Setting the Stage - Blue/Orange and Blasted

   Whenever I go to see theatrical performances, I like to pay particular attention to the set design, which is an important element in bringing any story to life. I find it is especially successful when scenery is simple and non-invasive, yet gives the audience just enough information to fill in the gaps with their imaginations. The plays Blue/Orange, about racial inequality within the psychiatric field, and Sarah Kane’s Blasted, about human brutality and destruction, did just that, using the set to visually submerge the audience in a different place. Although very different in their approach, both plays used the small intimate theatre space on which they were acted out to create a particular type of visual atmosphere. 

    In Femi Eluowoju’s production of Blue/Orange, the set was the first thing that stood out to me and possibly even stole the show. Theatrical set designer, Ultz, used the small rectangular space of the East End’s Arcola Theatre to create a room within the room, instead of utilizing the a traditional stage. The audience sits around a black box with large openings where the walls would be and peers into the life-like office of head psychiatrist, Dr. Hilary. It feels either like watching a wide screen film or spying on someone through a CCTV camera. The sharp contrast of the black walls outside and white, hospital-like perfection inside was visually striking and read as a metaphor for the story itself. The only color on the set was the strategically placed bowl of oranges and the pale blue water cooler around which the characters interacted. Other elements which added to set were lighting and sound, which were used sparingly to give the story more dimension. 

    The revival of Sarah Kane’s Blasted at the Lyric Hammersmith, directed by Sean Holmes, used the stage to show a chaotic world where people succumb to the most vile and atrocious things in order to sustain their thirst for life. Designer Paul Wills used the play’s several scenes to show a complete destruction of not just a hotel room, but of humanity itself. What is initially a clean space, with a large bed and flowers on the night stand, later explodes into a war zone, where nothing but the tattered bed and a few scraps of the building’s internal skeleton remain. Wills’s design brings this terrifying play to life and adds to the in-your-face drama. With the help of lighting and sound techniques as well as props and special effects, like rain falling from the sky, the audience gets taken into a place where they would not necessarily ever want to be. We are forced to believe this world from which we cannot turn away, even though we know that we are watching it on stage. 

    Both plays are innovative in their own ways. The actors all give passionate  performances of their distraught characters. Particularly in Blue/Orange, I often forgot that I was watching a play because the three women were so believable. The use of only three actors is another similarity between the two productions and each was very effective because of that. Although very different and clearly appealing to different audiences, both Blasted and Blue/Orange are unique in their presentation of quite controversial stories. 

-Valentina Mogilevskaya