Emily Mann, DIRECTION: In the photo, we are seeing the climax of the play. The ghosts of Phaedra’s family torment her by hanging her by a meat hook and skinning her alive. Marina Carr, the playwright, specifies that the play takes place on a terrace overlooking the sea—with a weather-beaten dining room table, chairs and a chaise on stage. There is a projection screen covering the back wall. Sometimes the screen became sea and sky. Sometimes we projected memories on it. The play is written as a kind of tone poem. There are scenes from the past, scenes from Phaedra’s memory and scenes taking place now in her mind. We had to develop a vocabulary for all of these layers and levels. Because we had two workshops before we went into rehearsal, we had time to take enormous risks and then be able to refine our ideas.
Rachel Hauck, SCENIC DESIGN: This is a very tight shot that shows probably less than half the width of the full set. It’s a terrace on the edge of a cliff in Greece with all of these beautiful old stones. And it’s contrasted with the glass sculpture that you can see here, made from a series of square acrylic tubes. The glass sculpture is Phaedra’s mind. We change realities and time periods quite a lot in this production. And Jeff Croiter, our lighting designer, often would (when we were really deep in Phaedra’s mind) make the sculpture very present, to represent her going deeper into the abyss. This piece of scenery evolved from a need to have some piece to hold the set projections. We also wanted to juxtapose the beauty of the Greek landscape with the destructive things that could happen on top of it.
Peter Nigrini, PROJECTION DESIGN: Projections existed in the show from the outset—Marina calls for them in the text and the descriptions are explicit. They are entr’actes, outside of the world of the production for a moment, a piece of history in a different style and context. All of us were charged with the same mission: to find a way to have a foot in both the ancient Greek world and the modern world. The set grounded us historically, and my role was to provide a modern counterbalance. So the films were crisp and contemporary in style. We ended up with a see-saw that was perfectly balanced.
Phaedra Backwards by Marina Carr premiered at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, N.J., and ran Oct. 18-Nov. 6, 2011. The production was directed by Emily Mann, with set design by Rachel Hauck, original music and sound design by Mark Bennett, costume design by Anita Yavich, lighting design by Jeff Croiter, projection design by Peter Nigrini and movement direction by Peter Pucci. Above, from left: Mariann Mayberry, Angel Desai, Stephanie Roth
