Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, Cardiff
Until Sat 16 Apr
words: MAB JONES
Feathers, cardboard, matchstick figures; netting, wicker, and papier mache: Transformation & Revelation, the touring exhibition by the Society of British Theatre Designers, is certainly well-named. Everyday items like paper are turned into perfect period costume (a production of the Magic Flute); discarded clothing is re-fashioned into elaborate head garb and fancy trousers (Brecht’s Mae Coragem). Every transformation is a revelation, as the most ordinary of materials is utilised to spin worlds as surprising and inspiring as the best of our almost-awake morning dreamscapes.
With over 200 designs, presented through paintings, photographs, 3D models, props, costumes and puppets, this is a rare opportunity to see some of the most breathtaking and original performance work by UK designers like Bob Crowley (The Year of Magical Thinking), Yolanda Sonnabend (Romeo & Juliet), and Es Devlin (Lady Gaga’s Monsterball Tour). The range and scope of the designs on show is mind-boggling, with some of the most innovative and inventive work the world of theatre has ever seen.
Particularly, I enjoyed the giant dolly heads of costume designer Marie-Jeanne Lecca for a 2009 production of Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Shatten. Representing the “unborn children haunting the Empress”, these over-sized masks are at once cute and creepy, the unblinking eyes seeming to follow visitors as they walk past. Less ominous, but still unsettling, is the set design by Francisco Rodriguez – Weill for Katya Kabanova in 2008. Based on a play called The Storm, he “wanted the set to reflect the sense of oppression that pervades the opera”. This is certainly acheived, even though the set on show is merely a scale mode; however, its Japanese-style coils of black cloud, withered and wasted tree, and massive, blood-coloured moon convey the mood perfectly.
While the dark feelings engendered by certain designs may be my personal preference, it was also interesting to see how lighter and less brooding productions were transported onto stage. In a touring show by Theatr na n’Og of children’s play Gluscabi, it was a delight to pop my head inside the wicker, tree-like dwelling that had housed part of their production. The stylish costume designs of Matt Edwards for Harrogate Theatre’s 2010 staging of the BFG were also very pleasing – dreamlike, with the washed and lined look of a Quentin Blake etching.
This is an exhibition that veers from the subtle sense of a mirage with one series of designs, to a set that is sharply contemporary (as with Becky Davies’s set and costume designs for Sherman Theatre’s 2010 version of Second Sight and Oedipus/Antigone) through to the “boldly patterned and vividly coloured” (Johan Engels’ work for the Royal Opera House’s production of Artaxerxes). What is amazing is how the same basic materials can bring to life such varying and vivid worlds, each one as perfectly formed and powerful as any individual’s dreams (or, indeed, nightmares). Which is, of course, the entire point; but to see such imaginative variety up close, and in a single space, is not just startling. This is astounding.
As an exhibition, I must admit that this is one of the most impressive I have ever been to. As a glimpse into over 200 worlds, minds, and visions, it is beyond compare. Pasteboard, clay, velveteen scraps; plywood, dustsheets, and long lost buttons: this is the stuff that dreams are made of.
For more info, visit www.rwcmd.ac.uk