A lot of thought went into the set, especially when it’s a home. How a family decorates tells me a lot about them, especially the photos they display and the paintings they hang on the walls. In Clybourne Park, we were trying to show that a space is a space; the political climate around a space changes on the values of the people who live there. For that reason, we kept the walls blank. A couple things were left over in the first act when Bev and Russ are packing up, but there aren’t any pictures or paintings. However, you can see marks on the wall where they were once hung. Those marks give us the illusion of a frame. It makes us wonder what used to be there. During the second act, those “frames” are still there. So are the lingering memories of the events and politics of the past. The New York Times says,”People exist in a state of constant irritation with one another…What’s more, they all speak different languages, even within a single family. Which means that whenever they try to say the right thing, it’s going to sound dead wrong to somebody else” (Brantley). That’s what we were really trying to capture. In A Raisin in the Sun, the conflict between family members themselves is clear. So is the tension between Mr. Lindner, a white man, and the Youngers, a black family. Clybourne Park reflects these tensions, and the set was an integral part of that.
Works Cited
Brantley, Ben. “Slashing the Tires on the Welcome Wagon.” The New York Times. 19 April 2012. The New York Times. Web. 20 March 2016.
Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris. Dir. Ann Marie Costa. Duke Family Performance Hall, Davidson College. 18 March. Performance.
Pledged, IJS