"The Dinner" designed by David Burrows
"The Dinner" by Leah Vitali - Municipal Theatre, Larnaka, Cyprus/2003
Directed by Alkis Kritikos
DESIGNER: DAVID BURROWS

This was a return to Cyprus after designing 'Tartuffe' in Nicosia in 1997 also with director Alkis Kritikos. The seaside town of Larnaka was a contrast to the capital city and provided an enjoyable working environment. It was a more closely knit, supportive community with many townspeople eager to support the project.

I sent the designs for the play via email, a temporary web page and fax before my only visit a week before the show opened. Happily the same workshop team which had built the set for "Tartuffe" was responsible for "The Dinner" and it all fell into place smoothly enough. I worked on the six costumes during the week and, as this was a modern-dress production this mainly entailed shopping with each actor.

I'd enjoyed designing the furniture, particularly the three-legged chairs with the serpent tails and zebra skin seats. The perspex table top, with its frosted centre, allowed for dramatic up-lighting through the debris of glasses at the play's tragic conclusion, - the rape and murder following a drunken after-dinner game which goes out of control. This was only the second production of the play earlier running successfully in Athens for two years.

Click HERE for another photograph of this production.

(For more information about this designer see his entry in the Designers' Register)

RETURN TO THE PICTURE GALLERY