Husband-Wife Team Gets ‘Mail’ Call

Production designers Gerry Hariton and Vicki Baral are getting too good at what they do. They don’t have days off, they don’t take vacations. They do meetings by day and design by night. Sometimes they even manage to get in some sleep.

For 10 years, the husband-and-wife team have been working almost nonstop: in television (“The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers�), advertising (United Airlines, Ohio Bell), concert tours (Melissa Manchester, the Fifth Dimension)--and especially on the local stage: “March of the Falsettos,� “Betrayal,� “Sister Mary Ignatius,� “Greek,� “Cloud 9,� “Delirious,� “Dick Shawn: The 2nd Greatest Entertainer,� “Baby With the Bathwater,� “Heartbeats� and now “Mail,� which reopens Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse.

The Jerry Colker/Michael Rupert musical (which originated at the Playhouse last June) tells the story of mixed-up Alex Berkowitz, who’s dropped out of society for three months and is now returning home--to a huge stack of mail. “The set looks like a perfectly normal loft apartment in New York,� said Hariton. “It’s very three-dimensional, very solid, very realistic. And there’s no curtain. So when the audience comes in, they have time to sit there and get used to this very normal apartment.�

He grinned. “Then the apartment goes berserk. As Alex starts opening his mail, the people who wrote the letters come to life�--popping out of the floor, the desk, the sofa, the wall. “When we were designing it, (director) Andy Cadiff said: ‘Give me as many entrances as you can.’ So there was never any question of going overboard. This play required us to go as far as we could--then go even further. When we did it the first time, there were 22 entrances. Now there are five more in the bathroom. . . .�

Hariton and Baral (both 36; he’s from New York, she’s from Baltimore) met as design students at Brandeis University and moved to Los Angeles in 1978. “We got here when Equity Waiver was on the rise,� Baral said, “so we started doing a lot more theater than we ever expected to. And we really made a living doing it, which nobody thought was possible--of course, with detours into TV. But we’ve been fortunate in our work outside of theater; usually they’re not run-of-the-mill projects. People seem to call us for things that are unusual or weird. They know we bring that theater background--and sensibility.�

But is it as fulfilling for them?

“I don’t think we’re selling out or anything like that,� Hariton said. “We regard television or commercials as a show with a particular concept. In theater, you’re designing a set around a certain situation, certain characters, a certain time period. It’s analogous to analyzing a product or a company or a star: They have a certain image, a certain characteristic, a certain look that has to be portrayed. Of course in theater we’re dealing with emotions and ideas; there’s a deep personal satisfaction in sitting in an audience and hearing people around you. But in commercials, they’re asking us to be as creative as we possibly can. And putting across an entire idea in one minute is very difficult.�

Also difficult is the juggling that’s often required.

“When we started,� Baral noted, “we’d be doing four to five waiver shows. Now we find ourselves working on four to five Broadway-size shows. Sure, it’s more complicated. The stakes are higher, there’s more money involved.�

Instead of a permanent staff, they rely on specialized assistants: “We have someone who’s very good in TV-land, someone who’s good in theater, people who specifically model, people who draft, people who are good at prop-shopping,� she laughed. “I actually miss going out and doing the furniture shopping; it was always so much fun. So it’s sort of a trade-off.�

Often, another trade-off for the free-lancer is lack of job security.

“How do I say this without sounding pretentious?,� Hariton queried. “Right now the biggest problem we’re having is personal burnout. We’re finally at the point where we don’t worry about the next play. The funny thing is, our parents can’t deal with it. No matter how well we’re doing, if we can’t tell them at least six months in advance what the plans are, they start worrying.�