The Society of British Theatre Designers

The opening family tableau shows the moments before Gretel's birth. There is a strong sense of waiting, time passing, foreboding, life hanging by a thread. Each character occupies his or her own space, but still within the same frame. The father sits at 90 degrees to the floor, drinking soup, while Hansel makes his way slowly down a ladder. It is, as with every image in the production, resonant of a child's vision, where the illogical inner world of the imagination makes sense