A Steampunk Tempest for Christmas

So I just finished my fifth semester a few days back. Before leaving for home, I had one last final, a presentation for my Scene Design class. We each had to present our full color model or two color renderings for our production of The Tempest. I of course did a full color model, enjoying crafting much more drawing. In the presentations we also had to go over our concept for each design. Me, being slightly out there compared to the rest of the class, chose to create a Steampunk version of The Tempest. Please understand thatthe pictures of myproject in this post are of a model. Nothing to fancy here, so please don't judge too harshly.

Now for those who may not know what Steampunk is.... well... its something you can't describe too easily. It's better to glean the aesthetic from pictures and such. Below is an... okay video describing Steampunk.

So... Yeah. I want to reiterate that this is not exactly the best source. Honestly, I would just do a search of Steampunk and see what pictures come up. Or this is another pretty good source, surprisingly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Basically the idea of Steampunk is to take the Victorian age, turn

of the century, and put a

twist on it. Take what appeals to your eye and incorporate it in with today's technology and such. What if steam power brought about th

e information age? How could you make a steam powered motorcycle? Airship? You get the point.

Usually there is a bit of the occult or what have you thrown in for good measure. But the core of Steampunk is the gears and steam and pulleys within the machines, not the shiny exterior.

Anyhoo... I love love love the aesthetic. So while reading The Tempest for research on my set,

I started thinking of abstract ways of doing the island or magic and what not. For those not familiar with The Tempest, this is a passable excuse for a substitute. Please read it. It's truly not that difficult to understand what's going on. And it's short. But if you really don't want to read a piece of good literature...

Anyhoo.... Take two.... I found myself imagining, as I read the play, this great machine floating in the middle of the Mediterranean. This machine was state of the art at one point, but, for some undisclosed reason, it was utterly and suddenly abandoned. It lay in a dormant state for years, until the usurped duke of Milan, Prospero, was marooned there. Prospero's wizardry in my interpretation of the show becomes his ability to control the machine of the island. During the many years of solitude, the island-machine was overtaken by nature. Nature and the machine have become twisted and entwined within each other. Thatwas akey idea I wanted to focus on, this underlying tension, war waging between machine and nature. What is truly natural on the island? Machines were built without the presence of nature, yet nature was always their before the machines were ever build. Who actually has claim to the island? This is epitomized in the structure that Prospero lives in, shown to the left. I wanted to try to portray the pipes and tubes of the machine fighting against nature, growing out of the ground haphazardly. This structure would emit bursts and puffs of steam every so often. Moss is growing on most surfaces on the island, flat areas of the machine are being buried underneath a fine layer of dirt. Both nature and machine are not dormant on the island.

Around the heart of the stage I thought it would be cool to have wires and cables emanating radially like veins into the island. These would glow blue as Prospero casts his entrapping circle. I also wanted to have cutouts in the stage for the audience to see the gears beneath

everything. Plexiglass would lay over the holes as to not cause any accidents. The gears would twist every time magic occurred. I would also love for there to be lights beneath the gears that would shine during the magic as well.

At the very beginning of the show, I envision Prospero coming out to center stage, silent with a single spot light on the heart of the stage. As Prospero nears the heart he looks out into the audience and then back at the heart, inserting his staff into the stage's heart as if a key to wind a clock. And he does such an action. Winding the Stage-gear, the gears underneath are slowly illuminated and creak to life. The veins glows a eerie blue. He takes his key-staff out and while

the lights dim, the audience continues to hear the gears turning and the "clock" ticking. The scene swiftly flows into the shipwreck scene. At the very very end there is an epilogue in which Prospero puts down his staff and renounces his magical ways. I envision Prospero undoing his original magic by unwinding the Stage-gear and putting down his key-staff, retiring his mechanical ways. This coupled with the beginning scene set up the convention that: 1 Prospero while somewhat omnipotent, is limited by the machine (being created by man is inherently flawed and has limits), 2 Prospero purposefully set this entire set of events into

motion by winding the Stage-gear.

Of course the costumes would be out of this world! I haven't thought too much about them, since this was for a scene design class more than a costume design class. None the less, there would be plenty of goggles believe you me.

So that's basically the entirety of the project. Below are more photos that I couldn't find a place for in our conversation. Hope you enjoy them. I'm always open to questions, so drop me a line if you have a query.

This piece, which I called Main-gear, took almost three hours to make.

Main-gear turned out quite nice after a bit of antiquing paint.

The beginning of the stage.

Construction of Stage-gear. Lots and lots of floral foam.

Things glued down with a bit of moss for texture.

Proscenium up with Curtain-gears attached.

Everything painted.

One of the best angles I was able to get of it.

The man, as in the earlier picture, does not represent costuming or what-have-you, but merely gives a sense of scale and size. As you can see Main-gear is quite a sizable object.