Week 2 -- Aiden Giuffre

    These are some cyc-lights being tested for a scene late in The Rake's Progress, which is currently being rehearsed in Thorne. In this scene, the protagonist is meeting with the devil in an eerie graveyard; the background light reflecting off the cyc help to add to the atmosphere of the performance. Originally, I thought that the combination of blue of green was what really underscored the menace of the conversation on stage, but on reflection I think that any strongly colored light could provide a similar feel of the supernatural. In real life, almost all light is either white or golden/yellow, and comes from the sun or some light trying to imitate the sun. Even at night, moon light and street lights typically follow the same white/yellow color scheme, so anything else seems kind of off. While the blue/green color combo here is less intrusive and certainly more "night-timey" than, say, a red would be, the use of intense color definitely pulls people away from a sense of realism, and suggests the supernatural or otherwise aberrant.
   In this scene, the characters are primarily lit by uncolored or amber front and top light, which can be seen on the bottom half of the cyc. This is because the scene is still happening primarily in the "real" world. I suspect, however, that had this been a dream sequence or other "imaginary" setting, the designer might have added even more color to give the actors themselves an unearthly hue.