Sex and nighttime

Working on ‘The White Devil’ with Lazarus was fantastic. Coming into the day I was nervous but excited. I'd worked previously on ‘The Revengers Tragedy’, which I greatly enjoyed.

A wild play, that we had a brilliant time getting into. So I knew it would be another great experience, with some phenomenal creatives in the room.

And that turned out to be true. We got straight into the text reading an Act and then discussing it. We would highlight different themes and discuss how/why Webster uses them in the text. The theme I found most interesting in regard to its dramatic effect, was Time/Location. In a play full of characters who, for parts of play, talk more about what they want to do, than actually taking action, we asked why is that?

And we found a correlation between sex and nighttime. Which I think immediately created something ominous and disturbing about nighttime in the play. Not only is it sex, but death too, with Isabella and Camillo’s deaths happening in the night. It made me think about staging. If this were to be put on, what happens technically to create that ominous and disturbing vibe on stage in scenes set at night. But also, how do the actors create that with how they sound/move. It’s something I would definitely like to explore again soon. 

Will Kerr