Last year I returned to directing for the first time in quite a few years. There was a lot that had changed about the processes around organising a production – Google Forms! Whatsapp! Facebook marketing! – but one that really hit me was the consideration of waste in theatre and how this was never really something I had thought about before.
The play I was doing, Rules for Living, was quite challenging technically. It culminated in a huge food fight, which as written by the playwright, had turkey being thrown around, food going everywhere, clothes ripped and bloodied.
I have to admit I had a visceral reaction to the idea of such waste. With five nights, plus a tech and dress, were we really going to cook and destroy 7 turkeys? Even if we went with chickens instead – which would just look measly – that was still going to be a lot of waste.
And for the clothes? Ten years ago I probably would have just automatically gone to Primark or somewhere and bought 7 identical outfits for each cast member. But now, with everything we know about the impact of fast fashion on the environment, that wasn’t an option either.
In the end, we tackled it by combining a few things. We dialed down the destruction, with only one character’s clothes torn. Our talented costume lady, Iona, used old shirts from the costume cupboard that were on the way out anyway, and loosened the seams. We threw around props that created mayhem but not mess (cards, Christmas decorations etc). We commissioned a fabulously over-the-top prop turkey, which we filled with fake meat. (So fabulous was it that audience members were literally taking selfies with it after the show…) At least the food that was “wasted” was all plant-based and so the impact was as low as possible.
In other areas we were incredibly frugal. Our superstar set-builder, Steve, spent less than 100 Euro on the set, which included a dishwasher, fridge and washing machine, all of which had to open and look usable, even though the director (🙄) had asked for the kitchen to be 15cm deep. He found appliances dumped on the street and then cut them down to the 15cm, also doing some magic to have racks that came out and so on.
So in the end, for this production, I am satisfied that we delivered a quality piece of theatre that nonetheless trod as lightly as possible on the planet. Having said that, I do believe that playwrights, directors and producers have a responsibility to take these elements into consideration when they write/stage theatrical productions. We can do more and we can do better.
Cover photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash