Othello

For this conceptual design I was particularly interested in how in our modern world we have become desensitised to war. Even when it is so available for us to see, we feel disconnected. For the transition between Venice (Ministry of Defence, London) and Cyprus I wanted a roadside bomb to go off at a disputed Cypriot border, the catalyst for this change and a modern interpretation of the shipwreck in Othello. This bomb crater on stage then is symbolic of the constant unbalance and mistrust. So much that in Desdemona’s bedroom scenes, her room is literally balanced over the top, teetering, so that at any moment she and her relationship will fall to the hot headedness of war and the crater in the stage.

The Dorfman space is transformed to in the round to mimic a sports event, now the whole audience is enclosing the drama, viewing it as if on a screen, intimately close to the action yet none of them will step across the marble facade to stop the violence.