Rhinoceros

A joyous collaboration with Dot theatre from Istanbul and director Murat Dultaban with the Lyceum theatre for the Edinburgh International Festival. In keeping with the absurdist nature of the piece, Murat encouraged me to push the design to an almost cartoonish level, clothes in bright colours and patterns and for the space to escape the naturalistic conventions of the location and find a bold and simple metaphor for how the world changes as the play develops. We begin in a public space a town square and then gradually move into smaller and smaller spaces,first an office then into private more individual spaces. The design followed a simple logic that each scene was built on top of the last, platforms slid out pushing aside the scene before and walls flew in reducing the aperture and creating an increasing sense of claustrophobia.
For the final moment of the play as Beringer stands in defiance to a world transformed beyond his recognition and comprehension we flew out all the walls to reveal a bleak unreal lonely space filled with smoke and the flown chairs which became symbolic of the damage of the rhinos in the first scene .
The show was part of the International Festival in Edinburgh in 17, and returns to the Lyceum in March 18.

Scotsman