Here’s an (again, rough – I’m not a graphic artist) edit of a lighting state idea I had: in one rehearsal workshop, Milan and Valencia read a scene aloud while miming being in a rowboat. I forget what scene exactly they were doing, but this lighting state would add to the scene they’ve created. I would use a blue wash, maybe with a tinge of green for realism, with a square of light over the actors to represent the boat as minimally as possible, without the need for excess furniture and props on stage. The scenes being as short as they are, needing time in between to move these things would take away from the final performance.

I’ve mentioned in a previous most that I’m interested by the spread of information, how the spread can be contained, and why we might want to contain it, as well as how this spread can influence (and be influenced by) our relationships with others. This idea was mainly inspired by Adam Kucharski’s book The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why They Stop, which compares the spread of information to the spread of a virus, jumping from person to person and rapidly evolving as it does so.

My question is, how can I explore this idea through technology? This is the way a computer virus travels: it jumps from the creator, patient zero, to their first victim, and from them it spreads to countless others. On stage this could be represented through costume or lighting – maybe, in a scene involving gossip or misinformation, a spotlight lights someone in a sickly colour (think yellow-green) once they’ve fallen victim to the “virus”, and it spreads like so. Maybe Secret is followed by a wordless scene of actors whispering to each other, each person spreading the secret to three others until the whole room is lit with this sickly light, all of the characters onstage now affected by this dark secret.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I love the exploration of interesting and unique technology in theatre – text-to-speech, projections, AI – and I think this is particularly relevant with the play that we’re studying. Following the writing rules we did, I’ve found it interesting and useful to think of questions I’d like performers as well as the audience to consider as a result of my use of technology as well as the performance as a whole. Here are some examples:

In what ways does information spread? How can that spread be contained? How and why do we control information? (There’s a really interesting book on this called The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski.)

How do the concepts of love and information interact? Can love exist without information? How is information influenced by love?

How and why do we censor information? When does information pose a threat, and what exactly is it a threat to? Is misinformation spread with good intentions more or less of a threat than information that is true but damaging to hear? Why might we keep certain information from our loved ones and does it help or harm? (The idea of the white lie, and why it happens.)

This is a rough edit of how I would light the scene Message, if the final stage design was similar to the above, created by Morgan and Lia to resemble a high-end restaurant. The stage would be lit quite dimly with an orange-toned wash, to indicate light from candles on other tables, and the two actors would be mostly lit from a candle (or multiple candles) on their table. Candles in theatre can be quite tricky to get right, as they can be too dim or a hazard – using a real candle would be a last resort, not only due to the risk of naked flame or hot candle wax, but because the really annoying thing from candles on stage is that they blow out far too easily and then you either stop the scene to re-light it, or you don’t have the right lighting anymore. However, store-bought battery candles are often far too dim to create the effect that I’d want. A popular technique in props and costume, and one that I’d probably use here, is to place LED lights and a battery pack inside a translucent PVC pipe and decorate using hot glue to replicate the appearance of dripping wax. More than one would probably be placed on the table to make sure the actors are properly lit.

This is a screen recording of text-to-speech software reading one of the optional scenes, Dog. In my opinion this would have been an interesting commentary on control, and how – as I discuss in my 600 word statement – we as a species have been totally in control, as well as unique in our ability to process the ideas of love and information. Use of technology in this way poses questions like;

How can AI feel and demonstrate affection towards a dog, and by extension, other things?

Would this affection extend to humans? What about other artificial intelligence?

Is the AI talking to a dog or a human? In the eyes of artificial intelligence, what would be the difference? Either way it is asking a being of “lesser” ability to perform tricks. Isn’t this how we treat computers? If a computer was sentient, would it take offence to that treatment?

Above is a screen recording of text-to-speech software reading the scene Message.

This is the lighting state I conceptualized for an original scene written by someone in the class – I forget who now and don’t have a record of it, but if memory serves I think it was Lia – about looking at the sky and waiting for snow. We didn’t take a photo of the lighting state I created, and since uni is closed I can’t recreate it, so this is my best attempt to edit the photo we did take of the actors. A deep blue wash connotes dark and cold, while a single lantern with a warm yellow or orange-toned gel creates the sense of standing under a streetlamp – I wanted the stage lit so we could see the actors’ faces, and the presence of a streetlamp makes sense for the scene.

This is how we experimented with lighting for the scene Fired, in which an (ex) employee storms in on their employer, having been fired via email, and demands to be fired in person. This lighting state, though simple, created a small space on a large stage, adding to the shift in power dynamic between the two characters: the employer, played by Brandon in this case, is obviously uncomfortable, but there is little space for him to move away.