Giles Cadle, set designer on The Tempest - Royal Shakespeare ...

<strong>Giles</strong> <strong>Cadle</strong>, <strong>set</strong> <strong>designer</strong> on The Tempest
3 August 2006 – Interview by Suzanne Worthington, RSC Education
How did you prepare for your initial meeting with the director and the <strong>designer</strong>?
I just read the play a few times to try and understand what it's about.
So you had quite an open mind?
Yes, definitely.
You collaborated with Nicky and Rupert: what is useful from a director in terms of
input and what would you rather they didn't do?
With something like Shakespeare, it's better the director comes with a view of what they want
you to do with the play because it's been done so many times. You need to have a vague idea
of which way to go with it - otherwise you have nothing.
For this production, Rupert said he would like to <strong>set</strong> it in a cold environment. Some directors
are very visual and some just aren't visual at all. I think it's useful to have some direction in
terms of what their view of the play is and where and what period to <strong>set</strong> it in.
It depends what the play is. For new writing, it doesn't always need that input.
How did you research your work on The Tempest?
Were there any images or artists which crystallised the play for you?
No. I did a lot of research around the subject to try and find images that interested me or
seemed appropriate.
What themes or emotional qualities in The Tempest did you want to draw out
through the design?
It was about making the island into a place where these things could happen, giving it a real
sense but also a surreal sense that enabled the activities of the magical world to happen.
Can you explain more about how that came out in the design? The way in which the
stage works is interesting, with the curtain coming across…
Yes. There are lots of scenes in the play that had to be addressed. They seem to take place in
parts of the island but at the same time within the same location. So there was that to be
solved. Rupert was keen on some kind of endless landscape, which is very hard to do on
stage. Any sort of natural object on stage doesn't look right!
Like clouds painted on a sheet?!
Yes – it always looks rubbish! Also there's the constraint that this show has to play in
repertoire. The floor has to break into very small pieces [so it can be moved into and out of
the theatre quickly]. So you can't do a snowy floor. I was trying to take an environment that
at first glance looks quite naturalistic but in reality is abstract. Something that doesn't look
wrong but doesn't look right...
Some people like to work on their own or use the internet or brainstorm with other
people. How do you work?
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I do lots of sketches or little storyboards. It's very important to break the play down into bitesized
pieces, the different scenes and people who need to be on-stage, how they might get
onto the stage, the architecture of how the play might be directed, let alone what it looks like.
What it looks like is sometimes the last thing I come to.
We're designing three months before rehearsals start. I sketch predominantly just to get
things moving very quickly, and then we build maquettes and scale models, and I do draft on
a computer.
How do you communicate your final designs, for example to the acting company?
With a model, or a photograph of a model if it's an endless number of scenes.
Going back to collaboration, how did you work with Nicky Gillibrand [the costume
<strong>designer</strong>]? In many RSC productions there is only one <strong>designer</strong> doing both the <strong>set</strong>
and the costumes. Why was the decision made to have both of you, and how did you
work together?
I've worked with Nicky many times before and I think she's the best costume <strong>designer</strong> in the
business. I'd ask her to do everything that I do – because she can do it so much better than
me! Some directors are keen to split the scenes and the costumes because doing both, it's
very hard to service the director in terms of being in two places at the same time. Once
you're on-stage, there's a lot of running around. I do costumes half the time when I design,
and half the time I don't.
Have you worked with Rupert before, or designed The Tempest before?
No. I did A Midsummer Night's Dream at the RSC about four years ago.
Did that affect the way you designed this, at all?
It did a bit in terms of my view of the space and how powerful you can make things look on
that stage [the Royal Shakespeare Theatre]. It's a very difficult stage.
In terms of staging a play, you can update the context for a contemporary audience.
But the <strong>set</strong>ting for this production is both familiar and strange at the same time.
How did you and Rupert arrive at that? Or was it all Rupert's idea?
Yes and no. My view on period costumes or period <strong>set</strong>tings is that sometimes I find them a
distraction, they don't let you into the play. I don't mean that you have to update the play
just for the sake of it but you need to have some understanding of why people are doing
things or what their actions are and not see it as some kind of museum piece.
You mean they look like they're in fancy-dress?
Yes. Sometimes it's valid and it works very well but I find it quite hard to watch people in
tights - I can't take them seriously!
It's always about finding a language in which you can communicate things. Sometimes ultramodern
is equally problematic because then you have to make comment about the
environment in which it's <strong>set</strong>.
You talked before about abstraction versus naturalism - Rupert wanted the <strong>set</strong> to
look natural – but how?
Not natural... he wanted a 'tremendous expanse'.
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Some scenes aren't particularly abstract, for example the scenes in the cabin…
The space itself is abstract. Where do you stop building? Do you build the whole boat or do
you just build a suggestion of the boat? It's always, 'At what point do we stop the
abstraction?' It's relative.
At the beginning of the play, the <strong>set</strong> give you the sense of being in a cinema. How
did you come up with that idea?
We [Rupert and I] both liked the idea of a nightmare – it's a nightmarish play, strange things
happen and it does feel a bit like one of those scary Hitchcock movies. So we started off with
that context. The play almost starts twice: with the storm, then it starts again with everybody
arriving at the island. The storm is almost like a trailer to the play, so we thought we could
divide the two.
Why did you decide to use video projection in the production?
You have to change the scenes quickly. We use a wipe device, just a curtain passed in front of
the stage. It's very filmic, and in order to make it look a bit more interesting, not just a black
object, we used video.
Lorna Heavey [the video <strong>designer</strong>] animated the curtain in a beautiful way. It took a long
time to fine-tune. It's not an easy thing that you can alter quickly. It developed over a period
of time. It's something that you note, take away, come back to... and hope things haven't
changed in the time between!
To finish, a few biographical questions. So how did you train to do this job?
I did a degree in architecture and then…
Seven years?!
No I did the degree in three years. And then I did a post-grad in theatre design.
Did you always want to do that or at some point in the degree did you think, 'Hmm,
maybe I don't want to do buildings'?
Having completed the degree and starting to work as a very junior architect, it wasn't quite
what I wanted to do. In the last couple of years of doing architecture, I started going to the
theatre a lot and I got interested in it.
So you transferred it with a post-grad?
Yes I went to look at some post-grad courses, not with an intention of doing one, but while
looking I was offered a place to start the following week. I think somebody just dropped out
or something! I filled the place.
How did you get from a post-grad to the RSC?
There's no direct route, it's not like being an apprentice and then becoming a master. I
worked as an assistant to a <strong>designer</strong> for a few years and from that, I met directors and other
people and slowly got more of my own work. Within that there are, of course, breaks that you
get. But I think you make your own luck.
Finally – what was the most challenging aspect of designing The Tempest?
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All of it!
Transcription by Veryan Boorman
Edited by Suzanne Worthington
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