An interview with Miriam Nabarro, Set and Costume Designer for The Winter's Tale
Can you tell us a bit about the setting and why you and Simon decided on the 1930s Italy/1950s Mediterranean?
In our first discussions, Simon and I tried to unpick the core dynamics of The Winter’s Tale and then to think of historical parallels, which might help us to understand the play better. The seduction of Power and the power of (Leontes’) obsession seemed as key to understanding the opening scenes, as the nature of forgiveness and redemption are to the closing scenes. What kind of world could these themes exist in? We imagined a lush, decadent palace, cut off from the world in which obsessions could flourish and grow. We began thinking about situations in which deluded obsessions were able to grow, times when the power distribution was so unequal that huge miscarriages of justice could (and did) take place.
The late 1930’s and the rise of Fascism in Europe seemed a perfect setting. Shakespeare helped us by locating the action of the court in Sicilia, modern day Sicily, and that led us to thinking, (in a rather predictable manner!) about the mafia, about obsessions within families and the passion this can generate, multiplied to an extreme level. Sicily is also a landscape in which strong women are central: we could easily imagine Paulina’s great feistiness as a Sicilian woman, independent, god-fearing, practical, spirited: so this became our starting point.
The world of ‘Bohemia’ is a Shakespearean construct: the real Bohemia is what is now land locked Czech Republic, but in The Winter’s Tale we are sent to the ‘coast’ of Bohemia. This gave us the freedom to invent our own imagined world. We began to imagine a washed out, forgotten seaside community, peopled by poor but happy fishermen, a practical, functioning, marginal community, with music at the core. We imagined what an ‘Old Shepherd’ - who suddenly comes into some money - might do, and imagined that s/he (our Shepherd is actually a Shepherdess!) might try to ‘move up’ in the world, and start up a local café: this is a place in which gossip is exchanged, love affairs begin, a celebration can take place. This also allowed us to avoid the trappings of creating a ‘twee’ or ‘quaint’ pastoral scene, to create a world in which people had jobs to do, and the ‘café’ was the central point of the community.
Talk a bit about your process. How do you do research? What inspires you?
My process is quite organic and adapts to each project. I’m quite a magpie: I collect images and references, colour and texture from photos, films, magazines, and use this as an image bank to delve into for each project, as well as being inspired by filmmakers and visual artists too. I draw a lot, often people I see walking down the street, or from paintings, and I use all this as raw material for my designs. I like to work very closely with the director, talking through ideas and influences, colours, feelings, textures to try and create the right world for the play.
Initially, I looked at floors: I was convinced that the way to tell the story was through a world that could literally ‘fall apart’. I was inspired by Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, which cracked the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in two. I imagined a floor that could split just as Leontes’ obsession fragments and destroys his world. But this felt too complicated and caused problems with the shift into the world of Bohemia.
Once we had decided on the location of the ‘world’ we would create, Simon suggested that I see The Conformist, Bertolucci’s great film about the psychology of fascism and of sexual obsession. The film has an incredibly stark and strong aesthetic, beautiful use of sidelight, huge empty spaces in which characters are isolated, and wonderful attention to detail in costume. This led me to look at other Italian filmmakers, especially Visconti’s neo-realist films too. I watched films, took photos from them, created ‘mood boards’ as potential visual worlds that Simon and I would then discuss.
Initially, we began thinking about structures that could accommodate and contain the action: for a while we imaged a wonderful moveable door structure that would be on wheels and could be moved around by the cast to suggest and to create various spaces, but this began to clutter the space. Shakespeare’s language is so rich and so filmic, we finally decided to pare everything back and to create an almost empty space, allowing us to create a style of storytelling through costume and light, on a stage that was both beautiful and transformable enough to suggest many locations.
There seem to be a lot of non-literal or non-nautralistic elements to the production. How do some of those elements develop and how do you hope the audience will be affected by it?
I don’t know if its so much non-naturalistic, as trying to create a world in which the audience’s imaginations are engaged: the colour and texture of the floor, the choice of furniture and detail of props and costume create the suggestion of a world without the necessity of physically creating the palace around them…I hope that the world is simple and alluring enough to engage the audience and to bring them into our world, a world which encompasses both the destructive horror of Leontes’ fury, and the redemptive qualities of love and forgiveness embodied by Paulina and Hermione.
What was the most challenging thing about this production? What is the most rewarding?
The most difficult thing is daring to be simple: Shakespeare’s language is so rich and evocative that the real challenge is to create a world that accommodates such language, that allows the language space to breathe and does not ‘pin it down’ or interpret it too literally. As always, it is quite a challenge to work on tight time frames and budgets too, but this is something that can be hugely rewarding: look what we managed to create!
The most rewarding moments come when things begin to fall together: during tech week when all the scenic and costume elements come together and begin to work in the way that you hope they should: to really add to the worlds that the actors create and to support their storytelling.
What are some of the challenges of designing for a touring production?
This production is particularly challenging as all the 12 touring spaces are completely different!! We are playing in theatres that range from end-on 400 seat proscenium arch theatres, to theatres like the Minerva and the New Wolsey, which are deep thrust stages, to the low ceilinged Tobacco Factory in Bristol which has columns in the middle! So it’s been a challenge working out what size space we can work on, and how the entrances and exits will work. But I’m really looking forward to seeing how the shows change in each theatre according to its specific shape!
Can you tell us a bit about your training or background?
I studied English Literature at Edinburgh University, which gave me a really sound understanding of texts as I focused on Shakespeare and Drama. Edinburgh was a brilliant city as a student as it had a really good art school where I used to go life drawing, and it had a vibrant theatre scene as well as the Festival, so I began creating theatre and designing plays, often in unusual places: on top of Carlton Hill, in the Botanical Gardens. I was really lucky as my first job was working as a design assistant on John McGrath’s Satire of the Fourth Estaite for the International Festival/ Wildcat, in which everything - set (a huge mountain range), costumes, puppets, were made out of paper!
When I left University, I got a scholarship to go to Saint Martins College of Art to study European Scenography (theatre design). This was a visionary course run by Pamela Howard and it was held in art schools in London, Holland and Prague, so I spent a year learning, drawing, watching and creating theatre with people from all over Europe and introducing me to many different influences and ways of working. Later on, I became very involved in community arts and working with visual art and drama with children affected by conflict. This led to five years working for the charity War Child running creative arts programmes in Kosovo, Georgia and across Africa which I found deeply inspiring and rewarding.
I now live in London and work full time as a theatre designer and artist, sometimes returning to community arts work, sometimes having exhibitions, sometimes working purely on theatre projects. I have found it very useful to have a diverse training, both academic and creative, and to have lived in different countries and I use elements of these experiences in my current work.