Wet Play

The play WET uses a wide assortment of production elements.   With the use of specific set and costume designs along with lighting, sound and smoke effects, a certain atmosphere and attitude are presented for the actors to use to share their tales with the audience.

The story is set in a time period long ago, in the midst of the ocean after a severe storm.   The ships the characters have sailed on have been damaged, or in the case of Isabella and her pirate crew, completely destroyed and sunk.   We meet the sailors of the large ship after this storm, barely hanging onto life, with a bleak outlook of their uncertain futures.   They are tired, worn out, hungry and thirsty.   Add a group of rowdy female pirates overrunning his ship, total despair sets in for their captain.   All of the characters desperately want to find land.   For the ship’s crew, it is to replenish and repair their ship so that they can sail again for the great war they were involved in before the storm.   For the pirates, it is to find a mythical land so that they can start life anew.   Among all of this, there is a strong presence of confused sexuality between the pirates themselves, the sailors themselves, and even between the pirates and the sailors.  

The set of the ship is designed to portray the aftermath of the storm.   The sail, tattered, torn and stained, barely hanging from the mast sits upstage, acting as a backdrop for the rest of the set.   A worn wheel and wheelhouse, creaking and wobbling stands in the middle of the main deck, which is painted and laid out with veneer to portray an old, worn and weathered ship.   The bow of the ship sits upstage, the closest set piece to the audience.   With the use of larger pieces of lumber, paint and veneer, it provides a detailed, up-close view of the condition of the ship for the audience.   Finally, ahead of the bow of the ship there is a flat with gears on it, some painted like the sky, some like the sun and moon.   These gears turn and grind to...