Production Design
The production’s action took place exclusively on a raised platform in the middle of the stage floor with no doors to mark entrances or exits. The scenes were suggested by furniture and props, and a projection on the screen at the back of the stage.
All furniture and props were stored in the audience’s sight at both sides of the playing area. Actors not involved in a particular scene and the four stagehands sat quietly at the sides of the studio.
As should be clear, the overall set design was, as Brecht desired, anti-illusionary. The actors remained themselves until they stepped on the platform, assumed their Gestus, and performed their roles. The space around the performance area was clearly a theatre and the only items on stage were ones necessary for the scenes to progress.
The items themselves, however, aimed to give a sense of the period, historicising the action. The mobile Dan offers Alice in scene 1; the analogue camera Anna shoots with in scene 2; the laptop Dan brings into scene 3; and the telephone Alice tries to contact Reception in scene 11 were all typical of the time.
The design, then, mixed an anti-naturalistic minimalism with an attention to historical detail.