Bird’--and they canceled. In the meantime, I’d turned down (work on) other shows, so now I’m having an enforced vacation.”

He sighed. “The truth is, this work does not pay very well. I’ll do anything anywhere as long as it interests me, but the money is not such that you can pay your bills with it. If you work at the Theatre Center, you do it for the quality of the work. And if you get 12 small shows (over a year), the money adds up. Still, it’s hard to make producers and managers understand that this is how I make my living. I don’t have any personal wealth; my house is humble. But I’m not complaining. I do work.”

And how. Over 29 years, Aronstein has racked up more than 300 professional productions (150 on Broadway), garnering four Tony nominations, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards and “several” Drama-Logue awards.

“Since I was a little kid, I was always interested in theater,” he recalled. “I used to put on shows--and interestingly, I always lit them: with flashbulbs or Christmas lights.” His acting debut came at Queens College. “As I prepared to make my entrance, I couldn’t remember one line. I said, ‘This is not for me.’ ” Before long, he’d secured a non-paying technician’s job (later raised to $10 per week) at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

“I was very lucky to have Off Broadway to learn my trade,” he stressed, “because (that type of training ground) doesn’t exist anymore. I learned by doing--and I read everything there was to read, which wasn’t much. (Since, he’s also taught lighting design at Columbia University and UC Davis.)

It was 10 years ago that Aronstein decided to leave his native New York (“I didn’t like the work I was doing: It was all Texas oil money and ego productions”) and settle here. He’s never regretted it: “New York doesn’t have any good major theater like we have here,” he sniffed. “I just came back from there (where he’d re-mounted “Wild Honey”) and there wasn’t one thing I wanted to see.”

There is, however, no escape from plays one isn’t crazy about. Case in point: “Sweet Bird of Youth,” which Aronstein lit at the Ahmanson. “I was never enamored of that play,” he said without apology. “I think it’s a seriously flawed piece--Tennessee Williams long after he was burned out.”

In spite of the occasional literary reservations, his work--and confidence--is never in question: “I’m not nervous anymore; I’ve been at it too many years. And this really does get easier as you do it. Right or wrong, I can get there and do it. Lights can always do it for you.”