Written by Juliet Watkinson, designer for Jago's Box.

This section is for teachers to put into context the designers influence and ideas for creating the set. Please see the set design at The Millenium Galleries 2D>3D exhibition from 17th October 2002 - 12th January 2003.

My starting point for the design was to read the script and to try to immediately capture my first thoughts and impressions: these first responses are probably the most significant since it is the only time that you are in the same position as the future audiences: that of not knowing the play ... and you will never be in this position again.

I tried to identify the key moments that had made the greatest impact on me and to try and understand the overall shape and structure of the piece.

As I read the play, it evoked very strong personal memories of the visit I made to a small town in France: Oradour-sur-Glane which had been destroyed in a single afternoon in retaliation for the activities of the Resistance. The entire town has been left exactly as it was at the end of that day. The devastation of normal everyday life and activity is present everywhere: the objects which survived have been transformed utterly and have an overwhelming poignancy.

My memories of this place acted as a kind of emotional sub-text to my work: but then I tried to broaden my research as widely as possible and looked at photographs from places all over the world that had suffered the devastations of war and sectarianism. I paid particular interest to those that were from countries outside Europe. There was of course an enormous array of images: but slowly I began to see particular features beginning to reoccur - despite the fact that the contexts were so varied. Finally I had about six photographs which seemed to closest to my feelings about the play.

In discussions with the director I was able to share these images and we explored the ideas and needs of the play in greater depth together. We were both certain that we wanted a set that did not attempt to be ‘real’ or to be too specific in time or place ... but one which would enable the audience to draw on their own levels of experience and contexts.

The design concept which finally evolved expresses the idea of an epi-centre of destruction - from which lines of shock and fracture radiate outwards in all three dimensions (this is the design of the floor cloth and the three ‘side’ surrounds) and completely encompass the performers. It is an abstract form - it could be an entire city; it could be a single shattered pane of glass; it could be the crystalline iciness of Graf’s hardened heart; it could be the shattering of the emotional life and security of either Graf or Jago, or of the countless individuals that they stand to represent ..... It can be what you feel it should be.

By comparison, the doorframe structure is relatively ‘real’ and identifiable.... it stands in defiance of its surroundings. I hope that this will give both the performers and the audience a recognisable focus point for the start of the play. Although of course this structure too is designed to be non-specific as possible and is designed to fragment as the play progresses... it breaks up into different configurations and provides a suggestive ‘key’ for other locations.

I see the doorway, together with individual items used by the performers rather as if a war photographer had zoomed-in on the minute specific detail of a scene whilst the larger scale destruction becomes an out-of-focus frame.

I hope that this is the way in which the set will work for the audience - that their focus of attention will be centred on the performers and their specific actions - however small - and that the surrounding structure will provide an unconscious emotional tone to the play.

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