Elizabeth Gadsby: Taking the stage
Set designer
INTERVIEW BY JANNE RYAN | photography by HON BOEY (MAIN PIC), DANIEL BOUD, ZAN WIMBERLEY, STEPHANIE ZAPPALA
Trained in the visual arts, set designer Elizabeth Gadsby illuminates the interior of characters from indie theatre to opera. In 2019 she designed the look of Sydney Theatre Company’s powerful new production Lord of the Flies. Elizabeth speaks with Sparkkle about finding the narrative, collaborations and confidence.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU IN THEATRE?
I find ideas really inspiring. The spark for me lies at the conceptual stage, when I first start working with the director. Usually we will sit down and read the text aloud. If it’s an opera we will listen to it, and press stop when we want to talk about it. I depend on these early conversations, that’s where I find the thread.
Gadsby making a set for Cosi by Sydney Theatre Company. Photo: Stephanie Zappala.
WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS IN DESIGNING SETS?
At the early stage we don’t usually talk about design, I first need to understand the internal logic of the piece. So we shut ourselves away for weeks discussing the experiences and emotions of the characters. We’re asking things like: ‘What is happening here? Why did they say that? What does this remind me of?’. Sometimes I have a cornerstone image which becomes a starting point. If it’s an opera, I find I have a pure visual response to the music – when I hear the music, I see it. For me, this process is key
A Cheery Soul by Patrick White. 2018 Sydney Theatre Company. Direction: Kip Williams. Set: Elizabeth Gadsby. Costume: Alice Babidge. Photo: Daniel Boud.
“COLLABORATION IS THE NEW MENTORSHIP.”
ON FEAR AND CONFIDENCE
It is always exciting when someone comes to you with a great project they want you to be part of, then all of a sudden you think: Shit! I’ve got to do this for real’. You feel excited, then daunted. I probably have doubt rather than fear. But once I start, I’m confident I will find my way through. I just think: ‘Oh well, I am here now’. I had a couple of supportive teachers at NIDA who reassured me I was moving in the right direction. But how do you ever really know?
ON COLLABORATION
Collaboration is the new mentorship. I’m hoping to do more work in television and film in this way. You have to build on the fulfilling collaborations you do with people you trust, and ask each other: 'What’s the next thing we could do together”. I’m currently collaborating on a few projects including: Lord of the Flies (Sydney Theatre Company), Mozart’s La Finta Giariniera (Queensland Conservatorium) and DUNT, an Alice Oswald poem (in collaboration with singer Jane Sheldon).
Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill. Sydney Theatre Company. Direction: Kip Williams. Set & Costume: Elizabeth Gadsby. Photo: Daniel Boud.
ON TRUST
You have to open yourself up and surrender. There is a real intimacy needed between myself and the director, a kind of creative love. You have to find a connection, and to find your connection with a script, you have to bare all. It can be quite confronting. In the first two weeks, everyone is on a high, and by the third week it’s like: ‘What the hell is this?’ ‘Will it be any good?’. Then you have to trust that the decisions you made six months ago are going to land and still make sense.
“SOMETIMES I THINK: ‘GOD, I’M SUCH A PUSHOVER.”
STANDING YOUR GROUND
When someone says to me: ‘Oh we couldn’t do this because of this reason or that’, I can go: ‘That’s reasonable, I understand the context’. Then we talk about alternatives. But I know some designers say: ‘Just do it this way’. I know that’s less collaborative, but sometimes I think: ‘God, I’m such a pushover’. Not because of being a woman, although that does come into it a bit.
The Rape of Lucretia.Victoria Opera + Sydney Chamber Opera. Dark Mofo. Music: Benjamin Britten. Text: Ronald Duncan. Direction: Kip Williams. Assoc. Direction & Costume: Elizabeth Gadsby. Set: David Fliescher. Photo: Zan Wimberley.
REFINEMENT
In tech you are doing 18 hours a day – the hard slog of refining. It’s very stop-start and crunchy. So you sit there in the dark and look at this thing you’ve created with a group of people and think: ‘Who was insane enough to let me spend that amount of money, and did I spent it wisely’? Actors are there for the first time and always a bit freaked out.
YOUR DREAM COMMISSION?
I recently watched the Netflix documentary Beyonce. It was amazing – she totally owns her space, and in terms of the staging – wow! I want to design her show, be on her team.
