Design Elements are critical components in plays, especially The Seagull (Directed by Simon Stephens) and Real Magic (Directed by Tim Etchells) because they re-encode the themes of the piece and therefore enhance the play itself, compared to purely reading the text. Design aspects such as lighting and costume act as a lingua franca; this is a shared language, that needs to be developed in order to facilitate both an informed and informing process of collaboration and, in consequence, a more theorized and ambitious practice of design. This reflects the importance of lighting and costume to correlate with the themes and tone of the play, in order to animate the piece rather than confuse the audience. The visual dimension of the piece furthermore helps the audience to understand the characters and their personal narratives which contributes an extra layer of interpretation for each audience member rather than just the directors point of view.
‘The Seagull’ originally written by Chekov was written with a sense of irony as he thought that is was not true theatre he was presenting on the stage. Meta-theatre is the idea that theatre should be realistic; something that an audience should view and suspend ourselves within their reality. However, theatre in the 21st centaury needs to be able to adapt and change because ‘Unless you take great care of it, theatre can be the most tedious, old-fashioned, prejudiced, elitist form their is’ according to Simon Stephens. Which reflects his take on the play The Seagull’ because of the modern costume and lighting. Firstly, the costume choices provided a visual representation of the characters themselves such as the protagonist Constantin; he wears dark clothing only, an old tattered black jacket and jeans which reflects the dark thoughts he encounters throughout the play and how he’s been worn down by the scrutiny from his mother and her draining nature. On the contrary in ‘Real Magic’ by Forced entertainment the costume choices had a less direct correlation with the text itself. In Theatre of the Absurd there is limited dramatic action that sticks to conventions of traditional naturalistic theatre – and underscores the idea that nothing happens to change their lives and is purely a circular structure. There was no main protagonist in the piece and therefore the 3 actors changed costumes frequently between 3 different costumes: A chicken outfit, a suit jacket and trousers and underwear with a plain vest top, which all have different interpretations. One interpretation of the 3 contrasting costumes seeks to represent different aspects of human personality; the vulnerability and exposure of ourselves in the underwear. The professional and serious portrayal of ourselves in the suit and finally our playful and ridiculous nature in the chicken costume. The changing between the costumes also reflects the desire for change and progress because the characters are trapped in a disconnected circle which leads to the repetition throughout the piece.The theme of being trapped in a cycle is also emphasized in ‘The Seagull’ through the contrasting light changes from fairy lights in the beginning, to a bright summers day, do a dark and windy evening. The pathetic fallacy is extremely telling as there is so much hope for progress at the beginning of the play but at the end it has been degraded.
Degradation is reflected in both plays through the choices of costume. Firstly, in ‘Real Magic’
Lighting can be manipulated in order to create a specific mood for the audience. In ‘The Seagull’ the play begins with a man – the electrician, who moves the small flood lights onto the stage; he is a scripted character however, there is some ambiguity because we do not know if this man is an actor or just an electrician. Moreover, this is heightened during the prolonged scene changes where a light is placed at the back of stage, creating shadows on a thin screen of the stagehands walking around the stage, changing the set. This simple yet effective technique moves away from conventional naturalism where set changes were carefully hidden. These large set changes happen 3 times throughout the play and as they occur they get progressively more detailed. In the first instance the stage hands were wearing traditional attire that would be expected such as a headset and dark clothing; however, in the second change they all wore hard hats and during the third change one person could even be seen to light up a cigarette through silhouette behind the screen. The lighting choice to highlight these characters brings up questions of whether the stagehands themselves are actually actors involved in the piece itself.
Similarly, ‘Real Magic’ used lighting which is conventional for theatre of the absurd largely bases on the philosophy of existentialism. The word absurd can mean illogical, without purpose and devoid of reason, which reflects many of the design elements throughout the piece. Firstly, throughout the first half of the piece small blue lights on the lighting rig continually flashed on and off, however they were so dim that they had no effect on the stage itself whatever and would be entirely unnecessary in naturalistic theatre contrasting significantly with the precise techniques of lighting in ‘The Seagull.’ This lighting creates a sense of dystopia and as the blue flickers return at the end of the performance it reinforces that the play itself has a cyclical structure and that there is no significant plot development. On the contrary, the 8 pieces of large vertical tubular lighting were more cohesive with the rest of the piece because they had a purpose. Etchells used these lights to convey the ticking of a clock when the actors were being asked questions by each other and the longer they took the faster the lights flickered – accompanied by a ticking sound. The flashing of the lights created a sense of panic and urgency among the actors and allowed the piece to naturally speed up and therefore become more chaotic. Furthermore, blackouts are not used in this production until the very end once the piece has finished; this connotes that there are no notable changes in time and that the characters themselves make no progress and are trapped in the same cycle.
Different qualities seen as ‘realistic’ are also determined by conventions of communication or representation – and these too evolve leading Gordon Craig to conclude that all naturalistic plays were “examples of a new artificiality – the artificiality of naturalism.” This is also reflected within the costume in Simon Stephens adaptation of ‘The Seagull’ – the modern costume itself is relevant to our daily lives and is something that is recognized by some members of the audience as familiar. However, in 30 years’ time or 30 years previous the ‘modern costume’ would be completely different due to changes in style and media showing how the design elements of the piece need to be continually changed in order to convey the text; because the piece itself is timeless but the design elements are all futile.