Blood Wedding, October 1978

There were many things to do as I started Grad School; getting used to a new school and town, buying text books and art supplies plus I was designing the lighting for the first department production of the year and had no time to relax.

The play was Blood Wedding and was written in 1932 by Federico García Lorca.
The play deals with the usual tragic themes: love, lust, betrayal, life and death.
Although not ideal, lighting designers are often brought late into the design process after the basic design concepts and stage layout have already been worked out and this was the case with Blood Wedding.
The set design was a unit set with many areas and platform levels with an erosion cloth backdrop.
I remember that the director had a clear vision for what she wanted to see on the erosion cloth backdrop.
She wanted the colors projected on the cloth to progress during the play progressed in the same way as the color of stars change as they get hotter: Red, Orange, Yellow, Yellow-White, White, Blue-White, and Blue.
For the most part the colors seemed to match the action of the play as the passions of the characters grew during the play and I was able to make it work.

Blood Wedding, Lighting Design, 1978

A year a so later I was working with a chorographer on his dance piece when he asked for the same color blending on the cyclorama during his dance.

I laughed a bit to myself and told him I understood completely and gave him just what he wanted.

At an early rehearsal for Blood Wedding, with the ground plan taped on the floor, I saw the set was not going to work as planned because the acting areas were too small for the numbers of actors in the scenes.

I brought it up at the next meeting but was told not to worry about it as everything would be fine.

Later after the set was built actors indeed do not fit in the spaces provided and they were having a hard time moving up and down the levels.

More than one person mentioned that at times the actors seemed like a family of goats going up and down a hillside.

The Moon

Some of my housemates came to see the show and I got them into the balcony of the theatre which was normally closed to the general public.

The play may have had some issues, but the critic for the local paper clearly did not understand the play and the concept of an allegorical character was beyond his comprehension.

I think my housemates got more enjoyment ripping apart the review of the play and how poorly it was written then from the play itself.

After the play there was a session in the theatre with the faculty and other design students where I had to explain my design concepts and methods and answer their questions.

Of course the other students have to try to show that they are smarter, question all of your choices and tell how they could have done it better.

It was a bit tough but I survived.

I felt that I had done a good job with the lighting and was happy with the results, but the end of each semester there was a portfolio review when each student had to show all of their class and design work to the faculty and I would have to wait to see what they thought of what I had done.

After the review the faculty would meet with the students to discuss any concerns that they had with their work and twice while I was there students were thrown out of the design program after one of the reviews.

As it turned out the student who designed the set Blood Wedding was thrown out of the program after the next review.

I felt bad, hoping my lighting did not make his set look bad, but I was assured that it was for the total poor quality of his class and design work and not just this one production.

Through a recent “Google” search I know that the student who was kicked out of the program has been working backstage in Atlantic City Casinos and Resort Hotels.

The small world of Theatre continues as the director of Blood Wedding has been coming to Brockport in recent years to adjudicate our plays for the American College Theatre Festival.