AHDS Collections

Designing Shakespeare Collection - Audio Interview Clip

- Different Spaces

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Designing Shakespeare Collection - Different Spaces
Filename	:	DS_JT_au06.mov
Description	:	Question: What about the actual space that you?re working in. What sort of impact does that have on the design? Answer: Well, it?s everything, you know, and there?s nothing that, there?s nothing that doesn?t affect. I mean the biggest difference is that I?ve come across I suppose, working indoors and outdoors. I mean, you know, if you?re working indoors to some extend it doesn?t matter what the space is like, but the conditions are under your control totally or so it would seem, whereas if you?re working outdoors on Shakespeare there are a lot of the conditions that you have no control over. The colour of the light, you know, the wind, whether it?s going to rain, the sort of shadows you?re gonna get, those types of things they kind of make you design in a completely different way, you know, you?re, and I find it, of course, I?m at The Globe at the moment and I find it really exciting, I find that you get, because of that sort of, what might seem to be an accident, you get one performance completely different to another, particularly visually. You know, no two performances are going to look the same, whereas indoors in theatre, every bit of performance practically looks identical, it?s an odd thing really. And so, as a designer, if you?re kind of working with nature, or against it sometimes, you know, you?re kind of looking for a different sort of beauty, you?re looking for different fabrics, you?re looking, you?re looking for something that?s gonna have, a sort of soul of it?s own. It?s, I mean, that could sound pretentious, but in every choice you make you are trying to find something that?s going to look, you know that has a different sort of magic or a different sort of impact on the audience, but that?s still going to be strong no matter what the weather conditions are like. But it?s interesting because you see it?s much more rigorous than working in a model box which is, you know, kind of easy [laughs] and, you know, doing, you know, a set of designs for a controllable space and there?s no question and I think the actors, if you interviewed actors who?ve played The Globe, particularly those who have played it more than once, they?d say it?s made them a better actor, it?s made them a much better actor, and I?d say that working there has made me a much, much better designer. That when I?ve gone back into indoor theatre, you know, I just find that, that, yeah, my work?s really kind of changed and developed. (Is that partly because of the actor / audience relationship as well as the outdoorness, the space?) I think so. I mean I think it?s because it?s more visceral, you know it?s got a sort of, I don?t mean a loudness, but a boldness to it of ideas of how you tell the story that sometimes, yeah, make decisions indoors seem a bit weedy or a bit kind of limp, you know the idea of kind of using a gobo to make it look like a sunny day, it?s, it?s like, ?yeah, well, have you actually been outside and looked at what a sunny day looks like, it doesn?t look anything like that?, you know, that?s a very sort of, poor synthesis and that?s true of the kind of audience / actor relationship. The thing is that I have always, that?s why I loved Stratford East when I first walked in there, because although we don?t leave all the house lights up at Stratford East right through a show, it feels like they are. You feel like the actors on stage are actually contacting you and because of the nature of a lot of the pieces, new work, you know there has always been an awful lot of audience contact. And that?s, yeah, that?s something, I don?t like being put back in the dark now, I don?t like going to the theatre where they put the audience in the dark and the actors can?t see them and that is of course tied up with the whole kind of design issue.
Source	:	DS_06_06_02 (mini DV tape)
Format	:	Quicktime Progressive (audio)
Type	:	Resource Audio
Rights	:	This clip may be used for educational purposes only, any commercial use of this material requires permission from the copyright holders. Misuse or misrepresentation may result in legal action. Copyright holder: Christie Carson, COMPH, Royal Holloway University of London.
Length	:	4 minutes 42.12 seconds