CONSPIRACY OF ORPHANS
2023
Set and costume design
for a devised show by
CREATED a MONSTER
Directors // Briony O'Callaghan
Simon Gleave
Venue // Tramshed, London
Conspiracy of Orphans tells a dark story of Europe’s unspeakable past, transposing verbatim stories of war through the prism of two children’s perspectives. The events they experience and the games they play become fused in Created a Monster’s typically hellish exploration of the surreal, the comic and human horror through corporeal and gestural mime, bouffon, clown and signboards (“Whoever Cries Will Be Shot”; “The Miracle”).
The show (based on the research of Nobel Prize-winning author Sveltlana Alexievich) has seen support from Rich Mix, Voila!, Akropoditi Festival, Tramshed and Arts Council England.
MEMORY
FRAGMENTATION
ILLUSION
MOVEMENT
CHANGE
DECAY
SILENT CINEMA
Minimal black box set which works like a limbo space and a blank canvas for the characters' imagination.
Period costumes with a large dose of surreal twist.
Just like in memories and mindspace, nothing is complete or accurate, The remnants of the loved people and places mix with the brutality of war covered with a smile that is as much forced as it is needed.
The show travelled to Gothenburg, so the set required to be flat pack to the size of a suitcase!
Poster design: Agata Odolczyk
Photography: Dom Martin
