A Space of Cyclical Stories

Enda Walsh describes the space as taut and aggressive.

It is a space of cyclical stories, where memories are repeated, rotated, looked at from different sides, trapped and rehearsed. Our setting plays with the duality of the bleak isolation of the sisters’ reality, against the epic freedom of nature and beauty.

Nature is trying to get in and overcome: from the four seasons a day trying to penetrate the big warehouse doors to the overwhelming desire for love and romance.

“I’m moving from black and white into the Technicolour”

Clara reminisces about her night at the ballroom, and I wanted the design to echo this. For the cold, utilitarian space to throb with life and heart.

Clara and Breda have archived their dresses and the Roller Royce’s suit since that night in the late fifties, and I wanted to blur the lines between something they would have made themselves that night, melded with the fantasy of their memory and the organic decay of the fabric from the damp, seaswept surrounds; the garments’ rhinestones become salt crystals, embroidery becomes seaweed, beads become algae.

The New Electric Ballroom Set and Costume Design by Kat Heath.