(Photo: Jeff Busby)
What was your brief for Australia Day?
It was pretty clear from the start that the design solution for the
play would be naturalistic, that we would be creating two
believable sets for each of the acts. The same for the costumes;
that each of the characters would be dressed in believable clothes.
Not caricatures, but plausible, real people.
What research did you do?
I looked at a couple of primary schools in Melbourne - I was
particularly interested in the 'multi purpose rooms'. I
was looking for details that an audience might recognize in
the set for the first act, and I found a marquee hire company
nearby where I live, who let me look at how they are structured. I
searched the internet for images of Australia Day celebrations, as
well as local council committees. All the clothes that we settled
on came from those images.
What did you enjoy most about this show?
It was a combination of a very funny but also insightful script
(written by someone with whom I'd worked very happily previously),
a director who is also an old friend, and an absolutely delightful
cast, several of whom I'd worked with before.
What was the biggest challenge?
I think the biggest technical challenge is the requirement of the
script for a complete set change during a 20 minute interval, from
a totally detailed multi purpose room in a primary school to the
interior of a marquee erected on an oval complete with grass.
Have you ever considered a career other than theatre
designer?
Not really. I always wanted to design for the theatre, and I
started out as a child with puppet shows and model theatres. I
think I was hooked at an early age. I can still remember being
taken to the Princess Theatre in Melbourne as a ten-year-old and
seeing the effect of a gauze for the first time. I think I went
straight home and tried to recreate it in my model theatre.
What are some of the most outlandish requests you have ever
made to a production department?
Hard to say… I've just done a production of Rigolettoin
New Zealand where we asked them to build us a marble palace for the
Duke (that weighed about five tonnes), which could then fly out to
a height of three metres and hover over the other scenes. I guess
the key word there is the use of the word "we". It's always a
collaboration between a designer and a director, and in the end if
it's an outlandish request, it's coming from both of us. Hopefully
if I've articulated the reasons for my request well enough, it
won't appear outlandish to a production department.
Who are your favourite designers?
This is hard to answer, there are so many, but here are four:
Jocelyn Herbert, an English designer who was never frightened of
presenting an empty stage and minimalist design at it's best; Mies
van der Rohe, modernist architect, of the Barcelona Pavilion;
Edward Gordon Craig, who changed the way we thought about the
stage; and Peter Brook, not a designer, but a director with the
most beautiful and pure aesthetic.
What is the one theatre production you wish you had
designed?
That's impossible to answer - there are plenty of shows I've seen
over the years that I have admired, but never thinking I wish I'd
done that. More often than not the feeling is rather "I couldn't
have done that".
How do you feel watching a production that was designed by
you?
Opening nights are something to endure rather than enjoy, but
they're a necessary thing to go through. There's a sense of
completion at the end of the performance, and then it's time to
move on to the next project, leaving the actors to it; they're just
starting their journey with the play, while you're finishing
yours.
What inspires you?
Having spent a fair bit of my career teaching young aspiring
designers, I'm inspired by seeing that the theatre continues to
draw people to it, with it's capacity to, entertain, delight,
inspire, teach and ultimately to transform. Just as it did to me as
a young child.
Australia
Day, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 7 September - 27
October, 2012.
Q&A: Richard Roberts
Date posted: 26 Jul 2012Author: STC