Written by Anthony Neilson, The Wonderful World of Dissocia is a darkly comedic play about a young woman, Lisa, suffering from dissociative disorder. Having first been performed in 2002, it was recently revived at the Stratford East Theatre Royal and starred BAFTA-nominated Leah Harvey as Lisa. The lighting designer was Lucía Sánchez Roldán who approached White Light (WL) to supply a range of her lighting fixtures.  

The Wonderful World of Dissocia is renowned as being a somewhat surreal show, with the entire first act being a vivid recreation of Lisa’s dream-like imaginary life. So how did Lucía approach a production such as this? She explains: “From very early on, the director, Emma Baggot, and I talked about the different realms and worlds that exists within this play. In Act One, the show needs to move from the real physical world of Lisa’s flat to the imaginary land of Dissocia before then in Act 2 moving to a hyper-realistic hospital. The play is stylistically radical, with Act One having no scenes and instead written as a continuous dream sequence. I wanted Dissocia to feel like Lisa has stepped inside a surrealist painting and so did lots of research into Surrealist artists such as Remedios Varo, Meret Oppenheim and Dorothea Tanning. I was very interested in how the texture of the environment feels and how it is wide and open and soft yet also unsettling; something I wanted to be reflected in the Dissocia we created on stage”. 

She continues: “We also wanted Dissocia to feel inherently theatrical. Our set designer, Grace Smart, created a set that creeped in building layers of the world, with flats that got added, a moon that flew down, a sun that rotated and a shiny Austrian curtain that flew in hallway through a musical number!”. 

Due to the complex nature of what they were trying to achieve, Lucía ensured that she was part of the entire rehearsal process. She comments: “I knew from early conversations and reading the script that I wanted to be in rehearsals as much as possible to absorb and learn what this world we were creating was. It’s a piece that moves quickly and with a lot of movement so being around was very important; especially as it meant I could draw and adapt my design as things developed in rehearsals. Due to the nature of the piece, I knew I needed to design a rig that was flexible and gave us opportunities to play and try things. Of course, some things were very fixed in stone but others we knew we wanted to be flexible with. For instance, we knew the hospital was a cold static space whilst Dissocia needed to move through a variety of different colours”. 

Knowing what she had to achieve with her design, Lucía then had to decide which fixtures could bring this to life. She explains: “The set has a huge ‘halo’ with RGBW LED that floats over the cast. As such, a big challenge was how to light around this, as well as include it as an architectural element while we are in Dissocia. Around this ‘halo’, I had two Chauvet Mavericks Silens: one to the centre and one US of it. I needed a unit that could cover the entire floor ring and so good dimming curve was vital. I was also impressed with the engine LED effects these units have which allowed us to create the disintegration of the world as the play goes on. Above the edges, we rigged 3 Martin ERA 400s Cold. I drew on these as I needed some fixtures that were colder overhead in order to contrast with the warmer tones coming from the booms and ladders. 
 
She continues: “The way we found to light the space was very dependent on having three booms per side and two ladders; each containing a combination of Lustrs, ColourSources, ParCans and TW1s. I also used three Vipers that could create a strong back light whilst cutting through the softness of the generics. I knew we needed the softness of tungsten, and I was very lucky that Deanna Towli, former Head of Lighting of Stratford East, had an in-house set of VL5Bs which we rigged to create a very warm, soft theatrical backlight”. 

For front-of-house, Lucía drew on two MAC Encore Warms on the pros booms that were used for picking up scenery specials as well as picking up characters. The warmth of these units was especially important for the opening of the show where the main setting is Lisa’s apartment. 

The Wonderful World of Dissocia ran late last year at Stratford East Theatre Royal and achieved critical acclaim. 

Lucía concludes: “I’d like to thank the brilliant team I worked with on the show and at the venue as well as those who supported me with my design; including Martin and Chauvet who kindly provided me with some additional fixtures as well as the team at WL”.  

Photos courtesy of Marc Brenner.

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