Unrealized design created in 2013.
The woods in winter. Without foliage, you feel like you should be able to see further than you can, but all you see are endless trees and snow. Most of the life of the woods is dormant, so the land lies quiet. Yet the moaning of bare branches in the wind, the creaking of the snow settling, and was that a noise behind you? You turn and see nothing but trees and snow and fog rolling in, but you feel like you are being watched…
The text of Macbeth is rife with nature imagery and ties to the natural world. I wanted to explore placing the presence of nature as a constant in the background representing visually the constant presence of nature in the play. When reading the play, I was struck by the quiet eeriness of what occurs onstage. Yes there are battles and great events but they all happen off stage. What we see are the moments in between, the quiet occurrences behind the scenes that lead to a man’s rise to power: Macbeth alone with the witches, the murders that propel Macbeth into power, the madness that follows, the ghosts. I felt the woods in winter evoked the same eerily quiet, yet dangerous, world of the play. The cycle of nature is always there, always powerful, always cycling forward through life unstoppable.
As far as time period, I didn’t choose a specific period. I wanted to create an environment that was easily relatable to a contemporary audience, but was a bit out of time. The interiors of Macbeth’s castle I wanted to place in a contemporary style but with décor elements that reference medieval times. Like an older building that has been renovated, the mix of old and new create a sense of being out of a specific time or place or being both in the now and back in the past.
The woods in winter. Without foliage, you feel like you should be able to see further than you can, but all you see are endless trees and snow. Most of the life of the woods is dormant, so the land lies quiet. Yet the moaning of bare branches in the wind, the creaking of the snow settling, and was that a noise behind you? You turn and see nothing but trees and snow and fog rolling in, but you feel like you are being watched…
The text of Macbeth is rife with nature imagery and ties to the natural world. I wanted to explore placing the presence of nature as a constant in the background representing visually the constant presence of nature in the play. When reading the play, I was struck by the quiet eeriness of what occurs onstage. Yes there are battles and great events but they all happen off stage. What we see are the moments in between, the quiet occurrences behind the scenes that lead to a man’s rise to power: Macbeth alone with the witches, the murders that propel Macbeth into power, the madness that follows, the ghosts. I felt the woods in winter evoked the same eerily quiet, yet dangerous, world of the play. The cycle of nature is always there, always powerful, always cycling forward through life unstoppable.
As far as time period, I didn’t choose a specific period. I wanted to create an environment that was easily relatable to a contemporary audience, but was a bit out of time. The interiors of Macbeth’s castle I wanted to place in a contemporary style but with décor elements that reference medieval times. Like an older building that has been renovated, the mix of old and new create a sense of being out of a specific time or place or being both in the now and back in the past.
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© Sasha Augustine