Prometheus Bound: Lighting and Sound Conceptualization

It is my desire to capture the loneliness and helplessness implicit in Prometheus’

plight in my sound and lighting design concept for Prometheus Bound. This is my
primary goal, and my sound and lighting design ideas reflect these central themes.

First, the only sound cues present in the show will be (1.) the sound of the Machine
(Prometheus’ Rock) and (2.) the sound of the machine’s collapse at the end, signaling
Prometheus’ descent into the depths of the mountain where further godly torture awaits.
All of the other sounds will be created by the actors in the moment (I will leave it up to
the actors to create the soundscape anew every night, for example, the daughters of
Oceanos will create with their own bodies the sound appropriate for their characters). The
two instances of recorded sound (the dissonant humming of the machine as influenced by
the Mammon Machine in Chrono Trigger, and the tumultuous collapse of the machine at
the end) will be dissonant, with a strange, otherworldly echo-like quality, and will emit
from speakers hidden within the machine itself. Not only will this create a real and
immediate experience for the audience, but for the actor playing Prometheus, and the
loud volume required for the hidden speakers to be heard by the audience will cause the
machine itself to vibrate and throb as if with its own non-living biomechanical sort of life
force. There will be no preshow or post-show sound, save for the dissonant humming of
the machine (during preshow only). This will allow the audience to enter into the space of
true emptiness and loneliness which the play presents as real and almost definitively
palpable to the victim of the cruelty of the gods.

The lighting design (though by now this seems redundant) will serve to emphasize the
themes of loneliness and helplessness. Prometheus himself will be illuminated by a blue-
gelled toplight, casting dark and foreboding shadows on the character’s face and giving
the impression that something “different” is going on “up there” (the rest of the
instruments used in the lighting design, save those illuminating the cyclorama, will not be
gelled). For the remainder of the stage, the design will be encompassed so that the only
visible areas are those immediately around the machine. This will give the impression
that the machine is somehow closely tied to the life on the stage, even as life itself (a
god’s life, no less) is “bound” to it. At no point will the entire stage space be seen (it is
nonessential that the audience sees the rest of the stage, and it is highly essential that the
actors conform to this design in terms of blocking-in other words, remaining within the
visible areas), and at no point will the machine ever be revealed in its frightening
immensity. This serves to emphasize the fear that we as humans (or even as deified
beings, so we are led to believe by the text itself) feel when we are faced with a dark
vastness we cannot comprehend because of our biological weaknesses (not being able to
see in the dark). The area around the machine will be illuminated with a soft wash
directly in front and to either side of the machine’s reach. In the back, a the cyc will be lit
by different colors from strip lights placed on the stage floor.