'The Man of Mode' - Post 09

Classical Theatre Performance Assignment –

‘The Man of Mode’ or, ‘Sir Fopling Flutter’

Tuesday 15^th – Friday 18^th March 2016

Staging

     When constructing the style of the staging, we took huge inspiration from the artist William Hogarth and his work on the stage production ‘The Rake’s Progress’.  As a 17^th century artist his work neutralized the rich lifestyles of gentlemen of that period.  Here is key example of his art work:

     It is in his art work, like this piece, where he masters two key aspects.  Firstly, he successfully projects the mad/rich lifestyle that gentlemen with power endured in that time.  Secondly, his artistic value shines through the sketch/shading style of the painting, naturalizing the realistic tone of the image and perfectly highlighting any and all outrageous images to be seen within the image.

     It was this artistic value, of sketch and shading style of art that gave us inspiration to base our set off of.  Looking further into set work for the stage production of ‘The Rake’s Progress’, I noticed a similar reflection within its artistic value.  For example:

     I became rather fond of the artistic value in these set and costume designs.  Not only where they reminiscent of Hogarth’s sketchy style of drawing, but the use of colours and outlines for the scenes surrounding really supports the overall image of a 17^th Century household.  Plus I was particularly fond of the way certain costumes blended in with the background enhancing the impression that the characters were works of art as well.

     This was something we achieved with our set for ‘The Man of Mode’:

     With our set we excluded all colour to give an old stylistic (black and white) vibe.  Plus with our costumes in colour it would make both the characters and the set have a distinctive contrast, giving the audience two artistic values to observe within our performance.  Not only that, but we would be giving homage to both Hogarth’s art work and ‘The Rake’s Progress’ unique set.

Resource Link on William Hogarth: https://nb.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/britain-18c/britain-ageof-revolution/a/hogarth-a-rakes-progress