Black Medea

Set and Lighting Design for Grant Street Theatre

For Wesley Enoch’s play about Indigenous country, violence, and relationships, I have created a design that is deeply connected to the landscape and the native spirits that inhabit it. The play is largely characterised by the vengeful, ancestral chorus, therefore the design had to consider the movements of these illusive figures. With each screen as a layer of place, time, and history, the chorus teasingly weave in and out of the set, taunting the main character as the personified wind.

The two lighting states I have depicted signify the beginning and end of the play, where most of the performance is lit with fiery hues, reminiscent of the hot earth and harsh sunlight, and then suddenly an unsettling contrast is introduced at the very end, as Medea sacrifices her only child.