Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Frozen

(photo by David A. Fitzpatrick)

Discomfort
by Winna Tse

An uncomfortable subject, an intimate setting and disjointed storylines make for a very chilling experience. Frozen, by Bryony Lavery is a horrific and personal story woven together by three individuals each connected in some way shape or form. Nancy (Lavetta Griffin) is the grief-stricken mother whose 10 year old goes missing and Ralph, (Peter Nelson) plays an integral part in her daughter’s disappearance. In the midst of it all is Agnetha (Lynn Zeelenberg), the American Academic who travels to England to research her thesis: “Serial Killing: A Forgiveable Act?”

Sunday Feature: Set Designer Natalia Tcherniak on Frozen

Vivisecting a brain: an exercise in flexibility

by Natalia Tcherniak

Natalia Tcherniak, a graduate of both the University of British Columbia and Carleton University, spends her day working in the architecture field. However, at night, she transforms into a visual artist and designer, having created sets for productions of Six Degrees of Separation (Pink Shirt Productions) and Five Women Wearing the Same Dress (Carleton University Theatre Production Workshop). She has also performed on the stages of The Tranzac Club, Tallulah’s Cabaret and The Penthouse.

One of the things the director, Andrew Freund, established in our first meeting was that this set would abandon any known conventions for set design. We were not about to embark on a unit set with naturalistic doors and walls. Our production of Frozen would use an environmental design to surround the audience and fill the entire room in which the play would be staged.

Fulfilling that mission wouldn’t be an issue for me since I enter the world of theatre from a background in architecture. Coming from that training, this design proved to be a test of how flexible my skills are, since I would have to establish my own set of rules and reference points to measure the success of the world I was creating. Whether it was evocative and revelatory would be more important than if it was functional and, of course, it would have to be easily constructed and removed.