Design Torture Parties

[shiben]

Anyone have any decent ideas for breakups to complement a very elegant torture party? It has to be nice and elegant, and I really like the ariel effect of gobos in the haze that will be coming from the alter/suitcases, but want to have the picture on the ground look nice as well. Anyone have any ideas? Im sort of leaning to some sort of "cloth" gobo from apollo atm, but at this point im pretty open to ideas.

 

[SteveB]

Anyone have any decent ideas for breakups to complement a very elegant torture party? It has to be nice and elegant, and I really like the ariel effect of gobos in the haze that will be coming from the alter/suitcases, but want to have the picture on the ground look nice as well. Anyone have any ideas? Im sort of leaning to some sort of "cloth" gobo from apollo atm, but at this point im pretty open to ideas.

So, being totally ignorant as to the meaning of "torture party", I Google it and all I get is assorted websites concerning the past US administration's use of torture as an intelligence gathering tool. I doubt that's what you are referring to.

Be so kind as to clue me in......

SB

 

[shiben]

In the show im designing, the main character falls asleep, and the Chorus becomes a nightmare for him, torturing him with ideas of western philosophy. They also do various things to him with wine glasses, which they then drink after each quote. The chorus is basically having an elegant party, and the western philosophy comes out of their having a competition to come up with a better, more painful quote. They also dance around sometimes. Was that at all helpful? This show is so odd im kind of at a loss to describe some parts of the action.

 

[derekleffew]

My initial reaction is something called "pointed breakup". Lots of sharp angles, asymmetrical, and looks good as either a wash or arial effect.

GAM : Lighting Equipment For Architectural, Specialty & Theatrical Effects

 

[shiben]

Thanks derekleffew. Thats perfect.

 

[SteveB]

I Was that at all helpful? This show is so odd im kind of at a loss to describe some parts of the action.

No such thing as odd in this business. I'm currently doing a world premiere, newly commissioned version of Sleeping Beauty, as a 1hr. childrens show. One narrator, one pianist and video. I think the assorted collaborative video artists where heavily influenced by Monty Python. Nobody can make any sense of it.

But hey, it's ART

SB

 

[Footer]

I'm currently doing a world premiere, newly commissioned version of Sleeping Beauty, as a 1hr. childrens show. One narrator, one pianist and video.

Sounds like a movie before there were "talkies"......

No one gets tied to railroad tracks do they.....

 

[SteveB]

.

No one gets tied to railroad tracks do they.....

3 days of tech and it felt like WE were tied to railroad ties. Waiting for the train. Endlessly waiting for the train. Come On Train !.

Note that we're a road house. We don't "tech" shows. We load 'em in, run it and load it out, all usually before lunch if it's a schooltime kids show. The LD was still taking notes on the final performance and I swear to God, if he had tried to get me to make changes to the show AFTER the final performance I was going to politely refuse and explain that he can readily download his own free copy of Ion Off-Line and make the friggin changes at his leisure and why his he still sitting at the console, we're closing up, here's your hat, there's the door.....

Sorry, rant over...

SB

 

[JChenault]

I would probably start by trying to define what the space 'really' is in the play. You mention an alter - does this imply a feel of stained glass of some kind? It the space hard edged and metallic, or softer and more organic? How regular is it? Whats up there above the stage that is casting those shadows?

Once you can define the physicality of the place, and the emotional quality of the scene, then we could start to discuss what kinds of gobos might make sense. ( if gobos make sense)

 

[shiben]

I would probably start by trying to define what the space 'really' is in the play. You mention an alter - does this imply a feel of stained glass of some kind? It the space hard edged and metallic, or softer and more organic? How regular is it? Whats up there above the stage that is casting those shadows?

Once you can define the physicality of the place, and the emotional quality of the scene, then we could start to discuss what kinds of gobos might make sense. ( if gobos make sense)

I doubt that anything is actually casting the shadows... Its a nightmare. The short version is that the nameless man is telling his wife what some of the Vitez (a hungarian or romanian order of valor that was used to cause problems for Jewish people during WWII) did to the Jewish butcher and his red heifer pre-war. If you are familiar with the Jewish ritual of the red heifer, the scene then moves into a version of that with the butcher completing the ritual sacrifice, even though the heifer has been strangled by the Vitez, and ends with the butcher and his family being killed. Then the main character goes to sleep, and he does so on the alter that the heifer was burned on in the previous scene. During his nighmare, he "becomes" the sacrifice, and is "tortured" in a very celebratory and elegant manner by the chorus, who torture him by quoting western philosophy regarding God, Life, and Cruelty. The space is his mind, and the gobos are to re-enforce the non-reality of the scene, by creating light that would not "make sense" per se. Its a theme that I am using throughout the show, when the chorus acts out the main character's memories, they are lit in very surreal and non-realistic light, heavily broken up. I am ordering enough of my main gobo, a script breakup, to fill in if I end up liking that better.