The Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale

These two productions were performed in repertoire at the Ludlow Festival. They continue the longstanding creative partnership of Dyer and Bogdanov and their mutual interest in producing Shakespeare's plays in ways that resonate for a modern audience. As set and costume designer for both productions Dyer had to produce a flexible space that would work for both plays.

In The Merchant of Venice, Dyer and Bogdanov conceived the Rialto as the Renaissance equivalent of the stock exchange, the centre of the modern world and high risk capital. Dyer suspended a thin gauze in front of the walls of Ludlow Castle that depicted the Rialto but through which the stone walls of the castle were still visible. Above this was placed a ticker tape machine producing a rolling display of stock market prices. In this way Dyer attempted to suggest three different temporal worlds that bled into one another presenting the timelessness of the money market as the central conceptual and visual metaphor for the play.

In The Winter's Tale Dyer and Bogdanov wanted to exploit the narrative potential of the play to its fullest extent. They explored the notion of a band of strolling players with an ad hoc set of costumes and props as a framing device through which the tale of Leontes and Hermione was told. Dyer introduced simple stick and cloth devices to create each scene. Working as story-tellers the actors adopted a presentational style moving in and out of character and using direct address to engage the audience in the action. Dyer supported the actors by providing an open stage with circus-like props and costumes with the potential for swift adaptation and transformation between character and locale.