Fewer Emergencies

Fewer Emergencies is a trio of plays’ written by Martin Crimp, who famously gives no direction for what to use for set design, props and backdrops. Each of the three plays starts with the words:

Time : Blank                 
Place : Blank

Working with Chris Kelham, a long time collaborator and the director for the Guildhall show, we started from a perspective that these ‘blanks’ were not a negation, but that the plays were set in a non-place, somehow outside of time. Starting with the notion of ‘otherness’, we created a surreal hybrid, a padded concrete dystopia, brought to life with sparse office furniture, dust-filled helium balloons and brash lighting that extended beyond the set and enveloped the audience seats. The ceiling grid has been omitted - with the alignment grid aligning to the grooves in the partition walls. The audience is involved, culpable, as indicated by the seating layout - the lighting demands that the audience sees itself, with the audience surrounding the set.

Set design complements and contradicts the design of buildings. It is, in a way, inward looking and experiential, immersing the audience in a completely controlled environment. Architecture often has to deal with the opposite, has to be resilient to and enhance the uncontrollable chaos of urban life. We relish working in theatre as it is a fantastic opportunity to experiment and bridge these differences.