Volume I, Issue iv

December 1998

Set Pieces: The Spencer House by Teresa Leslie

In our October issue, I wrote about the peeling paint of the Spencer house as a metaphor for the Spencer marriage. A lot more can be said about the house on Charles Street. In this, our inaugural installment of the "Set Pieces" column, I want to look more closely at the GH sets that make up the Spencer home. These sets are a wonderful reflection of the GH family that "lives" there, and are used very effectively as symbolic space by the GH writers.

Laura's home (for while we certainly saw plenty of Luke in the house while Laura was away in Switzerland, it is Laura's spirit that makes the house on Charles Street a home) is a comfortable, ramshackle, old two-story house furnished in Laura's eclectic, old-fashioned style. While we have had rare glimpses of a few of the upstairs rooms, and at least one recent scene in the Spencer kitchen (when Katherine 'dropped by'), the most-used Spencer sets are the living room and the front porch.

The living room is cozy, but looks a bit worn and drafty. It has the look of high ceilings. The set actually has two levels: the front door and foyer of the house are located at the back of the set and this space is elevated two steps above the main level of the set, where the bulk of the furniture is located and the majority of the action usually plays out. The stairway upstairs is also located on the upper level, and its landing gives a third level to the stage.

Table lamps cast a warm glow, and the lighting on the set is rather subdued, as if most of the light comes from the lamps and from the tall windows, rather than from overhead lighting. The windows have simple treatments--straight maroon drapes that hang to the floor and shades rather than blinds. The wooden floors are covered with rugs. The woodwork is dark and stands out from the light colored walls. The door, which looks as if it were made of sturdy wood, has a window in the top half, which is covered with a sheer curtain, and beveled glass panels on either side.

The walls are covered with pictures and bric-a-brac, the mantle of the inviting fireplace is festooned with family pictures (in fact, contrasting styles of displaying photos is the subject of a future Small Stuff column). Whereas Wyndemere and the Quartermaine mansion always sport masses of cut flowers, Laura's home is filled with houseplants and, this time of year, pots of tulips and other forced bulbs.

The furniture is a jumble, a collection of pieces that blend nicely but are not neatly matched. It is as if Laura, who strives to find room in her life for all the people she loves, also strives to find room in her home for all the objects she loves. The sofa, strewn with piles of interesting pillows in various sizes, is fronted by a coffee table. A strange three-tiered end table holds several unusual bibelots. There is a massive dining table in this central room of the house, where meals are eaten, where Lucky used to sit with his laptop doing his homework, where Lulu sits to color.

The whole room has a decidedly lived-in look. It seems to reflect Laura's personality--it's deceptively simple, elegantly timeless, sentimental. The look the set director has created is that of an older home that has not been restored as a showplace but that is lived in and comfortable as an old shoe.

As I discussed in my earlier reflections on the Spencer house as metaphor for the Spencer marriage, this space is used quite effectively on GH in ways that underscore the drama taking place within it. The most obvious dramatic use of the set is the contrast made between the exterior and the interior, which represents the difference between public and private. Not just anyone can stroll into the Spencer home and feel comfortable and welcome there. For example, Sonny respected Laura's feelings about his business and Luke's involvement in it, and he invariably stayed on the porch when he visited Charles Street. When the writers wanted to underscore Katherine's rudeness to Laura, they had her make herself at home in Laura's kitchen. It was clear that she was not welcome, but she feigned ignorance of the chilly reception Laura accorded her.

When Liz was raped, Lucky took her to the safest place he knew, his home. Lucky's subsequent estrangement from his parents was paralleled by his estrangement from the family home. So the scenes in which he visited the house on Charles Street during that period were lent additional impact by the use of the contrast between interior and exterior sets. Lucky stopped by after Laura's trial testimony to make sure she was alright (after Nik came to the boxcar) and did not come inside. He simply stood in the yard, spoke briefly to his mother who stood on the porch, and moved away. However, when he came in anger, after having seen Laura barefoot at Wyndemere, to insist Laura tell him whether or not she was sleeping with Stefan, he came into the house without even knocking, just banging in. Now that he has made a tentative peace with all of his family (including Nikolas), he is comfortable waiting alone for his mother in the living room and making conversation there with Nikolas.

Laura's relationship with Stefan can likewise be reflected in the setting of scenes. When Laura had her first flashback to kissing Stefan on the island, she was sitting on the porch of the Spencer home. That romance, even though it was still in the past, did not intrude on the interior of her family life or the interior of her home. It was during Stefan's trial, or shortly before the trial, and Laura was concerned about Nikolas. She sat on the porch, deep in her troubled thoughts, as if trying to keep them from entering the house and settling there. (She often sits outside when she is upset.) Luke stepped up on the porch, and when she spoke of her concern that Stefan could be convicted and Nik could lose the only "parent" he'd ever known, made a sarcastic remark about making it hard to know which way to root. Then he walked into the house, into the family space where he belonged, leaving her on the porch to ponder the fate of her Cassadine family, who were not universally welcome in that space. Significantly, she did not follow him inside. Stefan in the flesh has come to the Spencer home on occasion, but Laura is always tense when he steps into the family space, the private space, of her home. She has never had a flashback while inside the house, and she is least likely to allow him to remind her of their shared past when they are standing in her living room. She spoke to him more openly in the scene after her court testimony when Stefan came back to check on her and found her sitting on the steps of the porch.

The use of the Spencer house sets during the rape revision storyline was also effective. Luke told Lucky about the rape in the house, while Laura was still absent. Interestingly, however, the riveting scene where Luke and Laura finally discussed that night in the disco took place elsewhere, at Luke's office, away from the home, on "his" turf, as it were. Months later, when Luke confronted Laura about her past with Stefan and about Nikolas's paternity, the story was once again brought back into the house and the action took place in the living room.

Now that Luke and Laura have grown so far apart, it will be interesting to see under what circumstances he next revisits the house he once confided to Lucy that he hated, the place he referred to in a recent conversation with Laura as "that lump of plywood and rubber cement we USED to call the family home." Will he remain on the porch, or will he enter the family space within? And if he comes in, will Laura feel comfortable having him there?