This Technicolor Play

Behind the idyllic facade of the postwar American home lurks the melodramatic and flamboyant style of Douglas Sirk’s 1950s Technicolor cinema, shining an overly saturated light on the hypocrisy of outdated social norms that still dominate today’s entertainment and media.
By interrogating the impact of Sirk’s 1955 melodramatic masterpiece All That Heaven Allows on contemporary artistic practices, an ensemble of secondary stock characters — the Gossiping Busybody Neighbour, the Local Prominent Businessman, the Stern Moustachioed Police Chief, the Familiar Unassuming Milkman ... and Uncle Bernie — ultimately find themselves searching for sincerity amidst the haze of these outdated norms that permeates their shared liminal space, all while activating the Technicolor tropes of Sirkian filmmaking.
What they uncover is the dark underbelly of melodrama — the ugly truth hidden beneath the bright veneer of ridiculously dramatic storytelling. This postdramatic fever dream seeks to expose this underbelly and transpose the lurid worlds of Sirkian cinema to the stage.
Performers: Alex Ansdell, Lauren Lucy Cook, Dean Elliott, Emily Foxton, Ellie McCoy, Haydn Watts, Kim Whatmore
Sound Design: Alex Ansdell & John Kurzynowski
Lighting Design: Valentin Burwell
Producer & Photos: Libby Symons

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Host or Publisher Central Film School