The musical Side Show that recently opened at London’s
Southwark Playhouse, is another achievement for one of the most distinctive
stage designers around. For several years now the reputation of takis (the
lower case ‘t’ is deliberate) has acquired immense respect from theatre and
opera producers alike. Having admired takis’ work for years, I am one of the few
reviewers to have seen much of his work in both theatre and opera as well as a number
of regional productions.
Before Side Show opened, I spoke with takis to learn a
little more about his designs for the show, as well as aspects of his other
work, including In The Heights.
 |
| Side Show |
JB: I have to
start with your distinctive name. Please enlighten me
takis: Well, I am
from Greece and it is a Greek name! It was there that my passion with the
theatre commenced. I joined an amateur theatre over there and did a lot of work
with them. Everything! Performing, choreographing, designing and from the age
of 14 to 18 I spent one month a year in Italy doing ancient Greek drama,
festivals and touring. That's how it all built up. Then when I was 16, I was
like, "That's what I want to do, costumes and design!"
So I decided to study Fine Arts and Costumes in a very old
fashioned academy in Bucharest, learnt Romanian and set off.
JB: Is Side Show your first time back at the Southwark Playhouse since In
The Heights?
takis: Yes and
designing the show has been a blessing and a challenge at the same time. A
blessing, as the audience have an inclusive, immersive experience of a
freak/vaudeville show and are able to observe closely the life journey of (the
real life conjoined twins) Violet & Daisy Hilton played extraordinary by
Laura Pitt-Pulford & Louise Dearman. On the other hand, having the audience
that close you need to be as authentic as possible with the overall design and
its details.
Designing real people and in our case ‘freaks’ has not been
an easy task. My first challenge was the conjoining of the two sisters, we kept
changing the device until Laura & Louise felt connected. We are not talking
about only a simple costume connection, but something more anatomical. Their
joining has an impact of how they move, dance and how both embodied the two
sisters. After achieving the ‘connection’ we worked on how to make them look
alike and how to create all the costumes around the achieved conjoined bodies.
We had also to create the ‘freaks’, real people of the 1920s with physical
abnormalities. The realisation of all the freaks (bearded lady, 3 leg man, pin
cushion human, cannibal, lizard man, half man/half woman, tattooed lady,
fortune teller/dolly dimple, dog boy) is based on each performer and period
research. All the designs are driven by the physique and look of each
performer. We experimented and tested ideas until each character came alive. To
be fair, the only way we were able to achieve this was to have two extremely
talented team members in Clare Amos (wardrobe supervisor) and Natasha Lawes
(Wigs, Make up, Prosthetics & Tech-Fx Supervisor).
Moving to the set design; from the beginning we decided that
the best configuration would be ‘in thrust’ which means the actual stage space
is very limited. I had to create levels, entrances and exits and then, within
that, incorporate 7 musicians & 14 cast members. I always design by
responding to the actual architecture of the venue, making the space a friend
rather than an enemy and I have tried to create a 1920s environment which can
change from a freak show to a vaudeville stage.
With the metal structure, cladded with wooden plunks and
lighting bulbs I tried to play with illusions, to exaggerate height and depth,
create perspective compositions. All the wooden planks are connected but are
taking different directions mirroring the characters of the 2 sisters. The
metal, art deco circular shapes bring glimpses of the period style, but also
illustrate the circles of life; from the full circle to the interrupted ones.
I am really proud of what we have achieved here.
 |
| Oliver! |
JB: Looking at
some of your other work, tell me firstly about the Oliver! that you designed at
Leicester’s Curve last year.
takis: Well, I’d
worked a lot with the director Paul Kerryson before, so I knew that we wanted
to make sure that the understanding of the period was correct. We knew that it
needed to be dark as well as brightly coloured.
We have the posh characters, so you want to help that number
to really be strong, have silks. Then you have Fagin’s gang, the underground,
where you have the ability to bring in a lot of textures and colours of the
era. Then I will put some modern fabrics within that, some fabrics that you
could question them if they are of the time, but as a feeling they will give
you exactly that. I went with feelings and textures.
Then of course with the main characters, I always want to
meet them. I want to see, "Who do I have? What is interesting of
them?" Sometimes they have incredible eyes, they have a nose which you
want to exaggerate, or they have a bosom, or they have a waist. Each performer
has something to give you that is good to know. Sometimes you have a conversation
with them. Sometimes you have to design much earlier before you meet them, but
still I do a lot of research per individual, who are these people?
JB: Tell me
more about the importance of costume in your work.
Takis: In Bucharest
we learned costume through art and through dance. Much like a choreographer
will learn the dances of the period, so we understood how dress changes in
society according to the movements that they made and how they danced and so
on.
Then we opened up the garments to see the patterns, sometimes
deconstructing them into something else. Having worked with the opera in Rome
for many summers, while I was studying I learned scenic paint, costume making
and many other skills. I know the basics and the tools and then I twist them to
suit my needs.
JB: Explain
more about your work in opera.
takis: Opera and
ballet are on such grand scales! I did a world premiere of ballet with The
Little Mermaid and it took a year to design it. The scale was enormous. The
vision there, in Scandinavia, was something that we don’t have here. They're
really up for exploring.
The brief that they gave me was, “takis, we want a
design that will bring the classic ballet into the future". So I brought in 3D
projections, floors moving up, moving down, things coming in, flying people,
flying through the auditorium, things coming out. There were 12 full sets,
moving floors, lifts.
JB: That sounds spectacular - what was
the budget that you had to work with for that?
takis: I never
asked!
This year in particular has been very opera-focussed for me too with an
elegant Die Fledermaus at Holland Park this summer and currently the English
Touring Opera’s production of Ulysses’ Homecoming and La Calisto.
We push these works to different areas, genres and feelings
according to where they are performed and for which audience and why. As with
musicals, the music leads you. That's what I love now more and more in
musicals, opera and ballets - the stimulation is via the music.
 |
| In The Heights |
JB: Coming
back to musical theatre I want to ask you about In The Heights. When you first put it together at Southwark,
what were your thoughts about the show?
takis: I think when
we heard the music, we all went, "Wow!". It is a fusion of different
cultures. It hits you. It's something that moves you. It moves your body
somehow.
The thing that comes out for In The Heights is the heat and
the sexiness if you like, that is around there. Also, the values of friends and
family are all these elements that are familiar to me because strangely enough,
these Latin values are very close to Mediterranean values. We might not dance
Latin, but it's these kind of things that sometimes make you respond by dance.
At Southwark we kind of brought the audience in the three
sides and then I had to work with the floor and the wall. It's not a big space
and we wanted to keep the key locations. Then I played with the lights of the subway, kind of taking
us a different direction, different houses, different lines of like, if you
like. We see the life of a society, but the life of differing individuals and
how they take this cross between each other. That's kind of what's strung for
it. We play with bold colours and then I just had the idea to put in fluorescence and of course Howard Hudson is an absolutely incredible lighting
designer. We always work so well together.
JB: And the
transfer to the Kings Cross Theatre and sharing the venue itself with The
Railway Children. That must have been a fascinating challenge from a design
perspective?
takis: Yes and you’ve
driven the train there haven’t you? So you realise what the space is there! How we change
between the two shows within one hour has been an amazing challenge. It was
more of an engineering designing rather than designing for a show.
I had to work with platforms that are 2 meters square. We put
in fills, where the trucks are and then we roll out a dance floor that brings
it all together.
I feel happy that we managed to do it, in the sense of we
all wanted the show to come back and it's so good that it's back, with all the
Oliviers and everything that happened to it. We all have put our souls in that
show. It is one of the shows that from day one, we were like, "Yeah".
We were like kids, you know how you feel, no matter what age you are. We had
this energy in all of us and I think that comes across to the audience.
Side Show plays at the Southwark Playhouse until 3rd December
In The Heights plays at the Kings Cross Theatre until 8th January 2017
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