A world premiere from South Australia’s Finegan Kruckemeyer and directed by Artistic Director Mitchell Butel, Hibernation was held at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
It’s the year 2030 and there is an immediate climate crisis. With little choice remaining, world leaders make a collective, pragmatic decision to save the planet. For an entire year, all 8.5 billion humans on Earth will hibernate. Gas will be launched into the atmosphere and the human population will be immediately plunged into a deep sleep, leaving the natural world to reset. The reset of the human world is not what was expected.
“There was a very clear brief from Mitchell right from the beginning of the project – his vision for the piece was extraordinary and very detailed,” commented Lighting Designer Gavin Norris. “In its abbreviated form, it was Act 1 Top, Act 2 Front and Act 3 everything! The play is set across multiple locations around the world, so Mitchell wanted to create a very neutral, almost gallery feel for the play to be performed within. As we got into the early stages of the preliminary set and costume designs with designer, Jonathon Oxlade, Mitchell’s vision became very evident very quickly and with that, the White Infinity wall was born. We set about finding a way of helping to locate characters within the fast-moving storyline, how to visually show the timestamps of where we were within the countdown to Hibernation and post Hibernation and that is where the circular video screen in the back wall came to fruition and Matt Byrne, Video Designer joined the creative team. From there we had the basic look and feel for the show and that set us up very early on to build on Mitchell’s vision.”
Finegan Kruckemeyer’s script is big and filmic in its approach and his scene directions within the script are very detailed. The story takes place across multiple locations around the world and with many cast members playing more than one character. Gavin needed a lighting rig that was flexible and fast and ultimately automated, not only because of the sheer number of scenes and location changes within each act but also because of the tight schedule they had to light and tech the show in.
The lack of access to focus overhead due to the nature of the set also meant they had to be able to focus the onstage rig from the console. Gavin wanted the physical shape and look of the design to not only compliment the shape and elements of the set but also create a ceiling of light to help seal off the performance space.
“I wanted the Prologue to be big and to show a small glimpse of where we would go with the lighting but then keep the rest of Act 1, which was set pre-Hibernation, quite small and refrained,” he explained. “By that I mean to keep the walls muted and just light each scene tightly, some quite stark at times, and most with a subtle hint of colour to match the colour in the video screen and costuming to help locate characters. Act 2 was set during Hibernation and was very much about helping the audience connect with the two characters the entire act was based around. We wanted to enhance the sense of the surrounding stillness that a world in Hibernation would have around the two actors so we created shadows on the walls from the stacked furniture and objects that were brought on during Act 1 to aid this. The objects defined shadow lines became more enhanced on the walls and we wanted to use a few different heights on these fixtures to help grow the size and height of these as the act progressed.
“Act 3 was about the new world post Hibernation, to show we were in the future and things had changed in the world so it needed to look and feel very different and of course, big. To do this we decided to flip the colour for each location from the screen to the walls and we and used a soft white in the screen instead. This is where the Infinity wall came to life.”
According to Gavin, the set was a dream to light; a full stage width white Infinity wall and white floor, all beautifully made by State Theatre Company Scenic Workshop. The walls and floor were lit primarily using Martin Stage Cyclos, as Gavin wanted the softness and coverage that the fluorescent light source gave him. There were also a series of ETC LED Lustr2 with zoom lenses fitted from FOH and perch booms that were focused to give variations on the walls.
“I had them focused as full height, top half, bottom half, and middle third,” said Gavin. “This allowed me to create some nice ombres between the Cyclos and the Lustrs and blend the feel of the walls and floor during Act 3.”
The only real bit of naturalistic lighting came from the fireplace at the top of Act 2. This was made up of amber and red LEDs and a series of motorised blades that gave the flame flicker effect within the fireplace. Mounted at the bottom and pointing out to light the actors were a hidden pair of PAR 16s also running an effect. The fireplace ran off batteries and wireless DMX.
The footlights played a big part, there was a full-width train track and train that was built by the child performer during Act 1 and set off at the end of Act 1 just before Hibernation and again at the end of Act 3. The train’s journey was lit using 3000k white LED strip tucked onto the front of the stage at a 40-degree angle to avoid the walls. There were also seven 500w Q.I. floods, three across the centre doing a fanned OP-CS-PS focus and then a pair out on either side doing own side and opposite side focus. This allowed Gavin to shift the angle of the shadows across the wall in Act 2 to help accentuate the shift in time during transitions.
The rig consisted of six 6 x Claypaky Scenius Unico, 12 x VL4000 Spot, 20 x GLP X4 wash light, 32 x Martin Stage Cyclos supplied by Australian Dance Theatre, eight Phillips Showline SL350 wash lights supplied by State Theatre Company, 24 x ETC Lustr series 2 fitted with a mix of 26 Deg and 25/50 zooms supplied by State Theatre Company and Adelaide Festival Centre and 30 x Selecon Pacific 12/22 Profiles supplied by Adelaide Festival Centre. Eight panels of Roe CB3 video wall was supplied by Novatech Creative Event Technology.
Five of the Claypaky Unico were rigged FOH with a single fixture on the centre of LX Bar 1. The FOH fixtures were split two on Bridge 2, one on the centre of Bridge 1 and one high on Pro boom position on either side. These mostly did specials, fill and created pathways for the cast to use to connect them to other spaces during Acts 1 and 3.
The VL4000 were onstage overhead, these were the main workhorses of the show and were used 90% of the time with the frost to give a soft wash look and feel on the white floor. All the VL4000 were rigged of 1.2m droppers so Gavin could get the lens to sit in line with the bottom of the Cyclos and keep the body of the lights high. These all ran in studio mode to reducer fan noise.
The GLP X4 created a full 360-degree perimeter around the set with the four FOH units rigged on droppers from Bridge 1 to match the height of the onstage fixtures. The Cyclos created the ceiling of light and were all rigged on droppers or truss so they all sat at the same height. The Showline SL 350 wash lights were rigged on a circular truss mid-stage centre which was to replicate the shape of the aperture for the video wall and the circular set rostra used in Act 3.
The Lustrs did the wall wash from a FOH boom position on either side that were placed in one of the venue’s lower boxes and from high on the onstage perch booms. Two Lustrs per side sat in the venues Vomitory openings, meaning they could get the lens of the light just above stage height, and with the flat, almost straight in position, these were used mostly in Act 2 for the more defined shadow work towards the end of the Act. Four Lustrs from each side created a tight DS corridor from the pro boom and onstage perch position.
The Selecon 12/22s did a 30-area FOH wash from Bridge 1 and 2 so Gavin could keep the wash tight and contained. This was used during a long monologue at the end of Act 1 which was delivered from pretty much every part of the stage floor.
The show was programmed using two ETC consoles; an ETC Eos Ti. programmed by Daniel Voss was used to program the lighting rig and an ETC ION was programmed by Alexander Ramsay to control the video via Catalyst and the Brompton.
“We decided early on that we wanted to separate the programming of the lights and video during the plot and technical sessions which allowed Matt Byrne and Alex to play around / change the content freely whilst Daniel and I set about lighting the show,” explained Gavin. “The show playback was achieved using the Eos Ti.”
The video elements in the show were displayed on a 2.4m x 2.4m Roe CB3 video wall, complete with Brompton T1 rack, all provided by Novatech. The screen was ground-stacked on a 1.8m high riser which then sat behind a 2m circular aperture within the back wall of the set. The content was designed by Matt Byrne and played back using a Catalyst media server owned by State Theatre Company South Australia, all controlled via the ETC console.
Gavin is currently looking at a potential project that would start at the end of this year but it’s in no way locked in yet. He has one, maybe two shows locked in for next year already and he’s hopeful that another show he designed just before Hibernation will have another life after it was cut short due to the lockdown.
Written by Finegan Kruckemeyer
Commissioned by State Theatre Company South Australia
Directed by Mitchell Butel
Set and Costume Design by Jonathon Oxlade
Lighting Design by Gavin Norris
Video Design by Matt Byrne
Sound Design by Andrew Howard
Production Manager, Gabrielle Hornhardt
Photos: Matt Byrne, Chris Herzfeld
