Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021 - 25

2013, 16, 240-259). Their productions
adapt stories in a way that echoes local
concerns--from A Very Old Man with
Enormous Wings stationed in war-torn
Cyprus (2004) to a durational rendition
of The Passion in post-industrial Port
Talbot (2011). They specialize in waking
up places with public faces, and deep,
hidden histories in productions like The
Enchanted Palace at Kensington (2010)
and Once and Twice Upon a Castle (two
versions, 2014/2015) at the Kasteel van
Gaasbeek outside Brussels. The company has returned more than once to
the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, first in
the multiple re-imaginings of Souterrain
(2006-2007) and in 100: UnEarth (2018),
included in this article.

" Porous to Things "

After studying Mitchell's work in the sterile space of the archive at the National
Theatre Archive in London and at
the Cornish Performance Archive at
Falmouth University's Penryn campus,
the attic felt both overwhelming and
promising because it offered a window
into the private practices that preceded
Mitchell's public work prior to his passing in 2017. Since then, Hill has graciously allowed artists and researchers
access to Mitchell's private workspace
in their home while working with staff at
the Cornish Performance Archive to preserve his public work and legacy.
At the National Theatre and in the
Cornish Performance Archive, Mitchell's
work was tidied up into boxes that were
clearly labeled with production information. It fascinated me that loosely
sketched renderings that seemed to deliberately leave room for interpretation
rubbed shoulders with a technical drawing of a Cornish fish cart that was so detailed that it might have smelled of salt.
Mitchell's design notebooks and working documents were positioned as precursors to a finished production rather
than a part of an organic process. Yet
the rough-edged research images, bright
washes of watercolor, and pen drawings
that traced movement around the stage
in slow-exposure made me interested in
the artistic process--both physical and
mental--that created them. I wanted to
know more about how those tantalizing
patchworks of images came together.
Seeing the attic changed how I viewed
Mitchell's work because it gave me a

Sue Hill and Bill Mitchell working on The Thinking Kit school's project. | Photo by Tony Coult, Courtesy of Sue Hill.

way to imagine that process. As Hill described it, Mitchell's " process was very
much about making himself porous to
things. " She described him as a " collagist " who readily drew inspiration from
people, music, bits of text, visual art, and
physical ephemera without hierarchy.
The word " collage " is about more than
Mitchell's willingness to combine a variety of influences into a singular work of
art. A collage, like the ones in Mitchell's
notebooks, also leaves the rough edges of
the repurposed source materials intact,
keeping each one distinct and acknowledging its origin.

Analog in a Digital World

The things I continually admired about
Mitchell's designs and his productions--
the space they offer his collaborators as
co-creators, the odd juxtapositions, and
the way they cultivate serendipity and respect the places in which they live--are
all ways of making space for disparate
sources to breathe. Even as they form a
new whole, moving toward a new work of
art, there is a love for the thing itself, as it
was in its original medium, that finds its
clearest expression in the eclectic collection in the attic.
I can now name what draws me to
Mitchell's work is that genuine affection for the things, fellow artists, and
spaces he encountered, paired with a
deep desire to share that quiet awe with

an audience. In a stage production, like
The Wild Bride that I use to link attic and
archive in this article, this could mean
putting something authentic within the
fictional frame, adding that item's subtle
history and factual weight to the stage
picture. In site-specific work, like 100:
UnEarth at The Lost Gardens of Heligan,
it means taking advantage of the natural
beauty of a place and allowing it to shape
the story. Mitchell's work brings wonder
to the world because it invites you to
see anything and everything as storied,
meaningful, and loved.
This fondness for found objects meant
that when it came to research, Mitchell
remained stubbornly analog in an increasingly digital world. The collages in
his studio--whether in print or in threedimensional model boxes--were made
from a variety of materials. Bookshelves
scattered around the room were filled
with black-covered notebooks whose
pages of toothy paper could withstand
glue and paint. The covers were labeled
with names like " Book of Red " and " Book
of Blue. " The two-dimensional collages
within were full of images cut or torn
directly from publications that ranged
from glossy magazines and newspapers
to greeting cards and books. Some pages were also drawn on, hand notated,
or washed over with vibrant layers of
gouache or watercolor that changed the
color without fully obscuring the image

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Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021

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