Visual Aspects: Set and Props

Abstract

Carl Toms’ set created a series of pictorial framing devices at the same time as it evoked the peculiarly bland neutrality of interior decoration which characterised the ‘designer’ milieu of the affluent middle classes in the early 1980s. There were no walls surrounding the furniture for each indoor location, only grey gauze panels which indicated where walls might be but which were themselves translucent: ‘Seven panels face out front, rising simply, sometimes in threes or fours to frame the action’ (Michael Coveney, Financial Times). Like the action of the play itself, the scenery more or less denoted real locations but was at the same time abstract enough to seem entirely emblematic whenever appropriate. Most striking was the way in which the screens were arranged to create different appertures for viewing the action at the beginnings and ends of scenes before they were flown out as a scene proper began. This had the effect of framing each scene so that the ‘life’ which the actors were portraying was at the same time perceived by the audience as though it were a work of art.