Closed Topics: Metamorphoses: to pool or not to pool?

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Metamorphoses: to pool or not to pool?

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Topic: Metamorphoses: to pool or not to pool?

Posted By: ladydisdain
Subject: Metamorphoses: to pool or not to pool?
Date Posted: 8/08/05 at 8:23pm

Hi everyone. I'm directing Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses this fall. We are a small theatre with a limited budget. This play usually takes place in and around a pool of water; we don't know that we can afford that. Has anyone out there built a set for this show? Did you make a pool? If so, was it hideously expensive? How did you keep the water warm? If you didn't use a pool, what did you do?

I have seen a production of it done in a pool filled with dirt; I was not fond of that idea.

Any suggestions would be so very much appreciated.

Replies:

Posted By: Kathy S
Date Posted: 8/09/05 at 1:52am

I don't know the play, but here's what comes to my mind, if I thought that I had to come up with a pool on our stage. We have a trap door built into the apron part of our stage which I would remove and place a smallish fan in it -- down a few feet below the surface, perhaps. Then I would place a grate over the hole so no one could accidently fall into it and then cover it with a piece of tie-dyed blue or silvery fabric that would be secured on the edges to represent the pool edge -- maybe with various size stones. It seems that the fabric could be made to flutter slightly by the moving air blowing up through the trap, simulating the surface of pond water.

Posted By: NickH.
Date Posted: 8/10/05 at 12:51pm

We did Kismet a few years back, where the Wazier ends up drowning in a pool. We built a wide platform upstage, with steps leading up to it. The pool supposedly was behind that platform. Props, rocks etc. may help better suggest the edge of the pool.

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If all the world is a stage, what am I doing in the wings?

Posted By: Keith D.
Date Posted: 8/22/05 at 2:05am

What a great show. If you decide not to do the pool, make sure your metaphor has nothing to do with water. Mary's shows are so high concept, that it's almost problematic NOT to do them any other way.

Perhaps you could do rain in stage...

Are you doing the nudity?

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KND