Measure for Measure

After looking into the four plays on option (Measure for measure, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and Winters tale) and after talking with my chosen director for the project, Chameli Bhatia, we decided to design for the play Measure for Measure.
Our initial ideas were to set it in a country that would be appropriate to the themes and Chameli wanted to be able to set it in Columbia, South America.

I started to look at the play scene summary, themes and locations that we would need to cater for.

http://www.gradesaver.com/measure-for-measure/study-guide/summary-act-1

There are seven location that would need to be involved within the play all of which appear multiple times so would need to have pieces of set that could stay in place to cater for the locations or that could be taken apart and reassembled in different positions when needed.

design changes

 I started to rethink about the themes that i was looking into in the beginning of this project and I was looking at monotony and repetition. I found that the set up of frames and stones that i had previously didn't best demonstrate this and I started to look at stones in trails and repeated work showing monotony of having to do the same motion over and over. Placing the stones in set out lines shows they seem like they have been placed there intentionally, I want to paint numbers on the stones because this seems like an intentional action. I was still playing about with the frames and how I can fit those in, I think in the section with the regular stones they need to also be regular and regimental rather than random as I have them here. I am still wondering how i should have them in the other section or whether I should have them at all.

white card model

I started to work into the model box to see what the idea may look like within the space that i had chosen. I made some small frames and stacked them together in varying numbers to create a main piece and smaller pieces around the room.

I want there to be quite a few of them because I want there to be a sense of number within the room to demonstrate how packed it may have felt and essentially restrict the visitors movements within the room.

This is the main piece that i created as a focal point within the room, i wanted to keep it as a corner piece to hone in on the feelings of feeling trapped and restricted. I want to have the stones amongst the frames throughtout the room and spilling out from the main structure.

Stones!

http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/

After thinking about my idea some more and looking into Julie Dodd's work I wanted to have something within my idea that showed the monotony of the work rather than the control of the staff which would have been represented by the keys. I found this piece by Gilbert Garcin and felt that this would be more relevant to my idea linking in with the idea of the menial work they had to do. hn we visited the workhouse the last time i was shown some records of the inmates and what pieces of clothing they would have been given etc. in the records i noticed that the inmates werent referred to by name but they were just numbers. I really like to add this aspect into my piece and thought that the stones would lend themselves to this perfectly.


Thinking about the frames i wanted to make them relevant to the workhouse and be something that they may have had or that would be objects from within the workhouse so i thought that they could possibly be similar to the old chalkboard frames that the children would have used within the school.