Our First Set
Designing the Jacob Two Two set
was definitely one of my career highlights. When Nicola Harwood
approached me, I had no idea what Arin (Arin
Fay) and I were
getting into, all I knew is that it was a chance to work within a
dynamic production team in support of a summer theatre programme
that our son participates in. After reading the story ( I still
had my childhood copy) and the script, we agreed upon Arin’s design
that involved a two level prison block, in which the ground level
cells were detached and on casters, so that they could be easily
moved into different set combinations. In the meantime, auditions
came around, and our fine young son Eli was cast as Jacob Two-Two,
the leading role. Despite feeling a little bit like
The Partridge Family, work on the set began in full force
June 1st , 2007 in Kaslo. Considering the size of the
components within the set, matched with limited studio space and the
rainy season, the majority of the work was completed in our living
room, kitchen and any covered deck space. Our entire house was
transformed into work space, artificial lighting had to be used day
and night, as Arin’s flats blocked the sun; one would have to weave
in and out of the jail cells to make it into the kitchen. Not
surprisingly, the frequency of visits from the neighbourhood kids
increased to observe this work in progress--- and then we loaded it
all into a big truck and moved to the Capitol.
This leads to
the big question, “How many visual artists does it take to design a
theatre set?” All I know is that my sculpture and Arin’s paintings
do not get rolled across a stage and danced upon. In conversation
with Michael Graham, regarding the visual artist as set-designer, he
informed me that the visual artist’s natural direction is to over-do
things, and that it is not as if one has to build a set to code. At
this point I shared with him the building code manual I was
continually referring to. In all, that was the biggest challenge
for me in the construction of this set, I could not submit to the
smoke and mirrors approach of what good set design is all
about. My approach is not conducive to that which is temporary.
With that said, I must admit that many of the components
within the set were designed so that they could be directly
installed as deck railings, lattice, etc. to our house and gardens.
In all,
despite a few family artistic differences, and the fact that we
could have easily spent another 3 months working on the set, I was very pleased with the experience of
our first set.