How Do Actors Interact With The Chairs During Performances?

I still get a little thrill thinking about how people wrote about the chairs in the 1960 revival of 'The Chairs'. Critics couldn't stop talking about them — and not just as props. Many reviews treated the chairs like characters in their own right, praising the production for turning what could be a simple set piece into a kind of physical poetry. I read contemporary notices that applauded the choreography and timing: the way actors moved them, stacked them, arranged empty places at an invisible dinner felt simultaneously comic and mournful. Those pieces loved the visual clarity; reviewers said the chairs made absence visible, which in the world of absurd theatre was a huge compliment. Not everyone was unreservedly enthusiastic, though, and that contrast is what I found most interesting. A fair number of critics called the staging gimmicky, arguing the spectacle risked overshadowing the play’s emotional core. Some felt the chairs became a distraction — clever, yes, but emotionally distancing. A few wrote about the lighting and design choices too, praising the stark palette that let the chairs dominate the stage, while others wished for subtler direction that leaned into human vulnerability instead of visual cleverness. Reading through those old columns, I laughed at some blunt takes, nodded at the thoughtful ones, and felt lucky to have a production that provoked such strong responses — theatre at its best, messy and alive.

I get the urge to hunt down stage props the way other people chase sneakers — once you notice those chairs, you notice them everywhere. If the production sold official merch, start at the theater's website or box office; many companies list licensed replicas or limited runs right after the show closes. If that fails, look for licensed prop makers and theatrical suppliers — search phrases like "prop replica chair," "stage chair reproduction," or "theatre seat replica". Etsy and specialized prop shops often have handcrafted versions, and eBay can be a goldmine for both mass-produced replicas and actual retired theater seats from surplus sales. If you want something exact and durable, contact prop houses or rental companies; sometimes they sell off inventory between seasons. For a custom, authentic-feel piece, independent furniture makers or carpenters can replicate dimensions and finishes from photos — expect to pay a premium, but you’ll get sturdiness and a closer match. Also consider 3D-printing smaller decorative parts or commissioning a seller on forums like theater Facebook groups or subreddits. When buying, ask for measurements, materials, and provenance (photos of the chair in use are a great sign). Shipping for bulky items can be costly, so local pickup or finding regional sellers helps. I once tracked a replica through a forum thread where someone shared a local prop shop’s contact info — it took patience, screenshots, and a few messages, but it felt like a little treasure hunt. If you want, I can suggest exact keywords and marketplaces based on where you live or how much you want to spend; there’s always a way to get something that feels right.

There’s something quietly ridiculous and terribly honest about chairs that pulls straight into existential stuff — they’re everyday objects that insist you take a place, or they announce someone’s absence. When I think of 'The Chairs' by Ionesco, those empty seats feel like a stage full of unspoken lives; the chairs themselves become witnesses and props for meaning that won’t hold together. That tension — between presence and absence, between the invitation to sit and the impossibility of filling a role properly — is pure existentialism to me. I also keep picturing 'Waiting for Godot' with its sparse seating and how characters use sitting and standing as rhythms of hope and despair. Chairs mark routines, social roles (throne vs. kitchen stool), and the thin line between being anchored and being trapped. Even in paintings like 'Van Gogh's Chair' the furniture reads like a portrait: posture, history, who’s been here, who’s gone. For all their banality, chairs ask us about choice, responsibility, mortality — and sometimes make me sit very still and think about what kind of seat I’m occupying in my own life.

There’s something deliciously tactile about how 1950s designers treated chairs — they weren’t just seating, they were punctuation marks in the room. In productions from Broadway to early television, designers used chairs to carve space, define class and hint at psychological states. I still get a kick flipping through old Playbills and noticing how a single armchair could signal wealth, loneliness, or impending disaster depending on placement and light. Jo Mielziner and a few contemporaries popularized using furniture as extension of the actor’s body: place the chair slightly askew and the whole scene smells of tension; put it centered under a harsh spotlight and you’ve suddenly got an interrogation even if the dialogue is gentle. Practically speaking, staging in the '50s balanced theatrical tradition with emerging on-screen realities. For live TV and studio-bound films, chairs had to be functional — often on casters or thin wagons — to allow rapid scene shifts. But designers also thought about sightlines for front-row theatergoers versus one static camera: backs facing the audience could create intimate private worlds for the actor, while chairs turned toward the audience invited confessions. Upholstery patterns and material mattered too — velvet and brocade read as opulent under tungsten lights, whereas worn leather or cane suggested hard lives. I like imagining a designer in a dim shop, running a hand along fabric swatches, listening to a director describe a character, and choosing a chair that quietly says everything the actor doesn’t. Lighting and shadow in the 1950s were huge collaborators. In noir-tinged plays or films, a chair became a trap: hard-edged light slicing the seat produced dramatic silhouettes; in more expressionistic theater, sparse arrangement of chairs suggested existential emptiness — something Beckett and his directors played with in later stagings. Those little choices still teach me about economy: a single chair, placed with intent, often tells a story a thousand set pieces can’t, and that’s why I keep looking at them in old photographs and thrift stores alike.

I’ve had to hunt this down for productions more times than I can count, and the easiest way to break it down is to separate two meanings: the play titled 'The Chairs' and the literal chairs used in a theatre production. If you mean the play 'The Chairs' by Eugène Ionesco (or any authored play), the companies that license performances are usually theatrical licensing agencies or the playwright’s publisher/estate. Big names you’ll see listed on acting editions or rights pages include Concord Theatricals (which absorbed Samuel French), Dramatists Play Service, Music Theatre International (for musicals), Playscripts, Theatrical Rights Worldwide, and smaller national publishers like Nick Hern Books in the UK. For classic or foreign works the rights might sit with the author’s literary estate or a European publisher — so the front matter of the script usually tells you who to contact. If you actually meant physical chairs used onstage (as set pieces or auditorium seating), that’s a different chain: prop houses, scenic shops, and seating manufacturers. Regional prop rental houses and set workshops rent or fabricate period chairs; for venue seating you’d be talking to specialist manufacturers and vendors. Either way, the practical steps I always take are: check the script for publisher/rights info, search the title on the major licensing sites, and if it’s about props, contact local prop shops or your university/community theatre’s scenic department. Those paths have saved me from accidentally performing without proper rights more than once. If you’re trying to put on a specific production and want a direct lead, tell me the exact title and region (community, school, professional, which country) and I’ll point to the most likely licensing contact — or the nearest prop house for renting chairs.

When a stage fills with a forest of empty seats, something visceral happens — and that's exactly why critics keep coming back to Ionesco's 'The Chairs'. For me, those chairs are not mere furniture; they're a kind of silent chorus. They mark absence as presence, creating a visual paradox: the more chairs that pile up, the more inhabited the stage feels, even though no living guests have arrived. That tension between visibility and vacancy is theatrical candy for critics who love form meeting meaning. Beyond the visual trick, the chairs work on symbolic and emotional levels. They become placeholders for memory, failed communication, and the characters' longing to be witnessed. In practice, they let the playwright stage an entire imaginary society — each empty seat implies a voice, a life, a story — which amplifies the play's meditation on loneliness and the breakdown of language. Directors can use the chairs to sculpt rhythm: comical slapstick one moment, unbearably poignant silence the next. Critics often praise that flexibility because it lets productions emphasize comedy, tragedy, or meta-theatrical self-critique without betraying the text. There's also a meta-theatrical wink: chairs are ordinary objects that call attention to the theatrical machine itself. By making props the emotional core, Ionesco invites us to question what theatre does — hold a mirror, store memory, or simply point at the absurdity of trying to speak meaningfully at all. Personally, whenever I picture those chairs I think of an old living room waiting for a party that never happens, and I feel both a smile and a little ache.

Nothing wakes up the fan in me faster than watching a classic get a fresh coat of paint — especially when directors rework characters so they actually feel alive for today. Baz Luhrmann is the obvious go-to: his 'Romeo + Juliet' blasts Shakespearean language into a neon, MTV-era world and turns Romeo and Juliet into teenagers who look and move like the ones I knew in high school. That shock of contrast modernized their impulses and made the tragedy feel urgent again. I also think of Alfonso Cuarón with 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' — he didn’t rewrite the books, but he remade Harry’s interior life, giving the characters visible emotional weight and a darker, more modern visual language. David Fincher did something similar for 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', turning Lisbeth into a modern icon of damaged, brilliant resilience. Patty Jenkins modernized Diana in 'Wonder Woman' too: ancient myth reinterpreted with a contemporary feminist cadence that resonated with younger viewers who hadn’t grown up with the comics. These directors don’t all do the same trick. Some update dialogue and setting, some change pacing and focus, some give previously sidelined characters more agency. I love catching those choices — whether it’s Peter Jackson expanding the scope (and characters) in 'The Hobbit' films, or Greta Gerwig reframing 'Little Women' so Jo’s ambitions feel unmistakably modern. It’s like watching an old friend grow new haircuts: familiar, but alive in a new way.

The way I look at chairs in modern drama has gotten sneakily personal — I catch myself watching how actors treat a seat the same way I eavesdrop on tiny domestic gestures at a café. Scholars tend to treat chairs as more than furniture: they're shorthand for power relations (a throne or a battered kitchen chair), for social class, and for the presence or haunting absence of characters. Think of 'The Chairs' by Ionesco, where empty chairs multiply into a gallery of absent guests; critics read that as a meditation on failed communication and the hollowness of social ritual. Other readings point to authority and hierarchy — who gets to sit, who must stand — which shows up in comedies and tragedies alike. On the theoretical side, semioticians and phenomenologists (channeling ideas from people like Merleau-Ponty even if they don't name him directly) argue that objects on stage help construct subjectivity: a chair can shape posture, movement, and thus identity. Marxist critics push it further and call chairs commodities that reveal class anxieties — a cheap folding chair versus an upholstered armchair tells a social history. Feminist scholars, meanwhile, often spotlight how chairs map gendered spaces inside plays such as 'A Doll's House' or in domestic realist traditions where sitting and serving become coded behaviors. Directors and actors also talk about chairs as pacing devices: a character sitting can mean resignation, defiance, or a power play, and the choreography of who moves a chair when creates rhythm. So for me, chairs in modern drama are like small, stubborn characters — always doing emotional heavy lifting even when no one notices, and I love spotting the little stories they tell between lines.