Lighting Design

Notes on the lighting design for the 2001 production of Sunset Song

These notes were written about the original 2001 production.  The lighting for the 2002 revival will use the same principles, but working in larger theatres will require different methods to achieve the same effects.

George Tarbuck, lighting designer

I was approached by the director Ben Twist to light Sunset Song in spring 2001. I knew personally the other lighting designers who had lit the first two productions and was aware that I was following in some impressive footsteps. In fact I discussed with Jeanine Davis her design for the TAG production and held a workshop on the play with Jeanine and myself with students from Queen Margaret UC (the drama school in Edinburgh where I work).

I then entered preliminary discussions concerning style with Ben and Neil Warmington the set designer. It became clear that rather than try to create a semblance of naturalism, the lighting and set were to work together to follow the emotional journey of the play based around the emotional journey of Chris Guthrie. However the naturalism can not afford to be totally absent. There are scenes that have to give a nod to some level of naturalism, such as the storm scene and the burning of Peesie’s Knapp for example, but in a representational way rather than a realistic way.

The play is highly episodic with quick shifts of time, place and atmosphere. There are forty-two scenes with a multitude of locations. The style of the piece as directed by Ben is fast paced and flows seamlessly from one place and time to another. The lighting needed to do the same. The main restrictions on the lighting came from not being able to over complicate in terms of too vast a lighting rig and too many cues as the play was going on tour to a range of venues which varied in size from small church halls to major regional theatres. There was also the consideration that I would not be around for all the re-lights in every theatre and had to be able to pass on the design for it to be re-created by the Stage Manager.

I started the design by doing a textual analysis of the play and jotting down the various locations, times of day and some vague ideas (see Scene Breakdown ). I feel it is important to have a handle on the naturalism of the piece even though the design is trying to work in another way. Following this I had further discussions with Ben and was able to watch a run through of the play. A great advantage was the ability of the cast to rehearse on the actual set: this rarely happens. This also helped me to visualise the lighting and how it would work with the blocking and the scenic elements.

The basic scenic elements are the floor, the hill in the upstage left corner and the sky piece at the back. There are also various pieces of furniture, which come and go. The floor is a dark general purpose floorboard effect, the hill has a harvest of corn in act one and a covering of grass in act two (interestingly enough there is a harvest scene in act two which made us push the bounds of reality a little). The sky piece is a huge light box with a painted canvas front. This can be lit from behind with a series of strip lights or from the front with part of the lighting rig.

It became clear that I needed certain basic lighting elements. I needed a range of washes of light over the stage as well as some specials (specific lights used for a specific purpose - see the list of specials elsewhere on the website). We opened the play in Cumbernauld and used the time there to create the lighting that would form the design for the rest of the tour. The lighting rig I decided upon for Cumbernauld had to incorporate as many light elements as possible to enable us to decide which were relevant to the piece and discard the rest.

These lighting elements developed names, which I find helps the dialogue with the rest of the production team. Lighting is difficult to talk about unless you create your own vocabulary.

We ended up rigging the following lighting elements in Cumbernauld.

General open white front 45 degree.
General warm Lee 764 front 45 degree.
General lavender front Lee 052 profile wash. #
General amber front Lee 134 profile wash.
General cold front straight on Lee 201.
Par can warm front fill Lee 004. #
Par can cold front fill Lee 063. #
General moon fill Lee 196.
Backlight warm Lee 009.
Backlight cold Lee 161.
Threequarter backlight special on hill Lee 134.
Cross light specials on hill Lee 004 / 063.
Floor fire floods red.
Table 1 cover Lee 009.
Table 5 cover open white.
Wedding cross par can special Lee 009.
Hill special yellow Lee 765.
Hill special red. #
Hill special green.#
Chris special dsc Lee 004.
Chris special dsl open white.
Chris moon special Lee 201.
Hill fill Lee 201.
Hill fill Lee 764.
Birdie ds fill Lee 134.
Special backlight twin parcan birth special open white / Lee 004.
Sky front fill Lee 119 / 137 / 025 / 196.
Sky backlight (lightbox)

# later discarded.
Stage positions : dsc = down stage centre; dsl = down stage left; ds = down stage.

Lee : lighting colour manufacturer.

The company owns a small touring rig consisting of a mixture of Source 4 par cans and Source 4 variable beam 25 - 50 degree profiles and a mix of older lights. This was able to replicate twelve of the above lighting elements. This rig was used in the very small venues with no lighting of their own. The design adapted well to this small rig, it is my experience that it is possible to make a large rig smaller but not so easy to scale up a small rig.

Generally I found the design achieved what I set out to do. The constraints of touring made me scale the design down more than I would have liked but there were also some elements that worked far better that I thought they would. The sky when lit from behind by the light box looked terrible at any moderate intensity, this is because you shouldn't try to light canvas from the back, it doesn’t work !

However I had also rigged some front light on the sky in case the backlight didn’t work. This front light looked stunning and brought out the quality of the painting far more than the backlight. As I write this we are in Perth theatre in a couple of days time. This theatre has a proscenium arch with the problems this brings - as you move upstage from the lights front of house to the onstage rig, and trying to make the transition seamless.

The experience as a whole was highly enjoyable, the company was good to work with, the play was excellent and the capacity audiences loved it. Theatre should be fun, this was.

March 2001

George Tarbuck
Freelance Lighting Designer
Subject Leader Lighting & Sound
BA / BA Hons Stage Management & Theatre Production
Queen Margaret UC
Gateway Theatre
Leith Walk
Edinburgh
Gtarbuck@qmuc.ac.uk