Sets for Apocrypha, 2004

My long time friend Ignacio Zulueta had been working on the script for some years and finally did a fully produced play of his work, Apocrypha, in 2004. my assignment for the play: The director of the play requested "spikes" as set pieces: free standing "elemental" abstract sculpture that could be interactive in different ways, and appear ominous or threatening if possible. I have had some experience doing theater related things in high school and college (mostly costumes), but free standing sculpture is very different. I decided to use wood, metal, plaster, reeds and bones for my media--raw, naked, and undisguised, unlike all of my deceptive trash sculpture and trompe l'oiel. I still refer to them as "spikes", though they mostly aren't.

Reed Spike: I tried to make the interactivity of this spike something that could be musical by blowing over the tops of the cut reeds like over the mouth of a bottle. I added wrapped and twisted vines around it to mimic barbed wire, but it doesn't look ominous with the added flowers (necessary props for a part of the play). Iggy helped me gather the reeds from the Albany bulb, which is always an ispiring fun trip anyway.

	Plaster Spike: I got the materials for this at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. It is made out of old slip molds to make things like cute little ceramic duckies. I was hoping it would resemble fragmented masonry (you know, buildings detroyed by war and all that). By request, I made the top to hold water, though in the end (even with silicone sealant) the water would sort of seaped out into the plaster. I had tried to insert little battery operated lights into the cracks, but those spaces were needed to hide other props for the play.
	Metal Spike: Iggy helped me get the free pipes from someone on craigslist. My inspiration for this one was a train/car/plane wreck--a jumble of metal pieces. I hung a few pipes loosely on it so that they could be hit to produce sounds, though this feature was not really used.
	Wood Spike: It was requested that one of the spikes might be something to sit on.....??? sit on a spike? that sounds painful to me... Anyhow, I harvested some old burnt sticks on a trip up in wine country, and dragged of a beautiful piece of driftwood that was in my parent's yard, though they had never seen it the whole 25 years they had lived there (they obviously wouldn't be missing it).
	Bone Spike (named Gary): I felt that a truly ominous medium to use would be bone. I wasn't sure how or where I would acquire the bones, but thankfully I know some people who live out in the woods who had happened to see a mostly clean skeleton in a field. So, I dragged home most of a deer skeleton (hardly any meat or skin left) and cleaned up what I could to make Gary. The top part that looks its head is actually the pelvic bone. Now Gary sits in my vegetable patch as a scare-crow, but isn't really keeping any birds away.

about the play:

APOCRYPHA

SAN FRANCISCO Š Long before they were legends and scapegoats, Helen and Clytemnestra were sisters. Behind the face that launched a thousand ships and the hands that destroyed the royal house of Atreus is the story of two women- one fathered by an uncaring god, and the other by a mortal man. The half-sisters are the anti-heroines of Apocrypha, a new play written and produced by Ignacio Zulueta. The ninety-minute drama follows the sisters from their childhood up through the aftermath of the Trojan War. An intimate cast of three actors plays out a shifting ensemble of roles, creating an original collage drawn from classical theater, ancient myth, and fragments of modern life and language. Honoring the roots of classical Athenian drama, the play is set to music, with the actors and musicians performing original compositions by OaklandÕs Joey Blake (Circle Songs, SoVoSo). In composing for the play, Blake studied the dramatic music of antiquity and adapted it to the challenges of a small theater. "ItÕs not like you have what you normally would have for a musical, a cast of characters to fill out the sound. ItÕs a really small space, so itÕs intimate, and it doesnÕt need to be overwhelming," Blake said. "The music from that time was very minimalistic anyway. ItÕs very modal music. ItÕs not so melodic as music is now." Apocrypha was first developed by Zulueta at the Ashland New Plays Festival. Director Jessica Heidt (Magic Theatre) said she was drawn to the play by the comedic, human quality of ZuluetaÕs writing and the epic subject matter. "IÕve always been fascinated by Greek mythology, and stories that go beyond everyday interaction, that speak to more of humanity than just an individual level," Heidt said. Originally hailing from the Philippines, Zulueta brings a multi-cultural aesthetic to the work. From its inception, the production has been a collaborative effort among Bay Area artists of many disciplines. Apocrypha was performed at the Phoenix Theatre, San Francisco, May 15-16, 21-23 and 27-29, 2004