Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of the Arts, London
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Pavelka designed this production for the all-male Propeller Theatre Company of which he is a founder member. He used a performance research methodology in which the work of the designer is understood in a collective context. His design concept drew on Benjamin Britten's opera by designing from the perspective of the spirit characters who question human experience. The design first visually neutralised and homogenised the performers to provide a ‘blank canvas’ upon which to overlay the spirit’s outward appearance of human types.
Pavelka designed a unifying body-aesthetic for the acting ensemble by matching hair colour, painting faces, shaving and waxing bodies and composing uniform proportions through the precise arrangement of costume elements to each performer’s anatomy. This scheme transformed the acting ensemble into a set of Victorian, androgynous mannequins. He referenced images of dolls, dressed in a combination of male and female foundation garments, overlaid this with character-specific costume elements and built images that described the spirits’ mimicking of their human counterparts: archetypes of gender and social caste.
The scenic design referenced the aesthetics of stop-motion animations that were also echoed in choreographic movements. The floor folded into a 3D stylised miniature house that enabled revelations and disappearances. Pavelka designed an open acting area surrounded by strings of suspended white antique chairs that echoed the actor’s use of conventions of flashback, freeze frame and flash-forwards, in telling and retelling the story. An unseen steel skeleton supported both the chairs and layers of magnified white lace that gave the space a sensuous and ephemeral impression. In counterpoint, the performance was fast and often violent, so the set also provided a challenging environment that helped signify the separation of theatrical realities and gave performers possibilities to run, climb and perch; thereby supporting Propeller’s hallmark physical style.
