Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023 - 31

of communication, was the story of
Serafima+Bogdan entitled Eternity, a
haunting tale of a separated brother
and sister, set on two sides of a forest in
Estonia. Two audience banks were built
on either side of a grove of trees, and they
could not see each other. In fact, they saw
different performances-one telling the
story of the sister, the other telling the
story of the brother-happening at the
same time. While the performers were
able to traverse the entire space, each
story had its own unique soundscape,
and each audience only saw and heard
one story. At intermission, the audience
was able to switch sides and learn about
the other sibling's life from a new sonic
and visual vantage point. I imagine that
the production may have been incredibly
challenging for the stage managers and
sound technicians, as they attempted
to call and deliver cues that could only
be guessed at because they could only
hear but not see the actors. It was a privilege
to have the creative producer of the
production, Maarja Mänd, explain the
conception and the challenges of this fascinating
event to me. The installation of
Eternity at PQ also speaks to two other
themes emerging out of PQ23: that of encouraging
viewers to look up, and that of
the alone-ness signified by a single bed.
Home Box Theatre
The Quadrennial revealed many countries
whose designers created theatrical
An attendee experiencing Denmark's Home Box Theatre in solitude. | Photo by Susan Tsu.
experiences that could be absorbed
alone at home. One that caused me to
stop in my tracks was from Denmark
(Home Box Theatre), where the casual
passer-by would see the back of a single
person facing a screen and making choices
of the environmental projections that
would emerge, from a little wooden box
with drawers. It felt very personal, and
observers became voyeurs, witnesses to
the alone-ness of the experience.
Alone-ness and Environment
Alone-ness was on a lot of people's
minds....to the degree that the theme of
RARE-ness felt superseded. And that
was fine. For me, this theme of aloneness
emerged in the form of a single
wrought iron bed, which could be seen
in the exhibitions from Finland (Bee
Company--Mehiläisten Seura), Hungary
(winterreise.box. PQ Best Design in ECR
Award), Macau (Home Staycation) and
Estonia (Eternity). Of course, each installation
had its own particular questions/
stories/messages to pass on, but I found
an eerie commonality. Don't we spend
our days in bed when we are sick? Don't
we die alone in bed? Isn't it how too many
loved ones who could not have family
beside them died? Don't we spend more
time there when we are depressed? It
is not surprising that the bed became a
semiotic obsession tied to the pandemic.
But too, isn't our bed where some of our
best ideas emerge from?
Another theme that materialized
Solitude and isolation were symbolized in many exhibitions by modest single beds including Hungary's
winterreise.box. | Photo by Jakub Hrab, Prague Quadrennial 2023.
was that of environment, looking at and
looking up. There were mirrored installations,
and installations that drew our
eyes upward only to see ourselves looking
back. They seemed to be everywhere.
These literal and symbolically reflective
environments were initially a visual
delight to experience, but then, as the
viewer engaged with the insights and beliefs
that drove the curators, playfulness
fell away to profundity. These are some
of the installations that caused people
to become deliciously aware of their environment,
of looking, looking up, and
ultimately looking inward: Romania (The
Bridge), Lithuania (Theatre navigation:
What's out there), New Zealand (Ka emiemi),
Estonia (Eternity), Morocco (The
FALL 2023 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 31

Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023

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