For the play Ruined if I were to direct it, it would be hard to focus in on a certain area in the play to convey to the audience and project the main idea of the play. I feel though If I had to make a production I would have to focus on decay due to the gradual incline in chaos as the play get further and further into story. I feel this is a great vantage to project to the audience because it would help show how it is like in the Congo practically during a civil war. This play has a lot of darkness in it such as women being ripped from their villages and killed, being separated from their families, woman becoming prostitutes to makes ends meet and to survive, death, and war but I feel the way I am going to tie this grim subject into the play to convey it to the audience will be somewhat subliminal so it will not blur the true meaning of the play which I feel has a strong point at the end that we cannot hide behind our true self behind a mask or better an act that we put on everyday because we don’t want to get hurt. Sometimes getting hurt is just a way to know that we are human and still have emotions it lets us know that we are alive. If we hide ourselves everyday from emotion than we would all be numb and life with other people would be uneventful and not have any point at all.
For my production I would choose to put it on at the Isidore-Newman Theatre in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have a Thrust stage that would be perfect for the production though it isn’t as big as I want it to be they space it provides would accommodate about 300 people. I choose this theatre because I need a thrust stage for my production that I am trying to pull off and it was the only one I could locate in New Orleans area. This is my target audience for this production. I feel that I would have the best turn out because the culture of the area is very southern and almost South American so I fell that they would be able to absorb the work and message of the play better then say if I put the production on at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City for a bunch of board members of big companies.
My approach to the scenic design of the set would be mostly simple. I would want to have Mama’s house/business center stage but projected forward a bit. I would use a basic old Congo house one that looked like it was handmade; it would have a front porch on it that would wrap around the entire house. Also I would have the house be capable of rotating some in order to give the audience better views when the scenes take place in the back rooms not in the main lounge area. For the walls of the house though I would use a fabric that was textured to look like wood but would be able to be drawn up revealing the room/ or rooms to the audience. The roof I would make that be fixed and have old palm frond style to it. The ground would kind of have an optical illusion to be as if it was somewhat on a hill and I would have a mach road made that went from one end of the stage to the other. For the background I would deep thick forest all around the back drop but I would want it to be piece able, meaning as the play goes on further and deeper in scene by scene as the fighting gets worse and worse I want the background of the Congo and its forest to get the sense that is it dying or being destroyed from all the mining and war. I think I would also take it to the next step and incorporate large trees into the audience setting area that would be the trunk of a tree with vegetation on it. The simulated forest in the audience wouldn’t be very dense but I want the audience to get the feeling that they are in the jungle spying on the lives of these people in this whore house.
(this is a small example of what the architechture of the house would be like, just in a different layout)
The costume design for my production would be very similar to the scene design as well. I would have their outfits look more and more worn as the scenes go on. I would have them wear old beat up work clothing during that day mostly because they would be doing chores around the house. At night I would have them in their “nicest clothing” they owned which wouldn’t be anything great because I want the audience to see that money is scarce where they are. I would have military suits for the fighters, but I would have beaten up clothing that dull colored like greens and tans for the freedom fighters that were against the military in the story.
The lighting design for my production would be very dim. The inside of Mama’s house would have very orange/yellow lighting auras to it to give the sense of older lighting methods, not like the pure white we get from lights we use now. This again I feel would help the audience get a feeling that we are in a less fortunate place here and times are tuff for them. I would have candles on the tables inside the lounge area to set the mood a little bit. I don’t think I would use and directional/spot lighting for this production it would just illuminate the entire room/rooms that were being used at the time. I would use a lighting trick for the background set as well, behind all the trees I want to have a white canvas so I can use lighting and there different colors to also give the sense of decay and destruction in the sky. At the beginning of the play the sky would be a light blue but as we get closer and closer to the climax of the play the audience would be able to see the sky get more towards an orange/red color to give a sense that the war is getting closer to them and bad things are coming.
The sound design for my production would be fairly simple I wouldn’t mic the actors at all since the stage will be thrusted out into the audience some. I am however going to place speakers in the trees out in the audience in the trees and some in the background scenery so that I can play animal noises, gun fire, sounds of vehicles driving up the path way, voices of men in the jungle, anything that comes from outside Mama’s house would be projected through these speakers directionally. This I think would help take the audience to the next mental level that they are in the forest of the Congo and they are watching this drama take place without being known by the actors.
I think that incorporating all these design elements together would be a great way to put on a production of Ruined. It would help the audience connect with the story more so than just putting it on a basic proscenium stage. The Thrust stage brings the audience into the experience and allows them to look at the actor’s life much like a doll house. That extra sense I feel is needed to get the main message of the play across to the audience.
