We started off by comparing notes and saying
'Well what did you hate about every other Swan Lake that you've ever seen?'
and it's quite a list in fact we came up with
but you can have a lot of fun doing that until you actually have to do Swan Lake yourself
But it's a very good way to get started because we wanted
it to be rooted in some sort of reality
and I'm a great believer that you have to take it very seriously
This is Act II back cloth, the original is 1/25 of this
and you grid it into 4 centimetre squares which is the equivalent of metres squared
and then you draw it out on the floor, a metre at a time
and then you paint it on the floor and then I come in when they've done most of
the work actually and I then paint it with the light coming through to make
it the image I made in the first place
This is the bit that I thought would be great when I was in the workshops
and of course on stage it looks like a meaningless white splash
that doesn't mean anything, that is in the wrong place but upstage
so I just have to break into these, that's all
it's taking your eye to the wrong place
My other job's a painter and over the years it's of course informed my work
in that the one thing I suppose I'm known for are the painted backdrops
from cloths surfaces which I combine with architecture
It's totally and absolutely essential, it goes through all of my stage design
and the two feed each other
Out of the whole design process for me the ballroom took the longest
It took three months of trashing models and drawing and destroying another model
because no matter what you put in this box, you play that opening
and nothing comes up to what Tchaikovsky is doing in terms of grandeur
and then when it does, you know you've got it
But it's a long long process, it was about a six months model build and then
costume drawings, simply just drawing and drawing until things start to emerge
I use very traditional methods to get the effects I want on stage
but with Swan Lake I hope it doesn't look stodgy and traditional in the worst sense
of that word, I hope it doesn't and I don't think it does!
but you travel your audience through words that they would understand
that lead them through the story
It's just how unique each of these worlds as visually beautiful or exciting
as you possibly can!