Set and Lighting Design for Dacia Maraini’s Dialogue Between a Prostitute and Her Client

Katy Biver and Ross Kelly
 

            Are women no better or worse than prostitutes? Is being an independent, honest and freethinking prostitute more practical than being a whore in an office or a shop or a home? These are some of the questions that Dacia Maraini asks in her play Dialogue Between a Prostitute and Her Client (Dialogo di una prostituta col sua cliente, 1978). By exploring a complex and disturbing relationship between a woman/prostitute/mother and a man/client/child, Maraini challenges societal notions about gender and power, which forces audience members to question themselves and the roles they choose to play in a world divided by sex. Within the setting of her apartment, Manila (the prostitute) and the Client clash on a plethora of sexual and ideological issues, yet their vehemence toward each other is undercut by a mutual attraction. The play revolves around Manila’s struggle to suppress her burgeoning feelings for her charming, idiosyncratic client. She eventually refuses his offers of security, partly because she already has a means of protection. Who needs a pimp when you’ve created a kind of union/business/family with other prostitutes? Manila’s strong connection to other working women is not only her sanctuary, but her legacy to her baby daughter, whom she is trying to raise outside the realm of patriarchy. The fact that the food Manila feeds her child is bought with the money she receives from either active or passive supporters of sexism is one of the many gray areas the play isn’t afraid to expose and explore.

            As designers, Ross Kelly and Katy Biver attempted to support and highlight the emotional, psychological and thematic elements of the play through the use of lights and shadows, forms and fabrics. Katy used three distinct varieties of lighting. The first and most pervasive was a mixture of warm and cool colors, which created a realistic atmosphere in Manila’s apartment. The second was used when Manila stepped out of the play to address the audience. In these instances, the lighting on the set was dimmed while the house lights came up, momentarily blinding the audience. With the illumination (and the attention) effectively redirected at the audience, the actress playing Manila was able to more actively engage and question the unsuspecting spectators. The third was purposefully stylized to indicate the shift from the reality of the apartment to the intimacy of Manila’s monologues. Lights with mint and aqua colored gels were hung at either side of the stage and when used separately they flattened out the set and the actress’s skin, lengthened shadows and created atmospheres that underscored Manila’s grotesque, tragic and darkly comic discourses. In two of the more sexually explicit monologues, lights with red gels saturated the stage or distinct parts of it (i.e. the bed) in such a way as to emphasize the emotion and intention of Manila’s words.

            While the three styles of lighting helped to create sharply contrasting tones and to move the play through its many transitions, the set grounded the action in a particular (albeit highly stylized) environment. Ross designed the angular and fragmented walls to give the impression of a city apartment. The pink, brown and cream washes that covered the walls and the red and black lines that arced and spilled across them were inspired by the abstract paintings of Richard Diebenkorn and reflected the emotional turmoil of both Manila and the Client. The three full-length mirrors weren’t mounted on the walls to indulge whatever small sliver of vanity Manila possessed, but to humor the far greater pretentions of her clients. At the same time, the mirrors acted as foils to the window, which was Manila’s means of looking outward rather than inward (like the Client). Perhaps of most significance was the angularity of the walls contrasted with the gray, amber and off-white fabric that hung in loose, organic strands above and behind the stage. The canopy of fabric embodied Manila’s femininity and her connection to all women (be they a part of her specific profession or not); the sharp walls embodied the Client’s masculinity and, more generally, the male world. The contrast, or conflict rather, between the sexes is (to oversimplify) the heart of the play, and the environment in which the actors moved and breathed was designed, as was the lighting that sculpted their bodies, to echo the heart.  
 

 



(all photos by Craig Choma)