Sculpting the Spaces of Enda Walsh’s Theatre: Sabine Dargent in Conversation

Siobhán O’Gorman

Foreword

Sabine Dargent is a French scenographer who has been working in Ireland since the late 1990s. Prior to this, she worked in Paris with Théâtre de Châtillon, L’épée de Bois, TGV, Sylvain Maurice, and architect Maurice Bachet. The experience of physical theatre that Dargent garnered from working with French companies has remained central to her conception of performance design. In Ireland, Dargent also began by designing for physical theatre companies such as Blue Raincoat, and shortly after she did a few shows for Belfast-based company, Aisling Ghéar. She then moved on to designing sets and costumes in theatre for young audiences with TEAM Educational Theatre Company, including Michael West’s Jack Fell Down and Frances Kay’s Burning Dreams, both directed by Martin Murphy in 1999. Later, she designed Senses (2002) a dance piece co-produced by Maiden Voyages and Liz Roche’s company Rex Levitas, as well as Sophocles’ Antigone, adapted and directed by Conall Morrison for Storytellers Theatre (2003).

In 2003, Dargent won the ESB/Irish Times Award for Best Set Design for Morrison’s version of Ibsen’s Ghosts, produced at and by the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. She went on to build a portfolio of cutting-edge design work with a variety of companies and directors. Dargent won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Set Design again in 2006, for two shows: Hysteria by Terry Johnston, and the first play by Enda Walsh on which she worked, The Walworth Farce, produced at and by the Druid Theatre in Galway. The opportunity to work on Walsh’s play came about through the development of a working relationship with Mikel Murfi with whom Dargent shared a background in physical theatre. Dargent went on to design Druid’s productions of Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom (2008) and Penelope (2010). The following conversation reveals much about the collaborative ways in which Dargent, Walsh and Murfi sculpted the spaces of Walsh’s theatre.⁷⁹¹

Siobhán O’Gorman: I’d like to know about your process from receiving a script to sketches, model boxes and the stages of that process—both in general and for the three Enda Walsh plays you have designed.

Sabine Dargent: Generally, my main approach is usually painting. I make books because I need to see the chronology of my thoughts. I do books where I mix painting and other textures. It’s sometimes quite difficult for other people to read these books. And I mix in pieces of text.

SO’G: From the play?

SD: Not only; there are parallel things happening. I’m just trying to understand this myself. If it’s theatre, I begin by reading the text, to understand the story. This seems basic but to understand the story, to understand the spatial movement, and I document all my influences. Sometimes, not always, I also need to understand the writer. I need to read the stage directions, and decide if they are important for me or not. But I always find stage directions really interesting. And the evolution of them is really interesting because sometimes they are really busy at the beginning and after that they disappear. So there is that part, text. This is followed by me painting, trying to sense what is important and it’s quite abstract at the beginning. I’m going from abstract to more solid but trying to merge everything in the beginning.

SO’G: Gradually sculpting the vision?

SD: Yeah, and the execution works like a funnel. At the beginning you have the text, image, themes or whatever is the starting point. You have your own impressions, your drawings and all that. Also the practicalities of it: Where is it? Which space is it in? How much money do you have? Which actors? Most of all, which director, and what is his vision? I will try to understand this. I’ll know what I want to say but I also have to consider what the director wants to say. Communication between the director and the designer is very important. So, to go back to the process, it’s book, model box, plan, how it will be done, and after you build it. The way it’s usually done here is that you have the performing space on one side and you have the audience space on the other, and it has to be designed quickly. And that’s not the way I’ve been trained—I’ve been trained that everything is worked out together—so that’s quite tough. Regarding Enda’s work specifically, when I read that [points to The Walworth Farce], I couldn’t understand what was happening. It’s fascinating because when you read it, it’s really complicated. I mean, for me, I thought it was really complicated. I think what Mikel Murfi did was to divide the story. Just to explain that, because they are doing theatre in the theatre, Mikel divided Enda’s play into the world of the play, you know The Walworth Farce, and the theatre story in it.

SO’G: He isolated the moments of metatheatre?

SD: Yeah, because the way that play works is that you don’t know where you are as a spectator, so you are lost. And that’s what’s really exciting in one way in the theatre, you know, you have this abundance of words and all that. And then you just arrive to something really pure. And what is mad is that when we started to workshop it, when Mikel started to workshop it, he just drew on the floor, which is described in a really realistic way. I mean, you need to see three different spaces, which is tricky. But he did that on the floor and when he did that, it was unbelievable, it was so much clearer for me. And for Mikel. And I think for everybody. It was just so much clearer because we could see it. That’s why I think Enda’s work is actually very visual.

SO’G: I can see clearly how you sculpted your vision of the set out of the stage directions. What informed your decisions on the costumes?

SD: I think the term “stuck in the seventies” also appears in the stage directions. That was central to the whole design. One thing that struck me about The Walworth Farce when I read it was that in a way it seemed like a vision for cinema. You see three things at the same time. So I felt I was forced to do it in a certain way. When I was looking at the description I was thinking about the sight-line. You can’t physically have a partition in the middle and see everything. I mean, it’s not possible. If you imagine the theatre, and the edge of the theatre and you have walls cutting through the space, the guy who’s here doesn’t see there. There were different things at play. There was the fact that it was “stuck in the seventies.” I then started to visually associate the lines of this weirdly-shaped seventies shelf, and the structure of the beams structuring the wall underneath the plaster. I said to them—or we said together, I can’t remember exactly—that we needed to have some of those walls gone. To see what was under the surface of the walls suited the period, and the practicality. We had that conversation with Mikel about the need for the sight-line to be clear, and Enda rewrote to help the design. So when one of the sons is breaking the wall, this was inserted to explain the design, to help the design. It was not in there before, when I first read the text. That was really interesting because I think that is what theatre is about.

SO’G: That kind of collaboration?

SD: Whether it starts with a text, or whatever it is, there is often that very strong collaboration between directing and writing. And that’s what makes it powerful …

SO’G: And designing …

SD: Yeah.

SO’G: So how did you bring your work with other Irish companies to bear on your work with Walsh and with Druid?

SD: I find it really difficult to differentiate my influences. But what I would like to say in this context is that, certainly, what is important is that I’m not Irish. And Enda’s work is very Irish, in one way, even though sometimes it’s set somewhere else. I mean, it’s very interesting because he’s living abroad but he’s using Ireland as a tool to transmit his idea. The fact that he knows Ireland so well means there is a part of humanity that he knows so well. He can use that. In one way it doesn’t matter if it’s in Ireland or elsewhere. I think his work is speaking about much more than that. It seems to me that Enda’s work is speaking mostly about the problem of communication, loneliness—and his work progressing. When I saw Ballyturk, that’s what it was also speaking about, and about what is beyond us. That show is really funny and crazy but I also think it’s very existential.

SO’G: In general, how do you approach working with other co-creators of scenography—for example, directors and writers—and how did this kind of collaboration play out across the three plays? Was it, in each case, the three of you working together from very early on?

SD: Mostly, we started at the same time. If Mikel was directing, I would have started probably about the same time I guess. And sometimes we’d need the three of us but most of the time, I would meet with Mikel, and he would meet with Enda because that’s the way it usually happens. In one way, you need the director to be at the centre of the production process.

SO’G: In texts of both The Walworth Farce and Penelope, compared with the text of The New Electric Ballroom, Walsh seems to take a very directorial approach to setting the scene. In both, there are a few pages of stage directions right at the beginning. How do you find this as a designer?

SD: I find that extremely interesting. Enda’s work is very visual. I know people say it’s very wordy, but I think it’s maybe more visual.

SO’G: As a designer, did you find these directions helpful?

SD: Yeah, because I think it’s really born from what he wanted to say. Do you know what I mean? Like, they’re not just decorative. They’re really an expression.

SO’G: They are very clear and very defined. Right down to the six cans of Heineken in The Walworth Farce, these are quite exacting stage directions. So I was interested in how you might negotiate this as a designer? Do you feel it impacts on your freedom as a designer?

SD: I think it doesn’t interfere with my freedom because whatever the frame is, you always have freedom. No, it didn’t bother me.

SO’G: In the text of The New Electric Ballroom, we just get a kitchen/living room space with some ’50s clothing hanging on the wall and a sponge cake on the counter. Did you feel you had more work to do in designing this work?

SD: Perhaps I had more freedom there, but I didn’t really notice at the time. Every time I design, I try to understand the world. I think probably The Walworth Farce was the most constrained one. There was a lot of constraint because it’s so physical. It’s a tiny set, like, it’s tiny, tiny. It looks bigger because I played a lot with perception. But I don’t really think about how much freedom I have when I am working. I know Enda’s directions and descriptions are really important. And then there’s the responsibility you have when it’s a new play. You need to be really clear about the work.

SO’G: Did you feel a responsibility to be very faithful to the worlds Walsh has created?

SD: Absolutely, because you give a frame and a kind of body language to the play—and also because I have admiration for his work. I think he’s a fantastic writer.

SO’G: I want to get a bit more specific in relation to these three works. In Penelope, we have this group of men down in an empty swimming pool. And in The Walworth Farce, we have these three men sharing this dilapidated flat. In each case, I think, there’s a sense of a very cluttered space—and dilapidated I think in both cases as well. Whereas, when I look back at your design for The New Electric Ballroom—Ada, Clara and Breda exist in a much cleaner space. This made me think about gender across the plays. And then you have the food items as well. We have sausages in both The Walworth Farce and Penelope. Then we have the cake in The New Electric Ballroom. Could you talk about the scenographies of these works, and the ways in which you and Walsh have directly and indirectly collaborated in conjuring them, in relation to gender?

SD: What is strange is that you make an association between The Walworth Farce and Penelope. For me, because The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom are sister plays, I associate both of them, and this informed the design. And also what is massively important for me is that Mikel Murfi directed The Walworth Farce, and Enda Walsh directed The New Electric Ballroom. So, I was with two different directors. And The New Electric Ballroom, Enda being the writer and the director, was a new experience for me. And that was fascinating—absolutely fascinating. Regarding the gender stuff, yes, this was really important. The Walworth Farce was a challenge regarding the movement, seeing everything as I said. For me, visually, The New Electric Ballroom was a completely different challenge. It was more designed. I think it’s so much about love, The New Electric Ballroom, for me it had to be quite precious, metaphorical. But at the same time not obviously precious. There was that grey of the tiles, and I put some sparkle in the grey. It was just kind of an undertone. It was very reserved. I think the play is very reserved. So that’s what I tried to do. And the New Electric has movement through lights: the monotony of life and the huge shift given by love, or hope of love, opening up the sky like a sunset after a grey day. In one way, it’s actually quite a masculine space, because it’s like a warehouse but that’s what Enda gave.

SO’G: This must have been through directing because it’s not there in the published text. I was going to ask about the big metal doors, and where that idea came from? I know it’s the door to the outside world, and that it is significant that it keeps opening …

SD: I can’t remember now whether the idea for that big door came from Enda or from me but it doesn’t really matter. What I know is that, yes, the door is massively important. In The Walworth Farce, it’s that small door. And it was like everything in my design was pointing towards it, towards the possibility of escape, obviously. And in The New Electric Ballroom, it’s different. The door is an intrusion—a masculine intrusion in that feminine world. And at the same time, it’s very obvious—very in your face there in the centre—and very delicate. What I do remember about working with Enda on the design for The New Electric Ballroom is that there was something about the furniture—he wanted it to seem very designed. I think specifically for this play, I thought about the relationship between the costumes and the set. The costumes were also very precious. There are these women in their 70s who think they are seventeen. It’s all about women—even though it’s written by a man.

SO’G: I think all that plays into the way in which The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom are seen as sister works, and one play is viewed as the inversion of the other.

SD: Oh yes, and I just wanted to say, for me—I’m not sure if anybody noticed but—the designs were linked. In The Walworth Farce, the back wall was tilted very slightly towards the spectators, to try to give an impression of vertigo. And in The New Electric Ballroom, it was the opposite—because they had to be connected. And regarding Penelope, which is also great, it is a swimming pool, and it’s a very striking set up. And that set up is so important to the play, in terms of the relations of power and all that …

SO’G: Yeah, the physical layout of it.

SD: That’s what I mean by the relations of power. There was something a bit funny about that show. I was looking for references. I was looking at modern architecture—forties architecture. Because, like The New Electric Ballroom, I wanted the world of Penelope to look quite designed.

SO’G: I noticed a correlation between The New Electric Ballroom, and the tiles, and those little tiles in the swimming pool in Penelope. I felt that there was a real sense of continuity there, in terms of the mid twentieth-century vibe.

SD: Yes. At some point when I was doing some research on modern architecture, I was trying to understand where that villa in Penelope would be. And I was kind of playing with the idea of where it would be. I imagined it might be somewhere in the Mediterranean. At the same time that I was doing the research, I discovered this house—I can’t remember the architect—but when I saw it, I was like, this is where Enda’s play happens. Then, a friend of mine came to see me in my studio and I was speaking to her. I said that I discovered this house—I didn’t really speak about Enda’s work—but I said that I discovered this house that is very beautiful. Then, after looking at this house I discovered that Le Mépris, which is a Godard movie, was shot there. So then I discovered afterwards that Godard’s movie is also about Penelope. It’s about Ulysses. So it was funny because there was that link.

SO’G: So it was all interconnected.

SD: For Penelope, one of the first things I designed was the dress.

SO’G: I was going to ask you about costume in Penelope; that blue dress was very striking in the environment, I think.

SD: I was really trying to think about where it was taking place and because I had looked at this house, which was on a cliff, I decided that it really needed to be on a cliff. Because she’s always watching the sea, you just needed to see her back which is really sexy. The dress had just a huge décolleté on the back. I just wanted the audience to see every muscle of her; I don’t know, I think it’s beautiful. Then there was the colour blue. That house in the film was red. It’s not very visible in the design, but in my head I started thinking of the work of the artist Yves Klein from the middle of the twentieth century. There is a photo of Klein where he is jumping into the emptiness, which is a very beautiful photo. And that’s one of the things I had in my mind. Yves Klein discovered a colour which is a really deep blue. For me, that is the colour that Penelope is looking at—that very specific and very intense blue. When she’s looking at the sea, it’s not really the sea in one sense: it’s a print by Yves Klein.

SO’G: So it’s reflected onto Penelope then, in the costume?

SD: On the dress? No, even though the dress was blue. I think I just wanted an all-blue environment. So it’s all one—she is almost there with the sea. She is consumed by the sea so she is the same colour or something like that.

SO’G: To return then to The New Electric Ballroom. We talked about the doors. In the script, the characters often refer to this coffee cake. These are just minor details but I was wondering how it became a pink cake on stage?

SD: Ah, yeah, because there is lots of pink. It’s a cliché but I think clichés usually work. It’s a female world. Also some of the costumes are in pinks. I wanted to ostentatiously create a female-used world, to show how it is impossible for these characters to do things differently.

SO’G: Walsh’s theatre necessitates many quick costume changes …

SD: Oh yeah, I think he is just giving a challenge to everybody [giggles].

SO’G: In terms of these quick costume changes, I was wondering—on a very practical level—how this might have impacted on your design?

SD: I don’t remember specific difficulties. In The New Electric Ballroom, the costumes were much more precious. Those were beautiful pieces in The New Electric Ballroom, I think. In The Walworth Farce, there were farce costumes. The quick changes are of that kind. All the plays offer completely different ways to approach costume, I think. The changes in Penelope are more magic. It’s more poetic, I think. So, in one way, what was interesting about The Walworth Farce was to see the change, because it’s funny and it shows their madness somehow. But I think it’s a bit different in Penelope. It is more about trying to impress, but there is something magic about it. And it is done behind the screen; it’s not visible. It was mad, technically it was completely insane. We went to see a magician and we learned some tricks that we were sworn to keep secret. But also, there was an absolutely fantastic dress-maker Doreen MacKenna working on the show. I mean, I designed, but the technicalities, the practicalities of it were handled by the dress-maker. Of course, it’s important to consider these details in the design but it’s also about the quality of the people making the costumes. The changes were crazy—really crazy. I loved it!

SO’G: These productions toured extensively. How did the changing spaces and contexts impact on your scenography in terms of how it was conceived and, perhaps, perceived?

SD: I didn’t follow the shows everywhere, but I always think that this is fascinating to think about. In Penelope, there are the quick costume changes of the different lovers. And at the end, there is the image of Jackie, with JFK being killed, which must have resonated in the States. I’m also interested in how technically they rebuild the sets since I don’t follow the tours everywhere. We rebuilt The New Electric Ball Room in Australia and we rebuilt The Walworth Farce in the States. And there was a version of Penelope in Washington. I know it’s different but I find it hard to explain how it’s different. And there is a lot of Irishness in the works. I know in places like the States you will have a lot of Irish people. But even so, it’s not the same perception. I mean, some people abroad might have an idealized image of Ireland, which these plays challenge. But because they are strong plays, in a way, it doesn’t really matter where they are staged.

SO’G: I read one review of a production of Penelope in the States in which the empty swimming pool is seen to represent post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. I wonder if you can see allusions like this in Walsh’s plays and if it informs your approach to design? Did you see the swimming pool in this light for example?

SD: Specifically, to comment on the swimming pool and the Celtic Tiger, I don’t know if I would have specifically thought about that. I guess on one level, of course, obviously these men are coming out of the Celtic Tiger; all these men have lost out. So seeing the space as a physical representation of this, in one way this is accurate. But that would seem to me almost anecdotal. The design was my own story—with the blue of Yves Klein and all that. Maybe I told my story, but there are always different levels in a play. Is it a metaphor for Ireland? Probably, and a metaphor is there to be transcended. And I think—I hope—a good set is always a bit about that.

SO’G: I’m interested in how the theatre space impacts on reception. When I think of Walsh’s work, I feel like there is a through-line, and that through-line is spatial. The characters are trapped; there’s a sense of claustrophobia, of confinement—of stifling, contained spaces. How do you think this sense translates scenographically to larger theatre spaces? In terms of design, spatial organization and perhaps audience’s perceptions?

SD: It seems to me the playing with perception in Penelope was about the immensity behind, the sea, the representation of wild nature. The outside versus inside again. Those men being stuck, alienated, and us as spectators facing the immensity. Having the option. Oh, it’s fascinating to play with perception. Theatre is a lot about that—and it is fascinating. I think you can achieve confinement in a huge space. Absolutely. But you need to design for that space. The Walworth Farce was designed first for the Druid theatre. And Druid’s space is a difficult space. It’s a really charged space, and it’s a beautiful space.

SO’G: Did the issues of dislocation and exile, so central to Walsh’s drama, play into your approach to these works?

SD: There is a lot of stuff in Enda’s work about inside and outside. And when we think about space what is really important is how we position the spectator—which position do you give to the spectator to listen to that story. I think it’s the basis of theatre design. Then, the use of perception or not …

SO’G: Playing with perception?

SD: If you need to. Actually, you always play with perception in scenography. Even if it is through very small gestures, the spatial, visual representation “manipulates” the spectator’s mind.

SO’G: Going back to the published text of Penelope, the stage directions are very sensuous compared with the others. The opening details are: “After a little time, we realize that we’re looking at a dilapidated swimming pool drained of water.” Then we read, “the pool’s been turned into a living space and it seems to have operated as such for years.” And then when the lights come up fully, we have this still picture. Directions like these are all about cultivating a situation whereby a sense of the space and its function emerge very gradually. And I think they are also about playing with perception, which is something you already mentioned in relation to your approach to the design—and design in general. I was wondering how you negotiate stage directions like these scenographically?

SD: With the fact that you don’t see straight away what the space is about?

SO’G: I feel like when Walsh wrote those directions, he was placing himself in the position of the spectator to a greater extent than in the other two. He’s unpacking these details as an audience member might experience them in a very gradual way: you see this, you don’t know what it is, then gradually it all begins to emerge. In the production, the audience starts to realize bit by bit what the significance of this space is. And we are given the time for this process to take place. In the play text, I think the stage directions are slightly different from the others, and I wonder how this informed your approach.

SD: Now I’m remembering. It is quite different. But The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom are together, and Penelope is a slight departure. I mean, it’s a reinterpretation of a Greek story. The first thing that came to my mind when you said that is that it’s the movement of a man that reveals what the space is. I guess if somebody writes in quite a visual way it’s because it’s a way to translate through words these things that you cannot see. And the fact that you don’t see exactly what the space is straight away is quite important. At the beginning with The Walworth Farce, Enda wanted the set to be even closer to the audience. And we couldn’t do it; we didn’t have the space. I think for him it offered a possible way to get into that world. I think he approached this in a different way with Penelope. Here, you understand that world through the movement, through the way it comes to life. I mean, it’s an appropriation of a foreign space; it’s not a normal living space. Then again, in all three plays, the spaces end up not being used for what they were originally intended. The original look at the set is a punch, and then the spectator is pushed to observe details—here the fact the space has been inhabited for so long. What emerges is a sense of time, and the effects of time.

SO’G: I think that what happens at the beginning of Penelope is a stylized activation of the scenography, beginning with the still image in which we have the two performers on stage unmoving, and it’s like looking at a picture, then the movement activates the scenography. The movement activates our understanding of the space and its function. I mean, scenography can’t really be still; it has to be dynamic because it involves an engagement between live bodies and space.

SD: Absolutely. The space is only interesting when it’s in use. That’s why what is essential is the relationship between the designer and the director. This is massively important. Then you have, of course, the writer who is sometimes at the centre. Sometimes, I mean, it depends. One of the differences between the theatre here and in France is that writers are seen as more important here.

SO’G: In each play, there is a device through which the characters play music. Can you comment on the function of music in Walsh’s work?

SD: Oh, it’s really important. I mean, there are the central things, and the writing is important and all that. But the sound and the visuals are probably just as important. The sound is like a direct route to the heart. Enda is using the same kinds of objects; he’s using food; lots of motifs are very similar.

SO’G: Tell me about the interaction between the choice of music and the direction and the design and the lighting, since all these are elements of scenography.

SD: Absolutely because it’s all one. And that’s why Enda’s work is so interesting because it allows for bringing everything together. That is deep down what theatre is about. And scenography uses a variety of tools to converge as a body language for the production.

SO’G: Walsh talks about lighting in the stage directions too. I think he makes a lot of scenographic considerations.

SD: He’s playing a lot with all these elements. He’s kind of marking a difference between the moments where he is doing a production—a production in the sense of a magic effect—and the moments where it is realistic dialogue. Enda plays a lot with these because you have plays within plays and so on. The box in the box in the box …

SO’G: Layers.

SD: Layers but also things you need to open. More than just layers.

SO’G: Okay, it looks like we will have to finish up here. Sabine Dargent thank you so much for this really illuminating discussion!

Extract From: The Theatre of Enda Walsh, edited by Mary P. Caufield and Ian R. Walsh (2015)

Cross Reference: Druid Theatre and the two other articles on Walsh

See Also: Discussions on scenography surrounding Joe Vanĕk’s work and Vanĕk on Tom Mac Intyre.