Blue/Orange
Ensemble Theatre · october 2014
SHORTLISTED Australian Interior Design Awards Installation Design, 2016
NOMINATED Glug Awards Outstanding Theatre Production, 2014
Christopher has been held in a psychiatric hospital for the past month. Today he is due to be released. but his doctor Bruce wants more time to settle on a diagnosis. The tantalising question of Christopher’s freedom- and future – is left in the hands of Bruce and his mentor Robert, two doctors with very different views on how this patient should be treated. Is he crazy? Or just eccentric? How do you decide on treatment? And what if you get it wrong?
The meaning of the sculpture is subjective and elusive, ever-present and yet foreign: reminiscent of mental illness, its diagnosis and treatment.The imagery Tobhiyah explored and hoped the design would evoke included; an orange, orange peel, an eye socket and surrounding skull. The textured surface has been made to look reminiscent of skin and bone. Audience responses have also included; a map of country, moonscape, African sun, inkblot test and the scratched walls of a mental ward.
“Anna Crawford’s production is economical, well paced, intriguingly designed (the back wall of Tobhiyah Stone Feller’s set feels like some kind of Rorschach test for the audience) and is very well acted.”
— Jason Blake, The Sydney Morning Herald
“Tobhiyah Stone Feller’s set, especially expressed in the ink blot style Rorschach test, glowing with a blue/orange hue from Christopher Page’s lighting design (see what they did there- clever indeed) thrusts us into the psychology of this play and to place our own symbolic meaning on its context and what we see when we look at the visual world of the mise-en-scene provided to us in that moment”
— Jane Simmons, SOYP: The People’s Theatre Advisor
Credits & Acknowledgements
Set & Costume Design Tobhiyah Stone Feller
Team Daniel Stukel Beasly
Director Anna Crawford
Playwright Joe Penhall
Lighting Design Christopher Page
Costume Supervisor Catherine Capolupo
Set Construction Simon Boyd & Daniel Forato, Belvoir Set Workshop
Cast Ian Meadows, Dorian Nkono, Sean Taylor
Photographer Clare Hawley