Create the lighting design for the play “Identity and Abstraction” while walking the street.
Omer Sheizaf

Score

Scene 1
Don David’s office – A mix of good and evil
Present: Don David, Julia, Don David’s son, Max (Don David’s son’s lover), Beatrice (A neighbour who was also Max’s nanny), Baruch and his dog Screamy.
Plot: Don David and Julia discuss general issues at the office, Max and Don David’s son enter the room and Don David’s son asks about his letter of recommendation for the university. An argument starts but it soon stops, since the characters are drawn to the window.When they look outside they find out that Baruch and Beatrice are having an affair.

Quiet street. Your neighbourhood. Time: 8pm
Look at the buildings that surround you. Notice the windows: Little squares of cold and warm lighting. Move your eyes from one to the other and try to imagine the reason for each color. The warm windows are more human.- They might have the colour of a living room, while the cold windows look like kitchens. Some windows of living rooms are cold. That’s usually in houses where people can’t afford to care about their quality of living. Look again at all the window squares and at the socioeconomic information that comes with every colour. Now find a higher observation point. Go there and try to divide the city to warm and cold areas. If you can, go on a plane and look down at the city beneath you. Look at the street lights and houses, notice the cars and busses, and try to observe all the details in the fight between specific and general, wealthy and poor, public and private.

Scene 2
Beatrice’s house
Present: Beatrice, Baruch and his dog Screamy.
Plot: Beatrice and Baruch realize that their affair was discovered and talk to each other. Beatrice is crying and Baruch is trying to make her tell him why. Finally, she agrees and says that it has something to do with Max and her long-time love for him.

Park. Time: 8:20pm
Enter the park and look at the lampposts beside the path. Look at the dark bushes. Try to feel safe. Where will you go? To the lampposts where people can see you? Or to the dark bushes, where nobody will notice you? Think of the light as the public sphere taking over the private. Look at the dark bushes, focus your eyes at the darkness. Now try to focus only on the light touching the darkness. Try to find the darkest point, throw your keys in there and look for them.

Scene 3
The devil’s temple
Present: The Devil, Don David’s Son, Phaeton (the burned son of Helios)
Plot: After visiting the Selva Oscura (the dark forest), Don David’s Son arrives at the Devil’s Temple. He asks the devil to help him discover the truth about Max and Beatrice’s relationship. In response, the devil offers Don David’s Son to take Phaeton’s car and go back home, and says that he will take care of everything.

Apartment building staircase. Time: 8:30pm
Turn on the light. Count the time and turn it off again. Wait the same amount of time in the dark and turn on the light again. Do this several times. Think of actions you can do while the light is on and actions you can do while in the dark. Feel the change in the space between both states. Imagine them as two different environments, far from each other.

Scene 4
A bench in the street outside Don David’s office
Present: Max, Baruch’s Dog Screamy (who becomes a handsome young man dressed as a drag queen)
Plot: Screamy meets Max and is about to tell him about Don David’s Son accident. Max doesn’t recognise the dog and tells him his story. Max also tells the dog how Julia told him that Baruch is his father and Beatrice is Don David’s son mother.

Go outside. Time: 8:40pm
Go out to the street and look for colour lighting. Try to seperate it with your eyes from the rest of the lights and objects. Traffic lights, car lights, signs. Go to the most colorful place, look around and stay there. Look at the objects coloured by the lights and think of their original form in white light.

Scene 5 (Epilog)
Don David’s office at night
Present: Max, His Brother Screamy, Julia, Don David, Beatrice, Baruch.
Plot: After everyone heard about the death of Don David’s son, they decide to leave the neighbourhood and live in the forest, where each one of them can have their own separate identity. Their attempts to build a community failed like a bad story. To avoid any rope nots and to destroy all the generality and abstraction in the way we see humans, Don David kills himself. The group goes slowly into the forest near the city, dragging along the ruined car of Phaeton.

Again, in the street. Time: 8:50pm
Turn on the torch in your phone and interrupt the lighting in the street. Look at it and think about it as a small and insignificant light in space. You are the theatre’s follow spot operator: point the torchat the walls, move your hand slowly and then fast, let your hand lead you in the direction it wants.. Your hand will take you to the darkness. There, you will put your phone slowly down and insert it back in your pocket. Blackout.
Time: 9:00pm. End