Choice of Play

Given that this is a hypothetical project, the choice of production is entirely down to me. This is an incredibly difficult task: as I learnt from Lars Von Trier's 'Five Obstructions' often limitations can create better work, and it's hard to set yourself your own limitations, as you will always be biased.
Therefore I made a list in my head of qualities that I was looking for in my play choice: I wanted to diversify my portfolio and have the freedom to design something a bit more conceptual and edgy- something less twee than my previous Shakespeare comedy. I also wanted something where the era was non-specific, something archaic- something that wouldn't require 'changing' if I wanted to do it in a more abstract context. Finally, I wanted something a bit sexy, and quite dark, again, to contrast with some of my previous work.

It seems in every project I do, someone along the way describes my work as 'humorous', and although I'm normally fairly convinced that it's meant in the best possible way, I'd like to challenge myself to get away from this earmark in this project, maybe creating something striking or disturbing rather than 'humorous'. 

Immediately, Phillip Riddley came to mind: a favourite author of mine as a child, whose harrowing adult plays have impressed and disturbed me in more recent times. However, after some research and careful consideration, I felt that actually, the grotesque nature that his plays relied on in order to work, often stemmed from the context conveying a lot of modern realism, with just a few fantastical flares (tying in with the bizarrely named characters etc.) Therefore, I decided that maybe his plays were not the best choice for show-casing the sort of design I wanted to explore in this project.

Although I quite fancied doing something obscure, I reasoned that I will probably spend a lot of my time in the future working on very 'obscure' pieces (experimental pieces, or fringe theatre etc.), and that actually it might benefit my portfolio to chose a classic text to design so that those who are viewing it can grasp my interpretation of the context easier. Maybe I'm wrong, but either way, it's a starting point.

I looked through a lot of plays and lists and synopses and in the end, I found myself most interested at plays that had been banned. Among these I saw Oscar Wilde's Salomé, admittedly a play that I'd had in mind from the very beginning, despite not knowing much about it. Salomé appealed to me because it ticked all the boxes, and seemed like the perfect text to inspire me to do some effective but imaginative designs.

I don't want to do what I did for Much Ado, and 'take it out' of its original context, it would be more that I would enjoy creating my own stylized interpretation of 1st century Israel etc. It is a timeless tale so historical accuracy is not paramount. 

I also looked into the Richard Strauss opera based on Wilde's text. Although I would like to design for opera, and I may well favour this version after reading the 2 different scripts, I would really like to do Salomé as a site-specific piece, and I'd be a bit worried about the complications of acoustics in locations that were not built for opera. But again, this remains to be seen.
At this point, with help from my tutor, I had narrowed down my selection to two plays:

-Oscar Wilde's Salomé 

-Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love.

I have ordered both the plays and I hope to begin reading them as soon as they arrive, as I can't wait to get going with this project and I already feel behind!

NOTE:
I will also look at recent productions of these plays, I'm worried because I remember there being quite a recent production of Salomé by Headlong when I was on Foundation, and I think it got very good reviews. So I'll have to have a look.