Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 42

tllese nuns Doaling around. I went for ilie nuns \\~tll big hats, so
tlley were like sea gulls Doaling across ilie stage."
Throughout, Porteous kept alive the outline of the opening scene in the theatre, to suggest Cyrano's persona as a performer.
For his projections, Porteous picked pictures from ilie
work of Eugene Atget, ilie French photographer. "I looked at
his nineteenili century, early twentieth century images of
France. I love these images. I chose a photograph of the River
Seine, a scene from a hill in Paris for ilie very last. I didn't
use projections in ilie first scene until tile very end, when iliey
open ilie door and go outside, and they see the cosmos, so to
speak, ilie wonderful moment when Cyrano steps out and
talks about tile sky and tile heavens. Paris suddenly started to
appear in tile background. The next image was tile bakel)'.
Tllis was a street in Rouen in ilie early part of the twentieth
centllly that still was medieval."
Porteous heightened tile tlleatricality of tile images by
reproducing iliem in lligh-contrast black and white, then
adding touches of color in ilie clear spaces. "In iliose days I
was working wiili glass, which was losing light transnlission
badly. That's why we went to ilie high contrast, so tllat I could
get as much clear light going through as possible."
He ilien decided to strip color in by airbrush to control
ilie density of ilie color. "I wanted it very soft anyway. I dido't
want ilie projections to upstage ilie performer. I wanted
something iliat was more skeletal, like ilie set, so ilie projections iliat were used to envelope tllis particular space were of
a sinliJar texture to the set itself. It was an extension of tile environment, to get depili and mood, a more romantic feel. So
ilie eye had somewhere to go beyond tile space. They were always slightly nlisty, slightly nostalgic."
POIieous furilier softened ilie projections as tile bones of
ilie set emerged. "I had just one big screen tile full widili of ilie
stage. But in tile Battle of Arras, I Dew in tile typical opera gauze
legs of dead tress, to let tile projections come tJu'OUgll trees.
TIlat was tile only piece of so-caJJed scenelY iliat was added.
TIley stayed in for ilie last scene as well, as I removed more set.
So tilere wasn't a hard edge on ilie projections. TIle projections
softened off tJu'OUgll texture into tile \\IDgS and tllen into ilie
black general masking."
"It was an incredibly poetic production," POIieous says.
"Leaves falling tluough ilie whole of tile last scene, constantly
conling down. Every once and a wllile it would be funny. One
day one landed on ilie end of Cyrano's nose, which is ilie
worst possible thing can happen." He guffaws. "Hey, those
tllings do happen. The nose could have fallen off. '
C)'I'ano was a landmark production for several reasons,
says Porteous. "It was ilie largest ensemble of actors tilat
we'd pulled togeilier. Christopher finally got tile company to
tile size and scale he wanted. I had an apprenticesllip progranl in place. Crews suddenly had to become organically
linked to the productions. It was one of those productions
where if you didn't have a good crew, you were in terrible
shape. Skills were developed. Skills in swordfighting, stunts,
combat. Skills in special effects. Propmaking. Aglorious period for our wardrobe to tackle. Millinery suddenly exploded
and took off. Berlioz being used as tile central theme for the
40

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whole piece challenged the sound department to come up
witll a Berlioz-type of environment, working on almost every
piece of music from all the different operas. So it challenged
every department. This production fused tllis company, as if to
say, 'O.K., guys, tllis is what a real theatre is all about, let's go
from here.'"

Cavalcade
Porteous extended and vaIied his experiments with projections for tile I985-86 production of \oel Coward's Cavalcade. It topped the success of C)/l'ano and was re\~ved for tile

Noel Coward's Cavalcade
(1995 revival) designed by
Cameron Porteous
(this page and right)

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