Design (Rachel)
Design Aspects and Details
Set Design
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center from February 13, 1987-March 29, 1987, thirty three performances took place filled with very minimal set design. We didn't have the resources we had today to create a different world, but they tried their best to make it work.
In the National Theatre performance, they wanted
Costume Design and Lighting Design
Traditional Yoruba Clothing is known for the exquisite colors and vibrant patterns. In traditional Yoruba culture, clothing is an indication of wealth or status. Death and the King's Horseman uses examples of traditional Yoruba pieces such as Gele, Sokotos, Iros, Buba, and Agbada.
Gele
- Nigerian cloth is used to wrap around women's head. There are several different ways to wrap it.
Buba
- A loose fitting blouse with long sleeves and a neckline that V-shaped or round. It usually falls a little bit below a woman's or man's waist.
Iro
- Long wrap around skirts. They are rectangular skirts that are worn by wrapping them around their waist and tucking it in at the end.
Sokoto
- Sokotos are trousers that are loose fitting with a drawstring used to hold them up.
Agbada
- Worn at formal events, men wear robes over their clothes
Color is also important in Yoruba culture. Some colors that are important in this play is yellow, purple, red, brown, and blue.
Yellow: beauty
Purple: the death
Brown and red: the dead
Blue and red: healing
In the Royal National Theatre and Washington Shakespearse Company's production of Death and the King's Horseman, the costumes reflect each of these colors. Since both of these productions were performed in 2009, they had more access to better resources for documentation to showcases these colors.
Lighting Design
In the Lincoln Center production, there is downlight and stage light rather than front light to light the stage. Gels had only recently been introduced in 1969 to theatrical design so, this show didn't use colored gels.
"Paule Constable’s often counterintuitive lighting tames the epic Olivier space by edging Lindsay’s neutral backdrops — a succession of frayed veils that hint and withhold — with luminous blue and sculpting mysterious areas of darkness with streams of hot sunlight." Lighting Design from National Theatre
Sound Design
Song and poetry are a core part of Death and the King's Horseman. Yoruban culture, song, and dance flow throughout this play, so the sound design must be one of the strongest elements. Wole Soyinka dicussed the challenges of the first production, saying one of the biggest problems were rhythms, dance, and culture...
"I told them they were just as ignorant of African culture, African politics, African rhythms as everyone else," he says. "When I told them they couldn't dance, that shocked them. They took it as the greatest insult."
Set Design
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center from February 13, 1987-March 29, 1987, thirty three performances took place filled with very minimal set design. We didn't have the resources we had today to create a different world, but they tried their best to make it work.In the National Theatre performance, they wanted
Costume Design and Lighting Design
Traditional Yoruba Clothing is known for the exquisite colors and vibrant patterns. In traditional Yoruba culture, clothing is an indication of wealth or status. Death and the King's Horseman uses examples of traditional Yoruba pieces such as Gele, Sokotos, Iros, Buba, and Agbada.
Gele
- Nigerian cloth is used to wrap around women's head. There are several different ways to wrap it.
Buba
- A loose fitting blouse with long sleeves and a neckline that V-shaped or round. It usually falls a little bit below a woman's or man's waist.
Iro
- Long wrap around skirts. They are rectangular skirts that are worn by wrapping them around their waist and tucking it in at the end.
Sokoto
- Sokotos are trousers that are loose fitting with a drawstring used to hold them up.
Agbada
- Worn at formal events, men wear robes over their clothes
Color is also important in Yoruba culture. Some colors that are important in this play is yellow, purple, red, brown, and blue.
Yellow: beauty
Purple: the death
Brown and red: the dead
Blue and red: healing
In the Royal National Theatre and Washington Shakespearse Company's production of Death and the King's Horseman, the costumes reflect each of these colors. Since both of these productions were performed in 2009, they had more access to better resources for documentation to showcases these colors.
Lighting Design
In the Lincoln Center production, there is downlight and stage light rather than front light to light the stage. Gels had only recently been introduced in 1969 to theatrical design so, this show didn't use colored gels.
"Paule Constable’s often counterintuitive lighting tames the epic Olivier space by edging Lindsay’s neutral backdrops — a succession of frayed veils that hint and withhold — with luminous blue and sculpting mysterious areas of darkness with streams of hot sunlight." Lighting Design from National Theatre
Sound Design
Song and poetry are a core part of Death and the King's Horseman. Yoruban culture, song, and dance flow throughout this play, so the sound design must be one of the strongest elements. Wole Soyinka dicussed the challenges of the first production, saying one of the biggest problems were rhythms, dance, and culture...
"I told them they were just as ignorant of African culture, African politics, African rhythms as everyone else," he says. "When I told them they couldn't dance, that shocked them. They took it as the greatest insult."
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