The action takes place on board a steamship and in the interior of colonial Africa during the early 1900s.

THE SET

The stage is divided into different playing areas. Upstage right is the dining room. There is an entrance back that leads to the bedrooms and an entrance right that leads to the kitchen and the garden. Upstage left is AMY’s room with an entrance left. These areas take up two-thirds of the stage depth. The shallower front section is used for the steamship, the garden and the river. MAY’s bedroom is placed centrestage with an entrance downstage right. Two large, movable scrims are used to separate these areas. They are mounted on metal frames which move noiselessly and quickly. When the dining room is indicated, the screen is in front of the bedroom. When the bedroom is indicated, the screen is in front of the dining room. The steamship, the garden and the river are set in front of the two screens. When the action takes place in MAY’s house or garden, two gobos of green, long-leafed exotic plants are projected onto the screens whenever they are seen. For a few scenes, as indicated, the scrims become transparent revealing the action behind them.

The dining room: a long, heavy table. The head of the table upstage. There is a chair at the head of the table and a chair on either side of the table. A window gobo throws window squares onto the floor far right.

The bedroom: a narrow cast-iron bed with a mosquito net. A small table right and a wooden chair near the bed. A window gobo throws window squares onto the floor far left.

Steamboat: two deckchairs right front. These are isolated in a pool of light.

The river: the front of the stage is used. The scrims are suffused with the deep red of the setting sun.

The garden: either the left or the right side of the stage can be used. When the garden bench is in view, it is placed centre left.

For MAY’s room, the two screens are set at a sharp angle centrestage, where there is a narrow, iron bed. The leafy gobos are projected onto the screens. The gobo projections give a cold green light to the scene.

Lighting. The interior scenes, whether by day or by night, should be darkly lit. For the day scene this creates a sense of a gloomy, shuttered house, and for the night scenes a contrast between the fragile, flickering candles and the vast surrounding darkness.