THE DESIGNERS

Chapter 6

PART THREEWhat does the design tell us?

What Design Does

• Uniquely creative contribution

• What does it tell us about the play and the characters?

What can we learn about the play and the characters?

• Time - of day

What can we learn about the play and the characters?

•Time - of year

What can we learn about the play and the characters?

• Time – in history

What can we learn about the play & the characters?Location: Where are we?

What can we learn about the play & the characters?

Location: Where are we?

A porch is a porch is a porch!

What can we learn about the play & the characters?

• Palace? Palace?

Or shanty?

2 sets for Sherlock Holmes: Living Room and Basement

What can we learn about the play & the characters?

Ages of the characters:

Character’s personality traits

Neat and Tidy

or messy?

Oscar vs Felix in The Odd Couple

The mood of the play

A pink set for Macbeth?

A set in earth tones for a Feydeau farce?

The mood of the play

• Macbeth

A Flea in Her Ear

(a farce by Feydeau)

The Design gives us a ton of information about the play.

•We get a sense of the style of the play•Is it a comedy or a tragedy?

•We get a sense of the time of the play: historical time period, season, even the time of day

•We get a sense of the characters who inhabit the play Are they rich or poor, old or young, neatniks or slobs

•We get a sense of where the playwright has placed the play Are we in Africa…or Iceland!

•And perhaps most importantly, we get a sense of the mood of the play which suggests how we should feel.