Let's Talk About Sets: Fotini Dimou on A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

In the stage directions of A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, Tennessee Williams gives a very precise description of the apartment the play takes place in. Initially I felt restricted by this, but then as I started the design process, I realised that the apartment is like the fifth woman in the play.

The story unfolds in Bodey’s apartment in St. Louis, USA, in the 1930s. As the play goes on the apartment gets commented upon, criticised and mocked by another female character, and yet the apartment represents Bodey’s warmth and touching efforts to create a nest for herself and her roommate.

It was clear to me that I needed to create an environment where taste is the least important element. I felt that it had to be a space where kitsch elements should feel like a guilty pleasure, somewhere where an audience walks in and is assaulted by clashing colours and strange objects, but at the same time is seduced and feels comfortable.

My other decision was to pay homage to the Print Room as a theatrical space. I wanted the set to look like it belongs on that stage – as if it grew out of the walls of the building. All the warm colours, from the corridors to the auditorium to the glorious bar are reflected on the stage itself. The rundown old-world aesthetic with which the artistic director Anda Winters has renovated and reinvented the Coronet are also reflected and celebrated in this production.

I wanted to achieve compatibility on every level – with the building, with the writer, and with director Michael Oakley’s brief. I hope that the set design for A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur is a celebration of all these elements.

by Fotini Dimou

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur runs at the Print Room from 15 September to 7 October with previews from 12 September.