EMILY HARWOOD
IN CARE //
THE BLOCK
Southwark Playhouse, London. 2010
In Care // The Block
Writer | Isis // Tarkan Cetinkay
Director | Cathy Owen // Peter Collins
Producer | National Youth Theatre
IN CARE // THE BLOCK
SET DESIGNER
IN CARE
In Care is a disjointed play working around the issues of abandonment, love and belonging, travelling from birth to death.
The set ultimately reflects this abandonment; a series of discarded crates, boxes and lost drawers containing the discarded items we tend to forget about.
Combined with this very strong sense of nature and loss, the use of earthy textures and tones with the scattered petals builds on the whole nature/nurture issue that presents itself within the text. Each scene is a different story, so being able to move the set around to create a new location became a key part in making sense of the play as a whole
THE BLOCK
"The foundations of ones life is not too different from an apple tree, you're the seed, your family are the roots, your community is the trunk, you get fertilised, you eat chicken and chips, you get hit with weather and storms, you have bad moments, through all of that time the apple tree must eventually flourish [...] but you must always remember that the trunk is what held you."
The Block is set on a run down tower block in inner city London. It explores the different tensions that exist within communities including issues of violence, immigration and spirituality.
The design revolves around Jacob's world, a troubled teen with a split personality disorder brought on from the loss of his father to the war. The design stems from his enthusiasm for drawing; this being his last connection with his dad and what makes him happy.
The black and white graffiti world is his own, playing with the idea of creativity versus destruction. Props are symbolic, everything is not necessarily real, allowing for the possibility of change and the unknown to occur. The graffitied apple tree motif on the back wall highlighting the overall message and themes of the new writing.