Lighting Design for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia of Woolf” is a 1962 play by Edward Albee about the complexities of an older married couples’ relationship as they entertain a younger unwitting couple across a late-night drinking session following a faculty party. This production was a critically acclaimed rendition originally created in the 80 seat Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre. The work was reimagined and redesigned to sit within the 1000 seat Comedy Theatre playing to a significantly larger audience than its original season. Tasked with designing the lighting for this project proffered some exceptional challenges. Recreating the original production’s mood and atmosphere in a proscenium arch theatre over ten times the size was one of the most significant hurdles the project presented. Working with director Sarah Goodes the brief was retain the intimacy of the original staging whilst depicting a sense of theatricality that would frame the piece as work of ritual and ceremony. The colour palette of the light shifted within a small but uneasy range that amplified the emotional context of the characters interactions across the evening. The lighting also served to focus in upon each of the characters anxieties and psychological state in a way that was meant to underline the uncanniness of the narrative’s descent into chaos.