An innovative theatrical production in Stockholm features a unique series of lifts on a revolve that move up and down as the the female lead struggles to keep up.
Lee Hall's Spoonface Steinberg opened October 31 at the Jewish Theatre in Stockholm to strong reviews. The production is directed by Pia Forsgren, who worked together with Tomas Franck to create the stage design. The lighting is by Kenneth Björk. The lifts, installed Visual act, are set on a rotating stage which is placed three meters under the stage floor. The lifts can be raised from one meter below the stage surface to one meter above while the revolve is moving.
Visual act's battery based servo amplifiers are used to allow all of the equipment to be installed on the revolve. No slip rings or special cable arrangements were required. The operator desk communicates with the system over a radio link.
The lifts are all lit from within. All the visible surfaces are translucent. The framework is designed to reduce shadows such that the lifts appear as boxes of colored light.
Sylvia Rauan, in the role of Spoonface, is requred to move about this high-tech stage. Ingegärd Waaranperä, in Dagens Nyheter, writes "[she] is one with the stage. It is at once her universe and the four chambers of her heart... As long as the stage keeps moving she stays alive; crawls, hangs or skips about this constantly changing but solid ground."
Spoonface Steinberg will play at the Jewish Theater until the end of December.