It is said that great art renews itself with each passing generation. By this measure (not to mention many others), Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is indeed a towering achievement. How else to explain the play’s enduring popular, not only in theatre, but also in film, television, and even musicals, which have often featured the works of an eclectic mix of artists ranging from Duke Ellington to Elvis Presley.
The five-act comedy, which debuted in 1602, and tells the story of shipwreck-surviving twins Sebastian and Viola, is a witty, insightful, and often profound mix of mistaken identity, gender disguise, love, confusion, jealousy and ultimately joyful discovery.
This swirl of sensations has delighted audiences for centuries, but it can also pose a challenge for any modern designer hoping to capture the play’s sweeping emotions in light.
Zoe Spurr not only welcomed this challenge; she met it in brilliant fashion when lighting the Royal Shakespeare Company’s December production of Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Her artful design reflected myriad moods, earning her widespread praise, including from a newspaper critic who singled out her work for “helping to shift the tone” of the play.
As she navigated her way through the beloved comedy’s many emotional currents, Spurr relied on a versatile rig supplied by TSL Lighting that featured the COLORado Solo Bar 4 from CHAUVET Professional. “TSL were a joy to work with. The equipment came to us prepped and ready to go on time and working perfectly. I’ll definitely be using them again in the future, said Simon Spencer, Senior Lighting Technician at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
A lightbox containing 12 COLORado Solo Bar 4 units, six pointing straight up and six downplayed a key role in helping Spurr change the emotional aura on stage. “At the start of the play, my excellent programmer Vic Brennan and I ran the Solo Bars at full power in an ice white colour, using this as the key source for the scene, supporting with some low cross light so as not to busy the air with beams of light from above,” she explained. “There was a grey BP downstage of them, and a bounce cloth upstage. The units were rigged touching, so we had a solid wall of light within the Lightbox.
“As the narrative unfolds, we moved to warmer more open tones,” continued Spurr. “At this point the Lightbox softens and warms, in addition to doing an automated move to create more of a ceiling, spilling warmer light into the space. Throughout the piece from this point some scenes very quickly move time and location, but others run straight through, so it was important to create a key look that could support the action but that could also quickly cross fade into different ideas. For example, Sebastian and Antonio in their isolated world took on a green tone, which contrasted them and their locations from the warmer or neutral interiors and courtyards of Olivia and Orsino.”
The early scenes in this version of the play, which sets the classic Shakespearean tale in Edwardian England, were performed in front of the Lightbox which meant there was powerful key light which easily transformed locations. Once this element disappeared, an enormous organ, part of scenic designer James Cotterill’s distinctive set, appeared out of the darkness and remained on the stage until near the end of the play.
As a result of this change, the actors had to perform in a large thrust space. This and the quick pace of movement and dialogue of the play meant there was little opportunity to close down and find moments of stillness.
Spurr adroitly addressed this issue by creating a lighting state that could carry all of this action, whilst not blinding the front rows with light, and also ensuring the cast were lit from all sides. “We wanted a bright, open playing space for them,” she said. “Trying to create shape and style for long periods of time was sometimes tricky!”
The appearance of the organ was only one of many clever nuances that Cotterill and director, Prasanna Puwanarajah used to endow this production of Twelfth Night with its fresh, original aura. Spurr kept pace with these flourished by changing the tone and color of her lighting. This was very evident in scene 18 at the famous reveal; when Viola and Sebastian hold a tableau onstage to listen to their story unfold. Spurr reflected this with a slow close down to the twins and a softer, warmer light to pick them out amongst the previous chaos. The effect not only supported the play’s narrative, but it also reflected the powerful emotional meaning of the moment.
Spurr explained how the COLORado Solo Bar 4 with its full RGBwWL color rendering prowess aided her efforts. “The design for the production was based around cold white colours, especially the preset and opening,” she said. “We were able to achieve the perfect colour with the COLORado bars. Using a standard RGB fixture, or even a RGBA one, wasn’t an option — the red/warm always reads too much, especially against a copper floor.
“So, the colour mixing in the COLORado unit was key to achieving this colour, as well as making the softer warm colours used in later scenes, which are also very difficult to achieve with a standard RGB mix,” she continued. “The cross fades between colours were also very good, which was imperative as there’s nowhere to hide that on an 8m x 5m Lightbox! There was a bit of fine tuning to the process.”
Fine tuning every element of color rendering to capture the emotions of every moment? What better way to do justice to a work that has captivated audiences for centuries by reflecting range of human emotions with wit and grace!
