Summer by Julia Stubbs Hughes

(Katherine Lowry talks about her journey with the light design on ‘Summer’)

My role as lighting designer is also that of a story teller, but instead of using words, I use a palette of angles, intensities, tones, hues, tints, colours, and shadows to paint a visual and emotional landscape with.  The first thing I did on reading Summer was to make a note of the landscapes and locations of the text.  The Mountain, North Dormer, Nettleton, the Red and Brown houses, the library, etc.

To begin with a lighting concept, I like to start by considering the qualities of the light in each situation.  For example, what time of day is it?  What time of year?  Is the source natural like the bright, morning sunlight thrown across the meadow or a small, low stove in the corner of the Brown house?  It really gives a sense of the world I’m trying to create by researching how a space is lit naturally before I start to make any artistic choices.  Having done my homework I discovered that what I had to work with was a very multi-locational piece, ranging from the vast, endless summer skies across the mountain, right down to cramped, dank interiors of the destitute ‘heathens’ who dwell on it’s side.

This was an exciting challenge for such an intimate space like The Jack.  In terms of equipment, there was very little at hand to ‘paint’ all these physical spaces, and then create the shifts in time and place and the quality of the light on top.  Such was the case, it meant that every choice I made regarding source, angle, and colour had to be pretty carefully considered!

With this aside, it then came down to thinking about what I wanted to do with it artistically and stylistically.  Feeling that the themes of light and dark, expanse and limit, were at the forefront of Summer, I decided to look at paintings of the New Hampshire region and see how others had interpreted the landscape.  I wanted to see how they painted the light on the mountain tops, the glittering ripples on the lakes, and the little kisses of sunlight on the trees.  It was this that led me to stumble upon the Hudson River School of Painters, and what a find!  This 19^th century American art movement embodied a group of landscape artists whose main focus was the Hudson River Valley and it’s surrounding area of the Adirondack, Catskill, and White Mountain ranges.  What’s more their aesthetic vision was heavily influenced by Romanticism, a movement which validated strong emotions as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, especially the emotions experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature.  This stuck with me like glue and I felt strong parallels here to Wharton’s Summer, for example, her use of aesthetic language describing the firework display on the 4^th of July as a metaphor for Charity and Harney’s emotional and sexual union; the way that Harney finds something outstanding and beautiful about Charity’s ‘untamed nature’, and the use throughout of pathetic fallacy, and the way the weather and landscape is used by Wharton to describe the emotional undercurrents of Charity’s world.  This group of painters seemed to cover every natural event that took place in the play from the warm, dawn light creeping up over the hills, to the crisp, bright, midday beams thrown across the meadows Harney and Charity lounge in, not to mention some dramatic changes into evening.  Stunning colours blasting the sky and oppressive, black storms clouds gathering with increasing anger.  I felt I’d really hit upon something here and I knew that this would be my inspiration for how I wanted our Summer to look.

I have to admit, I got a bit carried away with my research.  I looked at maps of New Hampshire, listened to 19^thcentury American composers, and of course, pored over the Hudson River School paintings just to really immerse myself in the place.  It was when I was looking a little more closely at this group that I discovered an offshoot style called Luminism.  I thought to myself “THIS is what I’ve been looking for!”  I started to look at the Luminists and although their compositions focus on the more tranquil, soft side of nature, it was the way they painted the light that really captured my imagination.  Luminism has its emphasis in light and shadow, often with an exaggerated light source, and its this sense of light and contrast which makes the subject glow.  It’s exactly this chiaroscurist approach which I wanted to use in order to enhance the delineation of the characters and the set.   I hope that in keeping it simple and

Joanne Gale as Charity Royall

dramatic, it’s enabled the changes in the lighting at key moments to communicate the feelings and emotions of the characters in their surroundings.  Summer is such a strong and emotionally raw play that it was hugely important for me to keep the lighting uncomplicated, and use the subtle shifts in tone and angle to work with the set and the score and really allow what’s at the heart of the play to sing out.

To finish with I’d like to share a piece of my journey with you.  Here is a selection of the paintings I discovered during my research, which I’ve put together a short film (click here to watch). I hope you enjoy it!

Millie Cook writes about composing for Summer

Millie and Cello

I was asked to write a simple score for Summer back in November, and I worried about connecting with the script and the characters. As a sound designer, the majority of my work is done without the actors present, either at home, or in the technical rehearsals.

As a cellist, I am really passionate about the complex spectrum of emotions that the sound of a cello can evoke. I love how sweet and light it can sound, but also how melancholy it can be. I knew straight away that I wanted to use solely the cello as my performance medium, because it is such a close part of who I am as a composer and a designer, but also because Summer has so many different paths emotionally, and the cello seemed to reach all of them.

(listen to the music composed for Charity’s first entrance – Charity and North Dormer)

Millie tuning her cello

Summer was really different. I was invited to rehearsals from the earliest stages. I was allowed to play and improvise with scenes and was given incredibly supportive feedback from Tim and from the cast. I began by writing 6 short pieces, and after I played them to the cast, it was really interesting to see how they connected each piece with different characters and locations. After this, I used those themes to put together the final ‘suite’.

The opening of the play starts with Royall lit through darkness, whilst the Mountain theme plays (opening moment, (Royall coming down from The Mountain (composed by Millie Cook). This is two cello parts blended together in a low register, and is quite akin to the kinds of folk songs I imagined the community on the Mountain would write. It is then followed by Charity’s theme, which is the only piece in a major key. However, this piece was not intended to be cheerful, but almost tedious- to reflect Charity’s simple and perhaps bored existence in North Dormer, before Harney’s arrival.

all about the composition

The Love Theme (listen Love Dance for ‘Summer’) was an extension of a shorter piece I wrote initially. It consists of a pizzicato cycle that plays under a gradual development of tension between two cello melodies. In a way, the 3 melody lines represent the three characters; the constant pizzicato reflecting Royall’s loyalty, and the two intertwined bowed parts representing the two lovers. The play finishes with a reprisal of the love theme, a directors choice which poignantly highlights the separation.

Writing for Summer has been a completely new process for me- because I was plunged into the discoveries the actors were making, and encouraged to express them through music.

I loved the response and I think the story will keep me writing more and more, even after our run.