Posts Tagged Villa Goth

The World of Hamlet Made Concrete

The world of our Hamlet will seem modern without being specific to any one decade or national boundary. Our Denmark is a state of mind versus an actual Scandinavian country.

It’s a world of concrete, gold leaf and surveillance cameras; the main set element is literally a concrete cube tipped on edge–a brutal yet unsteady world. We’ll make use of video projection to both alter the landscape and take us to interior psychological landscapes of the characters. 

— Joel Sass in a note for the cast, which was attached to their rehearsal script

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While contemplating the set design for his new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Joel Sass considered ideas such as a complicated set of stairs (“It looked cool but more complicated than needed.”) but ultimately settled on a tipped concrete cube. That design got the best response out of all his concepts.

“I looked for the simplest shape that seemed most resonate of each scene and would need minimal manipulation by the stage crew,” Joel said. “The fun part for me is the challenge of balancing practicality and ideas. I understand the interdependence between budget and design.”

Joel did not want a set with “the trappings of an antique, historical diorama.” Instead he wanted a modern design that would better reflect a world of our time. To achieve his ends, he looked to Nordic Brutalist Architecture with its exposed concrete construction that creates an atmosphere or discomfort and uneasiness. It was meant to feel contemporary and monumental–far from “ye old timie.”

 

Brutalist architecture was popular in the 1950s and 1960s and often used to design government and institutional structures, such as university buildings (for instance, the Rarig Center at University of Minnesota’s West Bank). Swedish architect Hans Asplund coined the term “brutalism” to describe Villa Goth, a house that he’d designed in Kabo, Uppsala, Sweden in 1949. The term was then picked up by a group of visiting English architects, and Brutalism’s popularity in England rose as an inexpensive construction and design method for a country that had been ravaged by World War II.

Hamlet’s world is one filled with anxiety due to a violent disruption in leadership and uncertainty as to who holds power. His world sounds a lot like ours today. Will we someday also experience a resurgence in the popularity of Brutalist architecture?

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(Note: All photos were taken by Amy Anderson)

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