Design Choices – Contextualisation

 

In our performance, as in all, the designs for the set and the costumes are of huge importance to our performance as they communicate a lot about our theme and the message of the piece that we are trying to get across to the audience. Throughout our set and our costume there is a common running theme of the British and the African culture being mixed together and intertwined. This shows in the set that the British are imposing their culture trying to colonise them with the British culture. It also shows how two opposing cultures have met and for some, especially those in the lost, it is about making the two cultures and worlds work together and to get along as best as they can. This is demonstrated mainly in our costumes, as the African costumes have small elements of British in them to show how the culture have intertwined and that the British are slowly taking over their native land.

 

Every element of our set says something about our theme even down to the rocks. The rocks show the world and natural environment that the play is set in. For the characters that have come off the boat, they have entered a world that is different to the world that they have left, in terms of culture, but also in terms of weather and heat. The rocks show that the country they have entered is a dry one, without a lot of water and the main natural element to it is the rocks and the lack of trees show that it is hard for plants to grow there, showing that it is a hot country. This is really important for the characters from the main land to understand and to take into account as they wouldn’t have been used to this amount of heat and lack of water, so it would have a huge affect on their physicality and the way that they move. Also it could affect them mentally as the heat and lack of water could make them delirious and start to hallucinate. However the rocks also hold a lot of symbolism in them, as with the lack of trees and the only thing able to survive on the land is non-living things, could show what the British have done to their country and their culture. It could suggest that the British have come in and stripped everything bright and colourful in their land and in their culture till all that is left are emotionless beings. It as the only things that are still around is dead natural element it could suggest that the British have been brutal with their take over of the country and that they killed everything that thrived in that land and culture so that they aren’t a threat to them.

 

Also on the set we have a shrine to Queen Vic, this not only gives some contextualisation to our piece of theatre and to our audience so that they can clearly understand the time that it is set in, but it also stands out in that world for a reason. Queen Victory isn’t someone who should or would have been associated with the natives culture, however by having it in there land, it shows that how the British and the British culture has imposed and forced itself on the natives culture and their world. It also acts as a way of claiming the land, like when the Americans landed on the moon they put an American flag on it, the shrine to Queen Vic gives a sense of claiming and ownership to the land, its as if they have arrived there and taken over the land and forced the natives to bow down to their monarch and consequently their culture.

 

Also all over the set, on the rocks, on Prospero’s house and on the shrine, there are aluminous, bright colours that glow in the dark. These are really important to the set and to the play as a whole as the represent Prospero’s power over all of the land. As in our version of the play Prospero is a witchdoctor and he is uses his drugs, which are paints, to control people and to keep him in power. By having the paints, showing the drugs, covering the set, it shows how he has manipulated the country so that he can stay in power and so that he can control everyone and everything around him. It shows how everyone is constantly drugged so that he can dictate over them.