Chekhov in Hell (2018)
Everybody thought playwright Anton Chekhov died in Badenweiler in 1904. In fact he slipped into a coma and was transported out of Russia during the Revolution, ending up in Britain in the Second World War. As he awakes from his coma in London in 2019, he is confronted with the wilderness of the twenty-first century....
As set designers, we wanted to construct a world that was highly ambiguous but also ubiquitously urban (we had to cater to some twenty rapid scene and location changes). I was particularly interested in flexible spaces that could represent exteriors and interiors at the same time, so we made these mirror doors that bent both ways, suggesting the nature of the space. The floor was a "dripping" tarmac, hinting at the characters' sancity melting away progressively. We made the floor by hand, and I was also responsible for sourcing and making props, like the period headboard shown.
Performed at the Platform Theatre, Central Saint Martins in December 2018.
Written by Dan Rebellato
Directed by Jonathan Humphreys
Set Design by Sasha Jiang and Bela Lopez-Vito