Enter the theatre for a show designed by Miriam Buether and you have no idea what to expect. You may be seated around a boxing ring. The stage floor may be in constant motion. The entire set may disappear without warning.
Born in Germany, Buether has made her name in Britain with audacious design for bold new writing. She notes the effect of immersive, site-specific productions by companies such as Punchdrunk, but says “my interest is to have that experience in a theatre. I look at the shell of the building. You strip away everything and think what can be made from the shell.”
Wild
Mike Bartlett’s play about an Edward Snowden figure was directed by James Macdonald at the Hampstead theatre in 2016
“The production presented three completely distinct set designs. For much of the play it is a completely authentic hotel room, but then everything vanishes. The ceiling had to be elastic, the walls had to fly out. The back wall was like a curtain, suddenly sucked out.”
- Caoilfhionn Dunne and Jack Farthing in Wild
“Everything you believe is true is dismantled before your eyes. It was brilliant to watch the audience as the change took place.
“We worked with a magician. Mike Bartlett wanted everything to disappear through a completely different theatrical device, so that there was no apparent logic. When everything had gone, the empty backstage space suddenly turned by 90o. The actor, John Mackay, initially got headaches and felt sick at the change in gravity.”
“We couldn’t really test everything until the set was in place. Every production like this is creating a prototype – it’s more exciting if it’s something you haven’t ever done before.”
The Trial
Richard Jones directed Nick Gill’s adaptation of Kafka’s novel at the Young Vic in 2015
“This is one of my favourite shows. The travelator was a 20th-century image of dystopia, of the rat race. It achieved a continuous sequence of disconnected, dreamlike images. We had this endless storyboard on a single roll of paper– Richard called it the loo roll – and retained Kafka’s imagery, like the door, the corridor. Rory Kinnear (who played Josef K) was never offstage.”
- A model showing the travelator, left, and Rory Kinnear as Josef K
“The travelator could only move in one direction, so scenes and furniture had to be ready in the exact configuration – it was a technical nightmare. The brilliant stage crew were loading and unloading things all the time. Some of the furniture had to be carted around underneath the audience in order to appear on the other side.”
“Most of the set was plywood, painted orange. I like to use real materials – things that don’t pretend to be anything else. I wanted to use a green travelator belt – but I got a call in the middle of night and was told, ‘The travelator doesn’t move.’ So I had to go back to a black one designed by the post office. The green one had slightly more friction because it was a different kind of rubber.”
Anna Nicole
Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera about Anna Nicole Smith, directed by Richard Jones, premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 2011
“We took over the whole of the Royal Opera House. Anna Nicole’s face was everywhere, just as it had been all over the media. We put photos of her face over all the pictures in the foyer, and paper bags with her face on over the statues. Her toothbrush and shoe were in a display case.”
“Her mask was on the cherubs in the auditorium, and we replicated the red velvet curtains in bright pink. We even replaced the Queen’s face on the medallion. It was very provocative.”
- Four set designs from the production
“The design was in salmon pink, very Barbie. It suggested the American dream, but also a compound where Anna Nicole was exploited. By the end she was alone, surrounded by dancers wearing camera heads.”
Earthquakes in London
Buether won an Evening Standard award for designing Mike Bartlett’s play, directed by Rupert Goold at the National Theatre in 2010
“This is an epic play over five acts, examining life under the threat of climate change.
“The main idea was a serpentine catwalk through the whole of the theatre. This was a dynamic way of staging fluid, disconnected scenes of contemporary life. Some of the audience were standing and some were on barstools.”
“The catwalk was bright orange. Colour is important to me, and this choice emphasised the hyperrealism of the play. It’s unsettling and provocative.
“I work a lot with Mike Bartlett – he is a writer who embraces design and is drawn to explore things spacially. He initially felt the play should have as much furniture and props as possible – but there was no space for that on the catwalk. A big design concept can be a tightrope walk, but if the director can embrace that, like Rupert did, it can be very successful.”
Boy
Leo Butler’s play was directed by Sacha Wares, Buether’s frequent collaborator, at the Almeida in 2016
“Katie Mitchell introduced me to Sacha. She is a visionary director. It’s a very intimate relationship: you’re not afraid of putting everything out there.”
- An early plan showing the seating arrangement and catwalk route for the production
“Boy is about a lost generation. Everything flows past the central character, furniture and people. There are no roots or structure. It’s a tragic story of isolation.”
- Abdul Salis and Frankie Fox in Boy
“We had the travelator from day one of rehearsal. It had to go round corners, with actors and furniture standing on it. People did fall off in rehearsal. It’s unnerving for an actor if the stage is running under your feet.”
“The leg braces that living statues wear [and that make the characters look as if they are sitting or slouching unsupported] were suggested by the choreographer Leon Baugh – but no one would give away their secret. We tried making them ourselves, but they didn’t really work. Eventually we found our prototype in China.”
The Wonderful World of Dissocia
The Wonderful World of Dissocia, written and directed by Anthony Neilson, opened at the Edinburgh festival in 2004
“I love Anthony Neilson’s work. Dissocia was quite unnerving. Lisa, the heroine, has bipolar disorder, so Anthony wanted to create two separate acts.”
“The first act was the presentation of Lisa’s interior world, full of fantastical characters and covered with carpet. Like when you play on the carpet as a child and seem to see an infinite space.
“The second act is set in an austere hospital ward. This set was an alienating glass box, so that we were observing Lisa like a lab rat, which was desperately sad.”
“I like working with models – they allow three-dimensional thinking. We’ll quite often get through 10 or 15 white cardboard models on a show. My children get to play with them afterwards …”
- Photographs by Tristram Kenton for the Guardian, Alastair Muir/Rex/Shutterstock and Stephen Cummiskey, and courtesy Miriam Buether
