Astera Titans light Lord of the Flies
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Directed by Kip Williams, the production has been acclaimed for many aspects including its diverse mixed gender 11-person adult cast who brought new energy and insight into William Golding’s tense psychological novel that explores some brutal, uncomfortable and uncompromising issues related to chaos, power and human behaviour.
Alex is a theatrical director as well as a lighting designer and he’s constantly looking at different and more spatial ways to use lighting for building dramaturgic foundations and challenging some of the more traditional rules of lighting. “The Tubes were almost like cast members,” he explains, “transcending the set, lighting and direction.”
Each tube was flown on the two individually controlled Orbisfly winches so they could be used to change shape and definition of the space and interact with the cast. Towards the end of the play, eight were unclipped from their catenary flying wires and used as luminous sticks by the cast.
It’s the first time that Alex has utilised Astera products in one of this shows, and the decision came when he, Kip and set designer Elizabeth Gadsby had all decided that a wireless kinetic lighting element would assist in creating the specific desired aesthetic.
They started looking around for suitable options together with Corinne Fish, full-time lighting supervisor for the Sydney Theatre Company and chief LX on Lord of the Flies. It was also the first time that Corinne had worked with Astera. Chameleon lighting were the main lighting suppliers.
All the winch positional moves and the Titan Tubes were programmed into the house ETC Gio console by Corinne. As the show was so complex, the general lighting rig was programmed and run an EOS Ti console by Blake Garner, a setup that left Corinne to focus on the Tubes and kinetics.
(Jim Evans)
