A Night At The Theatre

Accidental Death of An Anarchist, a political farce, written by one of the best, Dario Fo. This blog is mainly about the composition of the theatre set and the ideas getting there as opposed to the content of the play, although the content does have a direct impact on the set.

I was asked if I’d like to design another set, a comedy, a political farce; I like designing for comedies, as I actually enjoy reading the script, not that you have to enjoy the play to design but I tend to have more ideas floating around when interacting with the characters in my head. The director had a few ideas and asked me if any of them were goers, most were, almost anything is possible (within reason), the initial idea was to have the set unfold in front of the audience, the anarchist would talk to the audience and unveil the office from behind graffiti hinged walls, setting up the office in the police station giving the illusion of creating a space for the entrapment, however the final set was static, no moving parts, apart from the rolling building outside of the window, a ‘going up to the fourth floor’ visual play on words, which the audience responded to and found amusing. So the set was approved, a set within a set. For those in the know, the graffiti was separated stage left and right, Right wing and left wing slogans for the parties then active.

So the set had to have enough room for dashing around, doors opening and closing, plus a conga chain involving most of the stage management. Compositionally the feeling is to give the small, in comparison, office space intentionally a boring grey, set prominently in the middle and forward of a mass of anarchic graffiti, both representing that of the anarchist but also that of the instability of the police and the corruption within, heightened by the boldness of the red and black and white. This is as you can see a very simple set drawing the eye into the middle, yet joking comments of 'the actors better perform or they'll be out performed by the set', this most certainly was not the case as the bold slogans brought out and extenuated the performances.