7 Acts of Mercy RSC

Bold, hard-hitting and political this new play by Anders Lustgarten, directed by Erica Whyman, fuses Caravaggio painting the canvas which inspired the title with contemporary Liverpool and a family drama of a dying ex docker teaching his grandson about social values through the medium of art history. It sounds unlikely, but works brilliantly, examining the meaning of compassion and charity in our lives and how art can and should be a means for social outrage and change. As it is in the Swan we have the additional challenge of bringing a piece of new writing to life in the warmth of its wood and brick, great perhaps for evoking a church  in Naples 1606 ,but not so good for various locations around a council estate in Bootle!  In both locations in the play the environments are being rebuilt so i have gone for a very simple cladding of scaffolding and builders netting, that hides just enough of the building to allow us to imagine we are in either location , and also provides surfaces for video designer Nina Dunn to explore ways of depicting all the various paintings referred to in the script. We are resisting using video as 21st century texture gobos and instead use details of paintings to give life to the environment. A central frame with a BP screen acts as the key for all the images  which are amplified as  giant fragments of the paintings emerge on all the framing structure.

One of the biggest challenges is how to represent the development of the painting and how Patrick O,Cane, playing Caravaggio, was actually going to paint . I didn’t want the play to be about how he paints,rather it is what he creates that is important . We have abstracted the painting process by having a wheeled gauze screen, the same size as our main BP ,as his working canvas .This is brought into the space and we can see through to both the actor working on the ‘canvas’with a ghostly projection of his progress and also behind him on the main screen a clearer image of the painting’s developments. So with this simple abstraction he doesn’t need to even apply paint and the audience can concentrate on the themes rather than the practicalities of how he worked.

Charles Balfour is doing suitably Caravaggio-esque lighting in Naples but cut through with the use of florescent tubes, to keep blending the world’s together and prevent it becoming picturesque. I have tried to keep the colour palette and shapes of clothes echoing across the centuries, skinny jeans and a bomber jacket are remarkably similar in silhouette to  the street low- life con men in Caravaggio’s paintings.

As one of the main themes is the belief in the dignity of human beings  and valuing their labour, I have tried as ever to keep the design as spare as possible so we can focus on the actors and their story .

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 2016

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 2016

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

7Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten , directed by Erica Whyman, designed by Tom Piper RSC 201

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