GRAVE

"I don’t like it here. You wouldn’t like it, nobody likes it, nobody likes it here."

~ One

"A gravedigger goes to work on a ditch and a lawyer sits nearby for a smoke. They strike up a bond and agree to do each other a favour - the lawyer will finish off the ditch and the gravedigger will run a few errands. As the lawyer digs, an eclectic series of people enter the yard and distract them from their work. But something isn't quite right - the faces don't end and they seem familiar. The lawyer loses themselves the further they dig as they wait for the gravedigger to return. All truths become muddied, but only one thing is clear - someone must go in that grave."

GRAVE  was the week three weekend show for the University of York Drama Society's Autumn Season 2023, for which I was lighting designer.

Being an slightly abstract play, it offered the opportunity to do some unique things with the lighting. The overall aesthetic I was aiming for was 'cheap TV graveyard set', where all is dark except for the abnormally bright 'moonlight'. To help accentuate the overall eerie atmosphere, I made use almost solely of up and down lighting, casting the actor's eyes in shadow and creating an inhuman, skull-like appearance. The idea was to cast the characters almost as silhouettes; faceless figures moving about the grave (which, due to the content of the play, was rather relevant). The grave itself, which was constructed center-stage, was top-lit with a greeny-yellow spotlight, and up-lit from an LED strip wrapped around the inside of the pit. This kept the grave in constant focus as the centrepiece of the set.