"Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap."
Clov
Cover
Alternate Cover
The main idea for the set
Beckett’s instructions formed the basis for the creation of this set too: a mostly empty room with grey walls, two small windows and a door leading to an adjacent room. The whole room is meant to resemble a human skull, with the windows as eyes and the wheelchair as mouth, functioning as a visual metaphor for a decomposing mind.
I chose moldy-green walls to express the decomposition and sickness plaguing the main character. Red references power, the body/flesh and hell. Hamm, although nominally the master, is enthralled by his everyday rituals, depends completely on his wheelchair and Clov for his bodily functions, and perceives the outside world as an-“other hell”. The little door leads to Clov’s red painted room, which functions both as a symbol of ‘the outside’ and Hamm’s alienated body. The two small windows allow very little light to come through. The floor is to be made from either burned or cracked grey wood, both accentuating the sense of decomposition and ruin.
The main prop of the play is Hamm’s wheelchair. It is his inner sanctum, seat-of-power and prison. As in a chess game, the King is both the feeblest and the most valuable piece on the board. For my design I used a red armchair for the main body of the wheel-chair, added wheels, and placed a king-shaped pillow on its back. Hamm’s parents I placed in plexi-glass cubicles filled with dirt and garbage, as a conscious reference to my previous design for Happy Days, which has much in common with this play.
- Trying the color palette -
Costumes
