Concept: The world of the play is defined by heat, confinement, and repression, yet beneath that stillness lies an intense emotional life—the desires, fears, and longings of Bernarda’s daughters. My design wants to reveal the emotional undercurrents that flow beneath Bernarda’s rigid household. Through projection and live-camera integration, the stage becomes a living emotional landscape that breathes, cracks, and trembles under the pressure of unspoken feelings. The media adds a layer of magical realism, transforming the physical space into a psychological one where inner emotions take visible form and the invisible becomes tangible.
Aesthetic: To visualize these psychological tensions, I draw from natural elements that reflect both beauty and confinement. Falling leaves, rippling water, ocean waves, rain, and storms form a visual language that shifts with the characters’ emotions. These motifs allow the audience to feel the suffocating air, the silence, and the fleeting moments of rebellion. The visual style blends live-camera imagery with cinematic surrealism, where realism and dream coexist. The house becomes expressive as vines close in, fire flickers beneath the walls, and textures transform with rising tension.
Pepe: The man everyone talks about but never sees is made present through projection. His shadow crosses walls, his absence ripples through the space, and flocks of birds suggest his pull toward freedom, as the unattainable force the daughters yearn for but cannot reach.
The Villagers: The villagers described in Act I are realized through projection rather than live performers. They embody constant surveillance and patriarchal authority. Filmed performers were transformed in After Effects into abstracted silhouettes moving across a half-transparent scrim, creating a spectral crowd that presses inward. These projections blur the boundary between human and shadow, presence and absence.
Live Cameras: Live cameras expose private, intimate moments that might otherwise go unseen, including Angustias secretly putting on makeup during mourning, or Magdalena trying on Adela’s red dress. The camera acts as both witness and intruder, drawing the audience into the women’s interior lives while evoking the constant sense of being watched.