Hen Rebel told the story of the brief but powerful religious revival that took place in Wales in 1904 - 05, led and inspired by Evan Roberts. It was written by Valmai Jones and conceived on a large scale, with a cast of 13 and a chorus of 20. It was a play with a very important musical thread running through it: both hymns and specially composed music by Einion Dafydd. I was very lucky to have a long lead time and to be able to have discussions with Valmai and Cefin about the design before the script reached its final form.
The brief was to design a touring production for the main stages in Wales that was able to accommodate many different locations including 4 chapels, streets, a drapers shop amongst others and also to give an overall feeling of place i.e. industrial Wales at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It also had to be fitted up in 4 hours when on tour. Upstage and dominating the set was a framed letterbox format projection screen (see above) on to which were cast sepia images using a magnificent Road Runner LX100 video projector. The images were manipulated in Serif PhotoPlus 10 from photos I had taken around Wales. I wanted to have control of the images, not be limited to library pictures. In contrast to the 2D images the rest of the set was highly textured: crumbling brick and fragments of architectural moulding for the surround and wood and slate for the floor. Upstage in front of the screen was a large bridge and 2 steel framed gauze screens tracked on from the wings, suspended from an overhead girder.
The colour range for the sets and costumes were very muted. The costumes were realised by Edwina Jones Williams and the set constructed by Set Free of Mold and painted by Chris Green.
In order to keep the momentum of the production flowing, the scene changes occurred while the action proceeded and furniture and props were kept to a minimum. A few chapel chairs and tables and half a dozen benches served for all occasions, be it pub or chapel and when not in use were stowed at the side of the stage. An upright Edwardian piano was the sole musical instrument. The success of the design relied heavily on the beautiful lighting by Ace McCarron.
For years now I have used AutoSketch v6 to do my plans and working drawings, and to this I have now add email and Turbo Cad v9 with which I constructed a simple computer model to lie in parallel to the conventional model. I emailed the plans (saved in DWG format) to Giles Parberry, the production manager for Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru in Llanelli who printed them out on his plotter, and distributed them to the workshop in Mold. The system was a godsend as we were so geographically spread. The set when built was taken to Llanelli where the cast rehearsed on it for a week before it was transported to Cardiff for the production week and opening.
