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ABOUT FRONTIER: Rons Burch's recent play is one of the most challenging I have ever directed, as it explores the explosive issues of rape, pornography, violence, sexuality, and alienation. Like a contemporary Woyzeck, it follows an individual's descent into psychological hell. It is nearly impossible to depict these kinds of events on stage without sensationalizing, and thus exploiting, the very subjects one is attempting to dramatize. Brecht talked about the "Verfremdung Effect" . . . "to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar," and boy, did we need to do that here. To counterbalance the gritty acting style necessary for these topics, I based the design for "Frontier" on the principles of contemporary art installation (rather than traditional scene design). A pure metaphor – constructed in steel, glass and stone, without color – grounded the harshest naturalism in ordering abstraction. The gruesome visual imagery was continually cropped and concentrated, by multiple framing devices, to create psychological distance from the violence in order for the audience to maintain its ability to reason, and to perceive the heartbreaking social truths behind the text. When color was used, it was the saturated hues of pornography – cherry reds that are too red – lit by the all-revealing glare of fluorescent lighting. In such a process one has to protect the actors, from the physical toll such a production takes on the mind and body. Performed without intermission under a grueling acoustical construct of sounds, music, and noise, discovering the perfect moment to "peak" the show became crucial early on. We only combined all the elements of the production at full intensity at the last possible moment so that the performances had maximum power and could be sustained, without compromising the actors' health. |