Tröll is the latest result of a longstanding design collaboration between Marcus McShane and the award-winning Trick of the Light Theatre company.
A series of test shows and script and design development workshops over two years, followed by an intensive design workshop at BATS Theatre has led to this tight-knit collaborative design effort between Director Hannah Smith, lighting designer Marcus McShane, composer Tane Upjohn-Beatson, AV designer Charley Draper, and writer/performer Ralph McCubbin-Howell. The key requirements were that every single item of set, lighting and sound (including control equipment, custom-made folding tables, a 6500 lumen projector, and every light source) should be able to fit inside two 23kg roadcases, so that the entire production could tour internationally to a bare venue within the luggage allowances of the touring party of two. This focus on craft and weight has led to most of the light fittings used in the show to be hand-constructed 12v LEDs incorporated into the set and props, in a show where every lighting cue is interlinked with an audio or video cue. While Ralph and Hannah’s desire for such a lightweight yet technically complex show meant non-stop days of laughing and crying with frustration as the whole design team tried to plot and rehearse this 5500-cue production, there is no-one Marcus works with who delights and inspire him more than these two.
Tröll has already toured New Zealand as part of its development, and in August 2019 begins its first international tour at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival
Life on the road with a successful NZ theatre company
RNZ Audio Player
"Trick Of The Light is aptly named. That clunky assemblage of electronic waste that purports to be the set is but the yin. It needs some magical yang. TOTL have that in spades. The keyword is light. This is used (in a mature alliance with sound) to such devastating effect in every one of the precious minutes onstage, it is almost a crass spoiler to talk about. But what it does is use banal objects to expand and contract time and space so that at the end we feel as though we have seen something akin to an arthouse film."
