West Linn High School Performing Arts Dept.

The Real Inspector Hound
& Black Comedy

Set and Lighting Design (and Direction) by Jon Ares.

March 2016.

By Tom Stoppard (Hound) and Peter Shaffer (Black Comedy)

Directed by Jon Ares. Costume Design by Grace O’Malley.

Played as a double-bill, these two shows were terrific together… Act One of the evening was “Hound,” played as if the audience is more-or-less back stage, seeing the action on stage from an angle, hence the diagonally-placed soft flats, and exposed stage bracing.  The critics sat upstage, which was the actors’ downstage.

Act Two of the evening was Shaffer’s “Black Comedy”… the power goes out and as a stage convention, what is played in full illumination to the characters is played in pure blackout by the actors, and when the lights are out in the story, the stage is in full light, and full view of the audience.  Lots of physical comedy as characters are groping about in the “darkness.”