When We Dead Awaken
Drama Centre Black Box, Singapore, March 2018
Original Playwright: Henrik Ibsen
Director: Sankar Venkateswaran
Set Designer: Chan Silei
Lighting Designer: Aaron Yap
Produced by Intercultural Theatre Institute
This version of When We Dead Awaken has been deconstructed into a physical theatre piece of about an hour, making it a very concise adaptation of the original Henrik Ibsen play without losing its essence. Being a very intense piece that placed strong emphasis on the emotions of the characters, together with the director’s vision of a very black and white aesthetics, the lighting approach takes on a relatively “colourless” style, using different colour temperatures and the play of shadows and highlights to sculpt the actors in space. For example, the opening breakfast sequence, which was performed 3 times, was lit with subtle colour temperature changes, starting with warm white for the first set, gradually changing to cold white for the last repetition, suggesting a gradual breakdown of Mr. and Mrs. Rubek’s marriage over time.