Ronik Rana

Projects

Machinal

Writer: Sophie Treadwell

Design: Set design
Type: Conceptual
Year: 2021
Location: n/a
For: n/a

A powerful expressionist drama from the 1920s about the dependent status of women in an increasingly mechanised society, based on the true story of Ruth Snyder.

Sophie Treadwell was a campaigning journalist in America between the wars. Among her assignments was the sensational murder involving Snyder, who with her lover, Judd Gray, had murdered her husband and gone to the electric chair.

“This is a play written in anger. In the dead wasteland of male society – it seems to ask – isn’t it necessary for certain women, at least, to resort to murder?”– Nicholas Wright⁰¹

Research

Paul D. Austerberry, “IT: Chapter Two” (2019)

Lacey Erb, “Winters Tale” (2016)

Busby Berkeley, “Gold Diggers of 1933” (1933)

Charlie Chaplin, “The Circus” (2018)

Yayoi Kusama

Greystone Manor House, Colorado

Matthew Smucker, “Three Tall Women” (2010)

Robert Edmond Jones, “Machinal” (1928)

The Concept
Inspired by the escapist worlds of Busby Berkeley and 1920s cinema, this design for Machinal is minimalistic, placing importance on characters rather than physical locations, where the line between the stage and the audience disappears in the dark. The abundance of mirrored walls and surfaces offer a reflection of our own society–industrial, mechanical and never ending. It is difficult for us to imagine where this world may exist as actors and sets appear and disappear in the darkness while mirrors create surreal and distorted visuals.

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

Modelbox Pictures

Modelbox Pictures in lighting

Acknowledgements

https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/machinal

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