Intermediate Design: M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

This jTerm, I did a directed study in set design. We have normally-offered courses called "Fundamentals of Theatrical Design" (which I took last spring) and "Advanced Lighting and Design" (which I will take a year from now). There is nothing inbetween, so my advisor and I decided to call the course "Intermediate Design". I worked independently on a total of four designs for M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang. The challenge was to have the same design adapted to a larger (or smaller, depending on how you look at it)  space. I chose to do two designs. Here are the scale renderings, and a little explanation. I also did the groundplans, but I don't feel the need to upload them.

This one is the large hall abstract-ish one. To give a sense of scale, it's about 50' from the base of the red platform to the bottom of the proscenium arch. I used red and white because of the different connotations they have in the east versus the west. In the east, white is the colour of mourning, like black is in the west. In the west, white is associated with purity. That plays on the idea of Song being a pure being, as Gallimard wants her to be, but the death of that idea when it is revealed Song is actually a man. I used red as it is the western colour of passion/love/things of that ilk, and luck in China. The other colour were chosen primarily because they look good with the others. I wanted to subtly suggest a butterfly with the shape. In between the two, for lack of a better word, wings, is a scrim, and there is a platform behind which means that action can take place behind there, but depending on how one lights a scrim, it can be distorted. If its lit from behind, the objects create an eerie shadow, but if its lit from the front, it creates an even more interesting look. That area could be used for creating the jail cell from which Gallimard recalls the events of the play that lead to his incarceration.

Here is my personal favourite, because it is what came to me while I read the play. I'm calling this one the expressionistic version. It clearly has Gallimard's cell on top, and also has a playing space next to it. There is an archway connecting the two. The cell has the bars on the front and a window on the back, which can be lit from the front of house and the rear as well to create shadows. the pattern on the unit itself, the red, green, and blue, are butterfly colours. I wanted to stay away from the obvious black/brown and orange. The two archways stage right and left are meant to look like the wing of a butterfly. I chose red trim for the colour's connotations again. It is in the same scale as the previous design. 

I adapted these designs to fit in a medium black box. I wanted there to be the ability to play with levels (the director in me came out) in any set up, so I made sure there were levels here. I like the way I consolidated the expressionistic version to still have the cell. As a point of interest, Gallimard says what the dimensions of his cell are, and the dimensions, in all the designs, are roughly that. To give scale, both platforms are about 30' across. Both the large hall and the black box are exactly the same (imaginary) space.

The thing I enjoyed most about this was that it came completely from my mind. Aside from finding information about colours, I didn't look at any other designs for the play because I really didn't want to be influenced by anyone else the first time I was trying this. It was also nice to not have to think about constraints like budget, and to just let the ideas happen. Of course, in the "real world", that and the space itself are things I'd need to think about, but here, in a two-credit class, it was amazing to see what I could do.