For The Seagull, I want to craft it into being very minimalistic. I want to highlight the script, the characters, and the plot through simplicity. A production that I used as inspiration is a production Twelfth Night from the National Theatre. In this production directed by Simon Godwin, it showed a colorful and energetic portrayal of the story. But what drew me in the most was the use of set design. The set design was very unique as it rotated to fit the different settings. For my vision of the seagull, I also wanted a transformative set. Initially, I thought having a simple set consisting of only the basic elements would work, but looking back at the production of Twelfth Night made me realize that having a family elaborate set could still be possible. There are four settings in the play, a lawn next to a lake, a leisure, a dining room, and lastly, a study. I think having a set similar to that in Twelfth Night would be interesting, as there could be an established background that could change between acts.
As for the costumes and other elements such as props, I took inspiration from a production of As you Like It. In that production, the costumes were very minimalistic, simple. Furthermore, the color palette was quite monochromatic, which I myself would like for my vision of The Seagull. For the Seagull, I want the costumes to be simple, as the characters themselves live in an isolated estate. And I want a dark-toned color pallette to resemble the tone of the play and the time period. I think an interesting would be to have a more colorful color palette at the beginning of the play, but as the story continues, everything becomes more monochromatic, to parallel the darker themes of the story coming into play.
In this upcoming week, I would like to explore what other artistic elements I would like to incorporate, along with taking more time to go back to the script in order to understand the content fully and figure out how to convey its story.